Toonacious™ Family Entertainment and Word Entertainment announced an exclusive multi-release
distribution deal with Toonacious’ animated children’s video series, Lenny & Sid at a press conference held on Mon., July
15th during the 2002 CBA International Convention in Anaheim, Calif. The first episode, Love Thy Neighbor, is scheduled for
release February 2003.
Toonacious™ Family Entertainment is an animation-based, entertainment company dedicated to providing original,
high-quality, faith-based productions that entertain, educate, and elevate the hearts and minds of children. Each video will
contain the kind of messages that parents will embrace and children will be able to live out in their lives. A hallmark of
Toonacious’ productions is putting out-of-the-ordinary characters into relatable situations to encourage children to learn who
God wants them to be.
The three founding partners, Tony Bancroft, Ben Chambers, and Bo Ferger, who collectively share a very specific faith-based
vision, have all made life-changing decisions in the past year to leave successful careers to follow their “calling” into family
entertainment. Through the culmination of their 40 total years of entertainment, business and technical experience,
Toonacious was born.
Bancroft is an award-winning animation director who, after a decade at Walt Disney Studios, left to pursue his current dream
of developing his own faith-based animation company, which has been realized with the formation of Toonacious. Chambers,
a veteran radio personality and scriptwriter in Los Angeles, decided after 16 years to redirect his talents and soon joined with
Bancroft. Ferger, a true entrepreneur, with experience in Hollywood’s leading animation studios, knew his career had been
leading him to this partnership with Bancroft and Chambers. The three men who met in a small Sunday school classroom in
Burbank, California have set out to forever change the definition of “family entertainment.”
Joining the team as VP of Sales & Marketing is Rick Bowles, formerly the Senior Director of Marketing for the Gospel Music
Association and Christian Music Trade Association. While with the GMA and CMTA, Bowles was instrumental in growing and
developing Christian SoundScan into a respected tool to gauge the music & video industry’s sales and growth.
Word Entertainment is extremely excited about the opportunity to be working with a young, aggressive company like
Toonacious. “Our entire team was taken back by the animation, characters, and story lines we have seen so far. The
episodes will be fun and engaging for kids of all ages,” says Mark A. Funderburg, President of Word Entertainment.
“Word’s dominance in the market and their enthusiasm over Lenny & Sid provides a solid foundation for Toonacious to
launch its debut project,” says Bo Ferger, President of Toonacious. “We could not have a better partner than Word
Entertainment to help us share the adventures of Lenny & Sid.”
Lenny & Sid, although neighbors, are unlikely friends who find themselves at odds with one another in a love/frustrate
relationship. Much like the “Odd Couple,” these grade school classmates are complete opposites. Lenny (a rabbit of medium
stature), is a quiet bookworm who lives in a world where collecting butterflies is cool. On the other hand, Sid (a mouse, less
than petite in size) is a high-strung, motor mouth with the confidence of a lion, whose good intentions frequently fall short.
Lenny & Sid will come to have an everlasting effect on each other and those who join them in their adventures.
