The company was founded by
Noel C. Bloom as a direct opposite to an earlier company he founded,
Caballero Home Video, which was a pioneering video distributor of hardcore adult fare.
G.I. Joe,
Jem,
ThunderCats,
Inspector Gadget,
Defenders of the Earth,
Pound Puppies, the original
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series,
Gumby,
Clifford the Big Red Dog,
Care Bears, and ''
Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars!, and other non-animated shows like Baby Einstein''. FHE was one of the two distributors for most of the seasonal
Rankin/Bass television specials aired on
CBS, a relationship that began in 1989. The other distributor for this library was
Vestron Video, a now-defunct company which was later acquired by FHE's then-parent Live Entertainment in 1991. The company however lost the home video rights to the Rankin/Bass library in 1998 to
Sony Wonder and
Golden Books Family Entertainment. The company also released several VHS releases of British kids' cartoons and animation in the US (i.e.,
Roobarb,
Wil Cwac Cwac,
James the Cat and
Fireman Sam), as well as some Japanese
anime, such as
Robotech and
The Adventures of Ultraman, plus the Australian
Dot films. Their output was not strictly targeted at children and families; in the early '80s, several titles were released under the "World of Horror" label directly by FHE, including
Journey into the Beyond and
The Child (which was later rebranded as a
Monterey Home Video release). Beginning in 1982, they also released
Filmation's TV shows such as ''
Lassie's Rescue Rangers, The Lone Ranger, Shazam!, Blackstar, and The New Adventures of Zorro, plus the only Filmation film released at the time, Journey Back to Oz''. Early FHE releases were distributed by
MGM/UA Home Video, including the very first release of few episodes of
Gumby. In the late 1980s, FHE's releases were distributed by
MCA (most notably in Canada). In 1982, the company introduced USA Home Video as a non-family division of the company. Two years later, both FHE and USA became part of Noel Bloom's NCB Entertainment Group (which also included Bloom's other labels Caballero Home Video, Monterey Home Video, Thriller Video, USA Sports Video and later
Celebrity Home Entertainment), and in 1985, they were reorganized into International Video Entertainment (which then changed its name to Live Entertainment years later), with "Family Home Entertainment" as a kids and family imprint of IVE/Live. Throughout the 1990s,
Family Home Entertainment Theatre was used as a banner for full-length, family-friendly films Live had the rights to; certain FHE titles were also reprinted by Live's budget video brand Avid Home Entertainment. FHE continued as a sub-label of Live through its rebranding as Artisan Entertainment in 1998 and formed another imprint,
FHE Kids. By the early 2000s, FHE had begun to concentrate on new direct-to-video material in addition to pre-existing television shows and films, including the
Barbie film series,
Crayola Home Entertainment product and
Baby Einstein (until the rights to that franchise were acquired by Disney). It also had a one off theatrical release division,
FHE Pictures, established in 2002; its first and only release was
Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie. Ultimately, the brand was discontinued in 2005 by new owner Lionsgate (who had purchased Artisan in 2003), as the division restructured into
Lionsgate Family Entertainment (an internal name only; from that point forward, all family-oriented releases carried the standard Lionsgate branding). == Reference notes ==