Early career Hirsh's first feature film co-directed and co-produced with Jack Christie,
Voulez Vous Coucher Avec God? was inspired by political turmoil and took over six years to make. The satirical film shed light on topics such as fundamentalist religion, politics, racism, and sexism. Hirsh, working with animator Marc Chinoy and college friends Patrick Loubert, Jack Christie, and Peter Dewdney made five alphabet inspired animated shorts for PBS's
Sesame Street, learning the basics of animation as they went along. One episode of
Drop-In was based on the history of the
Canadian Whites, inspiring Hirsh to learn more about the comics published during the
Second World War. Hirsh contacted John Ezrin, the most successful publisher of the Canadian Whites at the time. Tired of storing them, Ezrin sold the comics and rights to Hirsh and Loubert for $3,500.
Nelvana In 1971, Hirsh, Loubert and
Clive A. Smith founded
Nelvana Limited, a new company with a focus on animation and a goal of creating a Canadian studio. The company got its name from Canadian/First Nations female comic book hero
Nelvana of the Northern Lights, one of the comic books they acquired from John Ezrin known as the Canadian Whites. In 1977, Nelvana released
A Cosmic Christmas, an animated sci-fi Christmas television special distributed in the U.S. and Canada that caught the attention of
George Lucas who watched the special and contacted Nelvana while they were working on a Halloween special, titled
The Devil and Daniel Mouse. Lucas hired Nelvana to help produce a cartoon for the
Star Wars Holiday Special that was broadcast on CBS on 17 November 1978
. The cartoon introduced
Boba Fett, the iconic Star Wars character. Years later, the cartoon became available to watch again in 2021 on
Disney+. Later, Nelvana partnered with
Lucasfilm and expanded the
Star Wars franchise once again with
Star Wars: Droids featuring the continuing adventures of
R2-D2 and
C-3PO and
Ewoks, two Saturday morning series. In 1983, Nelvana released its first animated film
Rock & Rule featuring original music by
Debbie Harry, Lou Reed,
Iggy Pop,
Cheap Trick and funk group
Earth, Wind and Fire. The film was distributed by
MGM/UA and
Orion. In 1987, Hirsh acquired the rights for
Babar from The Clifford Ross Company and produced 65 half-hours for
HBO,
CBC and broadcasters all over the world. The series was produced with Europe-based
Ellipse and led to the joint venture studio Le Studio Ellipse. Together with Ross, Nelvana licensed merchandising for
Babar and honoured the event with a party that featured an elephant on the mezzanine floor at
FAO Schwartz in
New York City. In 1988, Nelvana and
Scholastic Corporation produced a direct-to-video series of
The Video Adventures of Clifford the Big Red Dog based on the 1962 book. The company's fourth live-action series,
T. and T., premiered in 1988 on Canada's
Global network. The show starred
Mr. T of
The A-Team fame, playing a former boxer named T.S. Turner. The station was syndicated in the US. Nelvana faced bankruptcy when the show's original U.S. distributor,
Qintex Entertainment (formerly Hal Roach Studios) was going out of business. In six weeks, they were saved when they found a replacement for their US distribution. Hirsh specialized in working with publishers and authors to adapt their books including
Maurice Sendak's
Little Bear,
Joanna Cole's
The Magic School Bus,
Franklin the Turtle, The Neverending Story,
Pippi Longstocking,
Cadillacs and Dinosaurs,
Timothy Goes to School, ''Miss Spider's Tea Party,
Max & Ruby, The Berenstain Bears'', William Joyce's
George Shrinks and the British comic strip
Rupert Bear. Nelvana had self-made successes of its own during the 1990s, such as ''
Stickin' Around, Dog City (with The Jim Henson Company) and Ned's Newt'' (with TMO-Loonland). Working with great comedians, Nelvana produced the animated versions of
Roseanne Barr's
Little Rosey and
Jim Carrey's Ace Ventura Pet Detective. In 1994, Nelvana went public on the
Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) Working with
RBC's Bruce Rothney and George Dembroski. As a public company Nelvana was able to raise enough funding to dramatically increase the production levels Nelvana could take on. It also financed the acquisitions of
Kids Can Press,
Windlight Studio, and
Klutz. The company's first two computer-animated shows,
Donkey Kong Country (Fox Kids) and
Rolie Polie Olie premiered on the US Disney Channel in 1998. Rolie Polie Ollie went on to win many awards, including seven
Emmy Awards. In 1998, Nelvana entered into an agreement with U.S. network
CBS to program a new Saturday morning animation block for the 1998-99 television season, which would be branded as
CBS Kidshow. The block would feature six new series based on children's book properties, and all were to comply with the U.S. governments
educational programming guidelines. In April 1998, Nelvana entered into an agreement with
ITV franchise
Scottish Television to co-produce these new series and hold distribution rights to them in the United Kingdom. In August 1998, Nelvana acquired
Kids Can Press, publishers of the
Franklin and
Elliot Moose children's books upon which the
Franklin and
Elliot Moose were based. This turned them into an "integrated company" in which Kids Can's subsequent publications would begin with Nelvana's franchising of those works. In 1999, Nelvana agreed to produce the
PBS stations' first Saturday morning block of animated programming which would launch in the autumn of 2000. The programs that formed the
PBS Kids Bookworm Bunch were all based on children's books:
Corduroy (by
Don Freeman),
Elliot Moose (by
Andrea Beck),
Timothy Goes to School (by
Rosemary Wells),
Seven Little Monsters (by
Maurice Sendak),
George Shrinks (by
William Joyce), and
Marvin the Tap-Dancing Horse (by
Betty and
Michael Paraskevas). In addition, Nelvana produced two weekday-morning series for the PBS network: William Joyce's
George Shrinks and
Jan and Stan's Berenstain Bears. By the end of the 1990s, Nelvana was the leading independent animation company in North America with more shows on US TV than any other network. The company also dominated the global market through that same period.
Corus sale In September 2000,
Corus Entertainment bought Nelvana for $544 million. The company saw the purchase as being a complement to its children's TV networks, including
YTV and
Treehouse. Corus already owned 6% of Nelvana, and took on the company's $75 million debt. While at Corus, Hirsh worked on
Beyblade, Nelvana's biggest hit during his time. Broadcast on YTV and
Cartoon Network, the Japanese anime based on a line of spinning-top toys generated billions of dollars of toy sales from a toy deal with
Hasbro that Nelvana negotiated. Hirsh worked on
Max & Ruby, based on books by
Rosemary Wells, a preschool series about two anthro sibling rabbits Two years after the sale, Hirsh left Nelvana.
Cookie Jar Group After winning an auction in 2004, Hirsh and former Nelvana president Toper Taylor working with Toronto's Dominion Private Equity Partners (now Birch Hill) and Omers acquired Quebec-based
CINAR for more than $190 million. Two weeks after its purchase, on 29 March, CINAR was renamed to
Cookie Jar based on a suggestion by author
Richard Scarry. Prior to the acquisition, CINAR was facing
serious legal trouble. With new leadership, Hirsh and team were able to resolve many of the company's legal and public affairs. The first series produced by Cookie Jar after Hirsh's acquisition was
Busytown Mysteries based on the book series created by Richard Scarry and
Doodlebops. Hirsh began developing
Doodlebops with co-creator Carl Lennox after agreeing to do a music show with Head of
CBC Kids Cheryl Hassan. US broadcaster
Disney Channel bought the show after positive test screenings. With the support of Disney, Hirsh and Taylor were successful in bringing
Feld Entertainment in to organize a musical tour of the show's characters across the U.S. and Canada. The Doodlebops went on to be a hit show, inspiring appearances at Walt Disney World and American nationwide tours for two years.
Caillou, an animated television show for preschoolers, was one of the properties inherited through CINAR. Hirsh facilitated settling a lawsuit between CINAR and
Caillou's author and illustrator,
Christine L'Heureux and
Helene Desputeaux. At the time,
Caillou was successful on PBS in the US and a hit in merchandising and publishing in every country such as Turkey, Spain, and Brazil. Other properties inherited included
Arthur, a major hit on
PBS,
CBC, and the
BBC. Cookie Jar continued to produce
Arthur, resulting in six Emmy Awards. Cookie Jar faced a turning point when
Warner Bros. auctioned off the rights to produce
Johnny Test. The highly-rated comedy created by
Scott Fellows (writer of Nickelodeon) and produced by Cookie Jar lasted six seasons and was a global hit for broadcasters around the world including
Cartoon Network,
Teletoon (since bought by Cartoon Network) and
Netflix. On 20 June 2008, Cookie Jar Group announced a deal to acquire
DIC Entertainment from CEO Andy Heyward. On 23 July 2008, the acquisition was completed, and eventually DIC was folded into Cookie Jar's entertainment division. Through that acquisition Cookie Jar also acquired
Copyright Promotions Licensing Group (now WildBrain CPLG). Cookie Jar now had more than 6,000 half-hours of programming as well as rights to several children's brands. During the
2008 financial crisis, Cookie Jar's team was desperately looking for new ways to generate money to combat the onset of financial hardships they were facing. Hirsh and Taylor focused their efforts on selling Cookie Jar's library of kids shows to streaming platforms. Noticing the increasing popularity of streaming services, Hirsh and team started digitizing their library of children's shows. Hirsh began selling off shows to global streamer
Netflix in 2010. Netflix acquired properties such as
Calliou, Johnny Test, and
Doodlebops. By 2012, Cookie Jar (now DHX Media) was the largest supplier of kids cartoons to Netflix and other streaming platforms.
Acquisition by DHX Media On 20 August 2012,
DHX Media (now WildBrain) announced that they would acquire Cookie Jar Group for $111 million; the purchase made DHX the world's largest independent owner of children's television programming. The acquisition was completed on 22 October 2012. Season 6 of
Johnny Test was produced by Cookie Jar under the auspices of DHX Media after the merger, and the studio officially closed down after said series concluded its run on 25 December 2014. Hirsh stayed on after the merger as Executive Chairman and worked on projects like
Supernoobs, Dr. Dimensionpants, and
Ella the Elephant. Hirsh also developed a new
Inspector Gadget series for Netflix. In 2017, after seeing success in streaming, Hirsh and Taylor negotiated a deal with YouTube for their SVOD (Subscription Video on Demand) service and launched ten channels in multiple languages across their platform. Despite a rocky start, Hirsh felt YouTube would be a successful place for Cookie Jar's library. Together with
Michael Donovan and Steven DeNure
, Hirsh focused on building a proprietary cartoon business on YouTube using the company's vast library. When Hirsh left DHX they had become the world's leading independent animation company.
WOW Unlimited Media Inc. After leaving DHX, Hirsh met with
Randy Lennox and agreed to create another kids' entertainment company. Enlisting
Bob Ezrin and Neil Chakravarti, the group thought they would have better results combining several existing companies to create one new one. Hirsh brought CGI animation studio Rainmaker Entertainment (now
Mainframe Studios) with US television and animation producer
Fred Seibert's company,
Frederator Studios and
Frederator Networks. This would be the beginning of
WOW! Unlimited Media. Hirsh oversaw hit television programs including
Castlevania, Bee and Puppycat,
Madagascar: A Little Wild, and
Octonauts. In 2022, Hirsh together with Chakravarti and CFO John Vandervelde sold WOW! Unlimited to Genius Brands (now
Kartoon Studios) led by CEO
Andy Heyward, for $53 million. Heyward and Hirsh have enjoyed a long history starting with the production together of
Inspector Gadget, followed by Hirsh's acquisition of DIC led by Heyward and finally Genius Brand's acquisition of WOW! Unlimited. Hirsh served as CEO and chairman for the holding company, with Seibert as Chief Creative Officer and CEO of Frederator. Hirsh left WOW! in December 2023.
Floating Island Entertainment In 2014, Michael Hirsh founded Floating Island Entertainment, where he continues to serve as CEO and Executive Producer. == Personal life ==