NEW YORK, Nov. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- I-Star Entertainment LLC, the full range toy and entertainment company created in 2008 by veteran toy industry executives Marty Abrams and Joel Rosenzweig, have engaged former Snuggie Toys' founders and top executives Alec and Stuart Kessler as Executive Vice President and Vice President of Sales, respectively, and in the process have expanded their lines of products and licenses. I-Star now controls some of Snuggie Toys' most popular and successful products under license from NFL and NFL Rush Zone, Colorforms, Max and Ruby, Franklin, Casper, Wittle Bittles and PET ROCKS®.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20091110/NY07909 )
These include NFL and NFL Rush Zone Licensed Products, the exciting new concept for NFL which will be featured on the NFL Network: NFL Plastic figures, NFL Plush Team Character Cuddle Buddies, NFL Character Footballs and NFL Game Ball Pet Rocks.
Colorforms Products including Plush Characters, Vehicles and Lunchbags (Patented).
Max & Ruby products that include Cuddle Buddy Pillows and Record and Play Lunchbags.
Franklin Record and Play Lunchbags (Patented) and Plush.
Wittle Bittles Plush characters.
PET ROCKS® items including new series of PET ROCK® PALS, Paint Your Own PET ROCKS® and Create Your Own PET ROCKS.®
Lunch N Fun products that include Game Lunchbags, Puzzle Lunchbags, Drawing Lunchbags and Record N Play Lunchbags (with electronics).
Pro-Tabletop Sports (PTS) products, including PTS Sports Swingpong Game, PTS Ping Pong Game, PTS Spring Action Soccer Games, PTS Blitz-Ball Pin Ball Game, PTS Triple Play (Bowling, Skeetball, Basketball) Game, PTS Penta-Play (Air Hockey, Pinball Hockey, Pool, Snooks, Basketball) Game, PTS Mega Penta-Play (Supersized Air Hockey, Pinball Hockey, Pool, Stand Up Basketball, Fuzzy Darts) Game.
Casper products that include Plush Baskets and Bean Bag Plush toys.
As part of its expansion, I-Star Entertainment has also engaged Robert Leff as Senior Vice President for Sales and Marketing. A toy industry executive for more than 40 years, Leff served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Knickerbocker Toys from 1971 - 1973; Vice President of Coleco Toys from 1973 - 1981; Executive Vice President of Toybiz from 1989 - 1997; President of Toy Island (a division of Li and Fung)from 1997 - 2003; and part owner of Jazzwares from 2003 - 2007.
"We are delighted that three such high powered toy industry executives as Alec and Stuart Kessler and Robert Leff have joined our executive ranks," said Joel Rosenzweig, President of I-Star Entertainment. "They each have a vast amount of experience and success in the toy industry and they greatly enhance our ability to create and market exciting new products in an industry that is constantly looking for new ideas and directions."
Based in Great Neck, NY, I-Star Entertainment's projects range from toy development and manufacturing to intellectual property conception, creation and licensing. I-Star Entertainment's distribution network spans the entire world with strong relationships with mass merchants and specialty retailers alike.
I-Star Entertainment LLC was founded by Marty Abrams and Joel Rosenzweig to launch the revival in the spring of 2009 of a morphed version of one of the biggest fads of the 1970's - the Pet Rock. I-Star took the original Pet Rock - a shapeless, gray "rock" - and brought it into the 21st Century by visualizing what the Pet Rock might look like in today's high-tech society. What it came up with was a series of PET ROCK® characters shaped like animals, fish and birds, all with different colors AND different unique personalities!
"The original Pet Rock vanished from the face of the earth, once the 80's rolled around," says Abrams, a major player in the toy industry for more than 30 years. "Where did the Pet Rocks go for the past 30 years? Their disappearance intrigued me and I soon realized that there were many similarities between the 70's and the first decade of the 21st Century... so why not bring them back in a morphed version? How would they have morphed? What would they look like after three decades? We bought the license from the original creator and decided to find out. The result: we took the original Pet Rock and created 12 new PET ROCK® character collectibles. We introduced them in the spring and we are launching 24 new characters by the end of the year."
And why question Abrams' foresight? A visionary who has been right many times before, he is known for bringing licensing to the forefront of the toy industry. As owner of Mego Toy Company in the 1970's, he created, developed and distributed action figures such as Batman, Superheroes, Star Trek, Farrah Fawcett, Sonny and Cher, Magna Doodle, 2XL, Micronauts and many more. He later co-founded Abrams Gentile Entertainment (AGE) and created such toy properties as Sky Dancers, Kindergarden Babies, Visionaries and Shining Stars.
His I-Star Entertainment co-founder, Joel Rosenzweig, has been in the toy business for 20 years, running the operations for AGE where he helped create products, including Nitro Power Bat, Shining Stars, Kindergarden Babies and Sky Dancers.
SOURCE I-Star Entertainment LLC