‘Pokemon’s’ Sad Moral

For kids who think of themselves as Pokemon masters-in-training, “Pokemon: The First Movie” carries the powerful message that real victories are the product of friendship and cooperation rather than hatred and violence.

But for the animation business the runaway success of the Warner Bros. film carries the equally potent--if somewhat dismaying--message that real success in the marketplace may depend on timing and tie-ins rather than quality. And for parents, the message is that film versions of popular TV shows, rather than original stories, are likely to be appearing in theaters for years to come.

The success of “Pokemon” suggests that feature animation and children’s films are entering a new era in which low-budget versions of popular kids’ TV programs can compete at the box office with the fully animated films that have been the mainstay of the industry for decades. (The computer-animated “Toy Story 2” from Disney/Pixar is almost sure to be a box-office blockbuster and critical favorite, but turning out computer-animated features is prohibitively expensive for most studios.)

In its first week in release, “Pokemon” has grossed more than $53 million--more than such animated features as “Anastasia,” “The King and I,” “The Iron Giant” and “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut” each earned during their entire runs. It’s poised to dethrone DreamWorks’ “The Prince of Egypt” ($101.3 million) as the biggest non-Disney moneymaker in animation history.

Coming a year after “The Rugrats Movie” from Paramount/Nickelodeon and about six months after Disney’s “Inspector Gadget,” a live-action reworking of an undistinguished Saturday morning show, the box-office performance of “Pokemon” showcases the three important factors that turn an inexpensive adaptation of a kids’ show into a high-grossing feature: timing, familiarity and tie-ins.

* Timing. For studios this means releasing the movie while the TV series is at or near the height of its popularity. “Pokemon” currently airs 11 times a week on the WB network and is the most-watched cartoon show for kids ages 2-11. “Rugrats” shows 13 times a week on Nickelodeon and is consistently one of the 25 most-watched shows on cable TV. “The Rugrats Movie” grossed $100.5 million last fall, and a second feature, “Rugrats in Paris--The Movie,” is in the works.

* Familiarity. The lack of it can breed contempt. Children who hadn’t seen the stage play or the 1956 live-action feature weren’t interested in an animated version of the musical “The King and I,” which came out earlier this year from Warner Bros.; it was more likely to appeal to their parents and grandparents. Getting kids to see a good adaptation of an old Rodgers and Hammerstein musical would have been an uphill battle; nobody wanted to see a bad one. Young readers who might have known Arthur and Merlin from the original legends wouldn’t have recognized them in Warner Bros.’ inept “The Quest for Camelot.” By contrast, kids learn “Pokemon’s” 150-plus characters in a way that leaves their parents breathless.

* Tie-ins. A good toy or product may be more important than a good film. Earlier this year, critics drubbed Disney’s inane “Inspector Gadget” and praised Warner Bros.’ “The Iron Giant” to the skies. But the really cool “Inspector Gadget” toy at McDonald’s did what reviews couldn’t: It got kids and parents into the theaters--even if they didn’t have that great a time there.

The “Iron Giant” toys were well-designed and inexpensive, but Warner Bros. didn’t have them in its own stores on opening weekend, and the fast-food tie-in with Burger King went to “Wild Wild West.” “Inspector Gadget” has earned $96.8 million; “Iron Giant,” $23 million.

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By most accounts, “Pokemon” the movie is less entertaining than the TV version. On the show, Ash’s efforts to become a champion Pokemon trainer take him and his friends Misty, Brock and Pikachu to various locales derived from the game, where they learn about friendship, good sportsmanship, etc. and experience credible emotions, despite the very limited animation.

But the quality of the film (or the lack of it) doesn’t matter. “The First Movie” introduces Donphan, and the accompanying short, “Pikachu’s Vacation,” offers fans their first glimpse of two other new ones (Snubbull and Marill). Trading cards of these characters--a key element in the $5-billion-plus “Pokemon” phenomenon--are available only at theaters showing the movie. Warner Bros. has had to set up a mail-in program for theaters that run out of cards.

Burger King, which spent $22 million promoting merchandise tie-ins to the film, has had trouble getting enough toys to its restaurants. By Saturday morning, three days after the film opened, there were 775 listings for Burger King “Pokemon” toys on EBay; a complete set of 57 toys was selling for more than $1,000.

“Pokemon” and “Rugrats” represent a reversal of the decades-old rule that theatrical features based on animated TV series never achieve more than a modest success at the box office. Hanna-Barbera failed to generate much interest in the features starring two of its best-known characters, “Hey There, It’s Yogi Bear” (1964) and “A Man Called Flintstone” (1967). Despite the popularity of the syndicated show--and the toys--Filmation’s “He-Man: The Secret of the Sword” (1985) was not a big hit. Other mid-’80s efforts involving “Transformers,” “Gobots,” “Bravestarr,” “Heathcliff” and “The Littles” were cheesy affairs that have mercifully been consigned to oblivion.

Even the biggest players in animation hadn’t scored big hits with their TV-based features. Warner Bros.’ “Batman: Mask of the Phantasm” (1993) attracted little attention. Disney’s “DuckTales: The Movie--Treasure of the Lost Lamp” (1990) and “A Goofy Movie” (1995) failed to match the popularity of the weekday afternoon programs on which they were based. Disney has had more success putting characters from its features into television and direct-to-video projects: Winnie the Pooh, Ariel from “The Little Mermaid,” Timon and Pumbaa from “The Lion King” and the title characters from “Aladdin” and “Hercules.”

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As the success of the feature indicates, the popularity of “Pokemon” hasn’t crested yet. Three new games, “Pokemon Snap” for PlayStations and the Game Boy cartridges, “Pokemon Pinball” and “Pokemon Yellow,” are huge hits. Merchandise featuring the characters, especially the yellow squirrel-like Pikachu, is everywhere, replacing the “South Park” kids on T-shirts. “Gold” and “Silver” Game Boy cartridges, which allow players to hybridize new Pokemon, are on sale in Japan, although no release dates have been announced for the U.S.. One hundred new Pokemon characters will debut next fall,when the second movie hits the theaters.

In recent months, some administrators have banned “Pokemon” cards and games from schools as disruptive elements, and a group of parents has filed a lawsuit over the supposedly pernicious effects of trading the cards. But the reactions have been muted compared to the storm of protest that greeted the first product-based TV specials and series--”Strawberry Shortcake,” “Herself the Elf” and “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe”--in the mid- to early ‘80s. Columnists and pundits damned the idea of basing a program on a line of toys, and Action for Children’s Television President Peggy Charren complained, “The over-commercialization of children’s television is worse than adult television. A show composed of commercials is insidiously horrible. . . .”

Fifteen years later, when everything seems to involve merchandise tie-ins and product placement, and the Teletubbies pander to 1-year-olds, “Pokemon’s” origin as a video game has raised few eyebrows. The battle against the commercial exploitation of young viewers has been fought--and lost.