Introduction
Hello, fellow adventurers! Blaziker here for an… Interesting essay to say the least, because before I cover Benjamin Bat and Grand Prix of Europe which will be part of the next Rundown, it is a good segue to discuss the American distributor that will be distributing those two movies soon, Viva Kids! Yup, today’s essay is going to be a bender…
For those unaware of who Viva Kids are, Viva Kids is the kids film arm of Viva Pictures, an America-based film distributor, and this is a distributor that specialises in the one sub-genre of animated movies that I specialise in: family-friendly foreign CG animated movies. I had talked about foreign CG animated movies and Americanised foreign CG animated movies in two separate essays, so let’s just say I am a bit of an expert myself.
With that said, the thing about this distributor is that it is also the subject of some unnecessary hate as some users ridiculed this distributor for continuously bringing those lower quality family-friendly foreign CG animated movies to theatres or are morbidly curious about the existence of those movies. However, I see Viva Kids differently: I see them as geniuses who is one of the few distributors in America that cared about animation.
So, in this essay, I will try to briefly cover the history of Viva Kids, its catalogue and why this distributor has a bit of a cult status. I will also compare this distributor to another country when it comes to another interest of mine, and that is the Eurovision Song Contest, specifically San Marino.
So, get ready for this rollercoaster ride, because this wacky adventure starts now!
A Brief History
Considering Viva Kids has no Wikipedia page and its origins are quite difficult to find online, there is not much information about this interesting distributor. What we do know according to Logo History Wiki is that Viva Kids was founded in California in 2008 and specialises in family-friendly movies. They first started distributing less known foreign animated movies into video-on-demand sites before transitioning to disturbing those movies into theatres from the late 2010s onwards.
Today, you can find a good number of animated movies distributed by Viva Kids that found their place in theatres and popular streaming services such as Hulu or Peacock, as well as VOD sites such as Fandango at Home and YouTube Movies. As such, it is easy to find any animated movie distributed by Viva Kids as they can be everywhere, just that you may not know which foreign animated movie was distributed by Viva Kids themselves.
In fact, it only happened recently that Viva Kids had begun picking up more foreign animated movies into the United States and remains one of the very few movie distributors in America that specialises in distributing animated movies to the US market, along with other American animated movie distributors such as the famed GKIDS and Shout Kids, among other distributors.
An “Interesting” Catalogue
Now that we got the brief history of Viva Kids out of the way, let us talk about the catalogue of animated movies Viva Kids picked up for the past and… Oh boy.
Logo History Wiki lists down the animated movies that Viva Kids had distributed from its origins in 2008 until now, and I shared that Wiki list if you want to have a look, but seeing their earliest movies… There is a reason why Viva Kids had been considered as a “joke” because Viva Kids distributed two of the worst animated movies of the 2010s: Gaturro: The Movie and the infamous Foodfight.
I think more than enough animation fans knew about the notoriety of Foodfight, but for those outside of South America who does not know who Gaturro is, let me show what he looks like:
If you had not guessed that, Gaturro is basically a knock-off of Garfield. Even before the existence of Gaturro: The Movie, the Gaturro comic strips were hated by the South American community for being a clear copycat, its creator was widely hated, and two of Gaturro’s statutes were vandalised on a regular basis; Unsurprisingly, the movie (which was paritally animated by Toonz Media Group who has a bad track record when it comes to distributing animated movies and Anima Estudios, perhaps one of the worst theatrical animation studios currently still in operation) was widely panned and ignited the hatred towards Gaturro even more.
Viva Kids’ next few animated movies do not fare better as well, with a lot of their next animated movies still not theatrical animation quality enough or are just forgettable at best. However, it was also at that point where Viva Kids embraced its status as a distributor that cares about bringing in family-friendly foreign animated movies to US theatres. This is a tough sell as unlike other foreign countries where such movies are accepted and are even well-loved by these countries, the United States is a tough market for animated movies in general, let alone family-friendly animated movies that are similar to other animated movies produced by Hollywood’s big animation studios.
This was something other, bigger US distributors such as Lionsgate and The Weinstein Company had attempted in the past when they bring similar animated movies to theatres, but ended up being unsuccessful, both due to the negative perception and stigmatisation towards foreign-produced animated movies in America and also because those two distributors had no idea how to market those animated movies and simply do the bare minimum, or in the case for Weinstein, unnecessarily dubbing and cutting their animated movies that made them even worse.
While both Lionsgate had given up on theatrical animation in general and The Weinstein Company no longer exists because of something that would be not safe for work, Viva Kids was not fazed and instead embrace its chaos by continuously distributing more family-friendly foreign animated movies to theatres and onto streaming services, even bringing in animated movies from more well-known foreign animation studios, such as TAT Productions, nWave Studios and Qvisten Animation, among others. Admittedly, their more recent animated movies are much better, quality wise, but still, Viva Kids had yet to find an animated movie that is profitable or big enough to tackle the US box office.
While Viva Kids still lacks an animated movie that announce them to the whole world, there is one other thing Viva Kids has that most animated movie distributors in the United States do not have, and that is…
A Strange Cult Status
While Viva Kids admittedly is not doing any favours for the animation community in general, especially the American animation community, for certain animation fans, Viva Kids might be the only way for them to cover more obscure animated movies, or alternative animated movies if the typical family audience had exhausted the big Hollywood animated movies and wanted to see something else.
In fact, the existence of these two audience types is why Viva Kids still has some relevance in the US theatrical animation scene, despite their animated movies not profiting as much in the already crowded field in America, as well as the stigmatisation of these movies. In fact, the non-mainstream animated movies that do well the most are the top-tier non-mainstream animated movies such as Ne Zha 2 and Flow, as well as other animated movies distributed by GKIDS who has a more reputable standing than Viva Kids in America. In fact, the only animated movie from Viva Kids that felt out there compared to their usual stuff (and personally the best animated movie from their line-up by far) was Deep Sea, but even then, they did not promote enough of this amazing movie and only distributed it to just 10 movie theatres in the United States, which is a real shame.
In fact, I often see Viva Kids as the loveable loser in the US theatrical animation scene who is still trying very hard to fit in while still being its own self with the “loser” status. If Lionsgate and Weinstein had given up on distributing animated movies, why isn’t Viva Kids giving up on it? While there are no clear answers, my guess is that Viva Kids simply did not care about giving up, and instead pursuing its identity as the only US animated movie distributor specialising in foreign family-friendly animated movies despite the failure of such movies in the United States. That is something I feel is very brave, and for that, Viva Kids should be commended for genuinely carving out a niche for itself and gaining that strange cult status among the animation community.
A Comparison with San Marino (in Eurovision)
If there was one comparison I could make for Viva Kids, let me make a wild comparison comparing Viva Kids to San Marino. And no, before you ask, it’s pertaining to San Marino at Eurovision, not San Marino at football (or as what Americans and Australians like to call it, soccer).
Hear me out, both Viva Kids and San Marino are very, very small players in their respective fields, but despite their small size, both of them do not see their lack of recognition as a disadvantage, but rather as an opportunity to show off and not giving any effs. For Viva Kids, despite continuously distributing lower quality animated movies, they did not shy away from being themselves by not just distributing their animated movies that they picked up, but they also went out and market every one of their animated movies, past and present.
As for San Marino, while they did not have a sizable population or money, San Marino still brings it by trying to poach in international talent to represent them at Eurovision. They had got Gabry Ponte (the DJ involved in one of the biggest viral hits of the 1990s with Eifel 65’s “Blue”) who helped the country qualified for the latest edition of Eurovision despite finishing last, and even Flo Rida to perform alongside Senhit in 2021, plus Spain’s Megara and so on and so forth. Despite the lack of any money, San Marino did not take their Eurovision participation too seriously, and just had fun. In fact, the queen of San Marino herself, Valentina Monetta, represented San Marino 4 times, and Turkish dentist Serhat represented that country twice, with him delivering San Marino’s best Eurovision result with 19th in 2021. Hence, like Viva Kids, San Marino is unpredictable when it comes to Eurovision results.
As such, despite Viva Kids and San Marino did not take themselves too seriously and just had fun with what they were doing best, so respect to them for just being true to their own selves. And that is worth celebrating.
Conclusion
After all that was being said about Viva Kids, it is clear that Viva Kids is not a prominent film distributor in the theatrical film distribution industry, especially in America where most of the animated movies they distributed are not appreciated. However, it is clear Viva Kids is a distributor that knows what it was doing, and simply distributes family-friendly foreign animated movies to its American audience, no matter how much the American audience do not like it.
It’s distributors like Viva Kids that prove that we still need more film distributors in America that specialise in animated movies to show that more animated movies need to be in American theatres. While foreign countries had more animated movies in theatres than America, America is lacking enough good quality animated movies in theatres, so I appreciate Viva Kids and other smaller distributors for what they do on a regular basis.
Thank you so much for reading through this interesting essay about a small American film distributor. We still got more animated movies to cover, so tune in next time where we explore more animated movies, ranging from a neutered dog, to a girl that controls time, a bat scared of the dark and of course, a movie specifically made for fans of a German theme park (which is Grand Prix of Europe for Europa-Park by the way), plus four other animated movies. Until next time, see you on the next adventure!
