In the latest TV Legends Revealed, see how Colorforms cleverly fought back when nobody was able to get a Strawberry Shortcake license

TV URBAN LEGEND: Strawberry Shortcake had a toy licensing deal with Kenner that was so restrictive, Colorforms launched a knockoff brand and freely licensed that knockoff to all of the other companies that couldn't get a Strawberry Shortcake license, either.

This is a bit of a stretch for a TV legend, but I dunno, I think that it ties in with the recent TV Legends Revealed that I did about Strawberry Shortcake and I happen to think it's too interesting to pass on (and my editor, Lissete, agreed). so we're doing it, darnit!

As I noted in that earlier TV Legend, in 1977, American Greeting Cards debuted a line of cards featuring an adorable little girl known as Strawberry Shortcake...

Within just two years, Strawberry Shortcake had expanded to the world of stickers, books and other items of that nature. American Greeting Cards then signed an expansive deal with Kenner for toys of Strawberry Shortcake and Kenner, who had recently shown their might with the Star Wars license, wanted to do an all-out blitz for Strawberry Shortcake and that involved spending $400,000 on a high end animated TV movie called The World of Strawberry Shortcake.

One of the things that Kenner did, though, was to take its toy license as expansive as possible in terms of what could be considered a toy. Other toy companies would only object if its licensee allowed other companies to do products similar to what the licensor produced. You know, no dolls from other companies but if you wanted to do something that the toy company didn't make, there would be no objection. Kenner mostly just made Strawberry Shortcake dolls...

So with that in mind, many companies, like Colorforms, would then cut deals with companies that otherwise had different licenses for "toy production." When Colorforms tried to cut a deal for Strawberry Shortcake, though, Kenner wouldn't allow it. This led to a very clever response from Colorforms.

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As I pointed out in an article about a Superman gimmick cover, the concept that later became Colorforms was originated by married couple Harry and Patricia Kislevitz. The Kislevitzs met in art school in the late 1940s. Harry's GI Bill covered his studies, but not the oil paint that he would need to paint and so he tried to find cheaper ways of producing paintings and so he acquired a few rolls of colored vinyl plastic.

In an interview with NorthJersey.com, Patricia Kislevitz explained how the toy was invented.

“We had this plastic and we didn’t know exactly what to do with it. It sat there. But we found that if we cut a piece and stuck it on anything, a mirror, a glass, a shiny plate, any shiny surface it would adhere to that. I painted our bathroom orange enamel. And we put those big rolls of plastic in with a pair of scissors. And we would have people over…If we had dinner guests, they’d go to the bathroom and never come out again. They’d be in there cutting Matisse shapes and sticking them on the wall. So, our bathroom was completely done with everyone’s cutouts. And Harry said, 'I think we’ve got a toy here.'”

The original Colorforms kit was just in a binder and a small black box. Here's a 60h anniversary edition from a decade ago to give you an idea of what it looked like...

The funny thing is that even after coming up with the idea, Harry Kislevitz was thinking of it as an artistic endeavor, so he suggested that they cut the shapes into modernist stuff so that people could create their own modernist art. Patricia, though, suggested just using simple shapes so that kids could create simple "paintings" with the vinyl and that was ultimately what they did and it was a major success.

In 1958, they cut a licensing deal with Popeye and released a Popeyes Colorform set, with figures from Popeye on the glossy backdrops so that kids could create their own Popeye adventures. Colorforms soon licensed all sorts of figures including, starting in 1964 (and lasting well after that), Superman....

In any event, like I said, licensing was its big deal, but when Kenner shut them down, they had to respond and their response was ingenious.

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Colorforms longtime creative director was Mel Birnkrant and he explained how it all went down on his amazing site (which is detailed with his Colorforms experiences), revealing:

In 1981, "Strawberry Shortcake" had just been introduced, and Kenner, who had the toy rights, wouldn't share them with Colorforms or anybody. Even though Kenner didn't make any product remotely like Colorforms, they didn't want a single dollar that walked into a toy store to be spent on anything but their products! So I said to Andy and Adam: "Never mind! We'll make Our Own Strawberry Shortcake!" Then, Mike Strouth and I got together and created "SUGAR and SPICE". It was contrived to be exactly like Strawberry Shortcake only "different". Instead of fruit we had candy, and as the big feature with Strawberry Shortcake was scents, we even added Scratch and Sniff patches to our play set.

However, the company's initial offering for Sugar and Spice...

looked waaaaaaaay too much like Strawberry Shortcake did at the time...

Even Birnkrant had to concede:

Well, I had to admit, they had a valid case, because we not only had outrageously parodied their property, but Mike had done the faces in his stereotypical Hallmark style, which just happened to make them identical to the faces of Strawberry Shortcake. It really was her and her friends in candy coated clothes. Colorforms contacted Kenner immediately, and promised them (with my assurance) that we would change our toy! And if they didn't agree that we had made it completely different from Strawberry Shortcake, we would drop it, altogether! Kenner said "Show Us!" So I pulled the comp off the display, and went home early. That night, I drew the cover you see here! Feature by feature, I replaced the eyes, noses, mouths, and every detail with their complete stylistic opposites! The drippy oval eyes now became round; the closed smiley mouths opened to show teeth; the Strawberry Shortcake like bonnet became a bow, and the yarn hair also had to go! Then, I added a cute little birdie for good measure. And early the next morning, the brand new version was placed before the discerning eyes of Kenner. I knew full well that, in spite of all my changes, the essence still added up to exactly the same thing, a rip off of their property. And Kenner knew it too, but nonetheless, detail for detail, there was nothing they could do, but grudgingly agree that it was, now, "completely different"!

Here's the adjusted version...

The ironic thing was that the idea was a big enough hit that Colorforms then started to license its Sugar and Spice characters out to OTHER toy companies that ALSO been shut out of licensing Strawberry Shortcake! That's hilarious. What a clever response to a problem by Birnkrant and Colorforms.

Thanks to the amazing Mel Birnkrant for the excelllent information. Go check his site out!

Be sure to check out my archive of TV Legends Revealed for more urban legends about the world of TV.

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com.

CBR Senior Writer Brian Cronin has been writing professionally about comic books for over fifteen years now at CBR (primarily with his “Comics Should Be Good” series of columns, including Comic Book Legends Revealed). He has written two books about comics for Penguin-Random House – Was Superman a Spy? And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed and Why Does Batman Carry Shark Repellent? And Other Amazing Comic Book Trivia! and one book, 100 Things X-Men Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die, from Triumph Books. His writing has been featured at ESPN.com, the Los Angeles Times, About.com, the Huffington Post and Gizmodo. He features legends about entertainment and sports at his website, Legends Revealed and other pop culture features at Pop Culture References. Follow him on Twitter at @Brian_Cronin and feel free to e-mail him suggestions for stories about comic books that you'd like to see featured at brianc@cbr.com!