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The Cookie Jar Group (also known as The Cookie Jar Company) is a Canadian producer of children's educational and entertainment programs and materials. It is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, with offices in Paris, Quebec, Los Angeles and Tokyo among other places. Cookie Jar Group, made up of two divisions, Cookie Jar Entertainment (which also serves as the company's children's television arm) and Cookie Jar Education, develops, produces, distributes and markets to children, their caregivers, parents and teachers.

In its previous incarnation as Cinar (pronounced seh-NAR), the company enjoyed an illustrious existence that ultimately ended in scandal. Cinar was an integrated entertainment and education company involved in the development, production, post-production and worldwide distribution of family entertainment programming and educational products.

20th century
After their 1976 meeting in New Orleans, future spouses Micheline Charest and Ronald A. Weinberg organized an event for a women's film festival, and worked at distributing foreign films to US theatres. The couple moved to New York and formed Cinar, a film and television distribution company.

In 1984, Cinar changed their focus from media distribution to production, and moved operations to Montreal, where they concentrated on children's television programming (including Animal Crackers, Emily of New Moon, Mona the Vampire, and The Wombles), as well as the English and French dubs of the anime series Adventures of the Little Koala and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the Spain-originating TV series The World of David the Gnome. As a production company, Cinar was also involved in the work of Are You Afraid of the Dark?, The Busy World of Richard Scarry, Madeline, Space Cases and, its most famous work, Arthur and Zoboomafoo. The firm became a public company in September 1993. By 1999, Cinar boasted annual revenues of $150 million (CAD) and owned about $1.5 billion (CAD) of the children's television market. In the late 1990s, Cinar bought the rights to all the shows owned and made by British animation company FilmFair. The company had become known for its children's programs, broadcast in more than 150 countries.

Scandal
The success of Charest, Weinberg, and Cinar ended in March 2000, when an internal audit revealed that about $122 million (US) was invested into Bahamian bank accounts without the boardmembers' approval. Cinar had also paid American screenwriters for work while continuing to accept Canadian federal grants for content. The names of Canadian authors were credited for the work, allowing Cinar to benefit from Canadian tax credits. While the province of Quebec did not file criminal charges, Cinar denied any wrongdoing, choosing instead to pay a settlement to Canadian and Quebec tax authorities of $17.8 million (CAD) and another $2.6 million (CAD) to Telefilm Canada, a Canadian federal funding agency. The value of Cinar stock plummeted, and the company was soon delisted.

In 2001, as part of a settlement agreement with the Société des Valeures Mobilières du Québec (Quebec Securities Commission) Charest and Weinberg agreed to pay $1 million each and were banned from serving in the capacity of directors or officers at any publicly traded Canadian company for five years. There was no admission of guilt and none of the allegations have been proven in court.

In September 2008, William A. Urseth published an insider's book called Death Spiral. It details the CINAR scandal and how it tied into two other companies called Norshield and Mount Real.

DIC Entertainment
DIC Entertainment (pronounced "deek") is an international film and television production company which was founded in 1971 as DIC Audiovisuel by Jean Chalopin in Luxembourg, as a subsidiary of Radio-Television Luxembourg (RTL). The company's name was originally an acronym for Diffusion, Information et Communication. The company's United States headquarters, established in 1982 and headed by Andy Heyward, Robby London and Michael Maliani, are in Burbank, California.

In 1986, Andy Heyward bought the company, thus making the US headquarters the main base of operations. In 1993 the company was purchased by Capital Cities/ABC and in 1995 became a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. In 2000 with an investment by Bain Capital, Heyward re-purchased DIC Enterprises (as it was then known). He purchased Bain Capital's interest in 2004 and took the company public the following year.

In addition to animated (and occasionally live-action) television shows, DIC produced live-action feature films while under Disney, including 1998's Meet the Deedles and 1999's Inspector Gadget. One current project of DIC's Heyward is an animated series starring billionaire Warren Buffett, The Secret Millionaire's Club.

In early 2006, DIC Entertainment and CBS Corporation signed a multi-year deal to unveil a new 3-hour long programming block for Saturday mornings on CBS. The resulting KOL Secret Slumber Party on CBS was launched the following fall. On September 15, 2007, a new programming block: KEWLopolis premiered, a joint venture between DIC, CBS, and American Greetings.

In April 2007 DIC Entertainment, Corus Entertainment's Nelvana and Sparrowhawk Media Group announced plans to launch KidsCo a new international children's entertainment network.

On June 20, 2008, it was announced that DIC would be acquired by Cookie Jar Group. On July 23, 2008, the studio has completed the acquisition of DiC Entertainment, and the company became an in-name subsidiary of Cookie Jar Entertainment. .

Purchase and rebranding
In March 2004, Cinar was purchased for more than CA$190 million by a group led by Nelvana founder, Michael Hirsh. and former Nelvana President, Toper Taylor. Charest and Weinberg reportedly received $18 million (US) for their company shares.

The Company was subsequently rebranded under new management as The Cookie Jar Group.

Recent activity
On July 23, 2008 it was announced that Cookie Jar is in negotiation with American Greetings to buy the Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, and Sushi Pack franchise. The deal is expected to finalize in late 2008.

Cookie Jar and Weigel Broadcasting will provide childrens' and E/I-oriented programming for the new US digital television network This TV, which is scheduled to launch on November 1, 2008.

Television programs
See List of Cookie Jar Entertainment programs