Warner Bros. Tinkers with T-Works Toon Site

Warner Bros. Entertainment said Thursday it will debut a new Web site come spring, T-Works (as in "toon), that will integrate all of its iconic animated characters in an interactive world.

The site will allow users to customize the classic cartoon characters, import them to other sites if they like and collect rewards -- actually "carrots," a la Bugs Bunny -- the more time they spend on the site gaming and interacting.

The site will be ad-supported, and Warner Bros. hopes to incubate potential new animated TV series there, as well as streaming some of its classic cartoons.

Characters from Warner Bros. Animation, Looney Tunes, Hanna-Barbera and DC Comics will all be in the mix, so the toons will range from Daffy Duck and Scooby-Doo to The Flintstones and The Jetsons.

The site will combine social networking, product integration -- it will be totally ad supported, spokesman Scott Rowe said -- gaming and more.


Rowe added that users will have latitude to modify the characters, say creating a Goth Tweety in torn Guess jeans. There's some precedent there: Lisa Gregorian, executive vice president of worldwide marketing for Warner Bros. Entertainment, whose brainchild T-Works is, actually created a Goth Tweety (no Guess jeans yet) while testing the site, according to Rowe.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.