The Marketing Genius Strikes Back

"When his mother pulled out the T-shirt," says Viselman, "the child looked up and said 'Choo-choo.' Those were the first words the kid had ever spoken. And that moment my life changed. I really got it that I could do stuff that could make a difference in children's lives. And there was a huge responsibility that came with that. It was like, 'Oh, my God! Why can't we make great stuff for kids and make a lot of money at the same time? We can do both!'"

Then employed by Quality Family Entertainment, a licensing company that later changed its name to the Britt Allcroft Co., Viselman faced several challenges with Thomas. For one, there was confusion because the television program was called Shining Time Station, but the toy was named Thomas the Tank Engine. Among other things, Viselman clarified the packaging and repositioned the toy in train museum shops and specialty stores such as FAO Schwarz. At their peak in the early '90s, Thomas the Tank Engine products brought in an estimated $800 million annually at retail.

In the winter of 1995, suffering the first of his midlife crises, Viselman left Britt Allcroft. He wasn't sure what his next move would be, but he knew he needed a change. At the urging of a friend, he traveled to England to attend a U.K. licensing show. There, he spent a day with Anne Wood of Ragdoll, a successful producer of television for preschoolers in the U.K. Wood was looking for the kind of U.S. exposure that Viselman could provide; Viselman believed he could find a U.S. television outlet for Ragdoll's shows and also maximize the company's licensing potential.

After he returned from England, he formed The itsy bitsy Entertainment Company with offices in an extra bedroom of his Manhattan apartment. The first call he made was to Dean Koocher, an old friend who was working at Brown & Williamson as a regional credit manager. Viselman knew he needed someone with credible business experience to satisfy potential investors and financiers. At first Koocher agreed to help out in his spare time; eventually he signed on for good. "Dean just started taking on credit cards with my name on them and we started charging things," Viselman recalls. "It was very, very frightening."

In the meantime, Viselman and Koocher, neither of whom took a salary for at least a year, searched for investors. In the spring of 1996, itsy bitsy had $130,000 in the bank, much of it from the sale to PBS of Ragdoll's Tots TV series, a show that featured three children living together in a cottage. It was at that point that Viselman announced to Koocher that he wanted to spend $120,000 at the company's first licensing show. Not surprisingly, the audacity of Viselman's plan stunned Koocher. "We had finally started taking a little bit of salary and stopped eating pasta every day," Koocher says. "I'm like, 'Kenny, what are you doing?!'"

What he was doing was following the lead of Blake Carrington. To explain his go-for-broke strategy, Viselman -- who is unabashed about his penchant for drawing life's lessons from the plots of TV shows -- recalls a scene from Dynasty, the '80s prime-time soap. "Blake had just lost everything and Krystle was like, 'Oh, no, what are we going to do? What are we going to do?' And Blake says something like," -- and here Viselman lowers his voice to mimic Blake -- "'Krystle, you open up that safe and you get out your best jewels. We're throwing a party tonight!'"

By the end of 1996, they had convinced Troy, Mich.-based Handleman Company, the country's largest distributor of pre-recorded music, to purchase 19% of itsy bitsy, which allowed Viselman to invest further in promotions. Indeed, making a splash for itsy bitsy -- particularly at industry trade shows -- was key to his strategy. Typically, there are thousands of properties displayed at the licensing show; Viselman made sure his stood out. "What I've learned in this industry," he says, "is that perception is reality. The licensing show, children's entertainment, the entertainment industry in general is just one big card game and one big optical illusion."

The secret series

Tots TV, which debuted on PBS in October 1996, did not prove to be a breakout series. One of the kids spoke Spanish, and perhaps, Viselman suggests, America was not ready for a bilingual program. Still, by the end of its first year, itsy bitsy had six employees -- and the rights to a mysterious, hush-hush Ragdoll property that for a long time was referred to only as the "the secret series." Catherine Lyon, who at the time was at PBS and who now works with Viselman, recalls PBS's early discussions with Ragdoll's Anne Wood: "We would say, 'Anne, tell us about the new show.' And Anne would reply, 'I can't. Kenny won't let me.'"

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