Richard Marlis, former exec VP of Klasky-Csupo’s commercial division, ka-chew!, and Carmen Italia, an advertising/marketing exec and founder of Italia Partners, today announced the opening of Wild Canary. Based in Burbank, Calif., the company is currently working on several new animated spots for Mucinex and Chucky Cheese, as well as a video game project for RDAI. Also in production are numerous entertainment projects for such clients as Disney, Marvel Studios, Cartoon Network and 20th Century Fox.
Joining Marlis and Italia in the venture are exec producer of animation Liz Seidman, directors Paul DeMeyer and Gary Johns, and producer Chris Hutchison. Heading up the CG animation team are CG supervisor Bryan Blevins and animation TD James Parks. The broadcast entertainment business is spearheaded by Mark Pinsker.
During his tenure at Klasky-Csupo, Marlis headed the production of dozens of Nickelodeon pilots and feature film projects. The ka-chew! unit produced award-winning projects for such blue-chip clients as Mucinex, Campbell’s, Keebler, Hallmark, Kraft, Mattel, Easton and Earthlink. The team also created on-air promos for broadcasters including ESPN, FOX, E! Entertainment, MTV and Nicktoons.
Italia built his own agency from scratch into a $100 million company with offices across the country employing more than 100 employees. Some of his accounts included CompUSA, Sears, Wendy’s, True Value and EAS nutritional products.
