Alfred R. Kahn, the gruff no-nonsense executive who guided 4Kids Entertainment to the top tier of the juvenile merchandise licensing category, is retiring after nearly 25 years with the company. The long time Chairman and CEO under whose watch 4Kids guided the North American merchandising of such properties as Pokemon, Nintendo, Yu-Gi-Oh!, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the Cabbage Patch Kids is leaving 4Kids as of today.
4Kids’ Board of Directors has appointed Director Michael Goldstein as the interim Chairman while conducting a search for a new CEO. Goldstein has been a director of 4Kids since March of 2003.
4Kids has definitely been buffeted by the difficult economic conditions of the past two years, and Kahn’s expensive gamble to create a successful trading card game property with the interactive Chaotic TCG, which was supported by an animated series, was an unfortunate failure.
After scoring signal successes with Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! the outspoken Kahn appeared to sour on Japanese properties, telling ICv2’s 2006 Conference on Manga and Graphic Novels that “manga is a problem because we are in a culture that is not a reading culture…Manga in my mind is trying to put a square peg in a round hole in the U.S. It will never be a big deal here.” A year later at the ICv2 Conference on Manga and Anime, Kahn played the provocateur again stating unequivocally that “Japan is over…anime was tired…in the doldrums, and too derivative.”
It should be noted that when Kahn made those remarks he was deeply involved in the process of trying to make the Chaotic property, which 4Kids owned in contrast to the Japanese properties the company just represented, a success. But when it became evident that Chaotic was never going to fly, Kahn had the flexibility to change course and return to licensing the kinds of shows that had brought the company its initial success (see “4Kids Returns to Licensing”). 4Kids currently sponsors a 5-hour “Toonzai” block on Saturday mornings on the Kids CW that features a number of anime series including Sonic X, Dragon Ball Kai, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, and Dinosaur King.
