Nick News Brief: New toy company Cubles has revealed that it has partnered with ViacomCBS Consumer Products for Cubles based on hit Nickelodeon properties such as SpongeBob SquarePants, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Invader ZIM, Garfield, and Ren & Stimpy! The toyco has also partnered with Hasbro for Cubles inspired by Power Rangers, Peppa Pig, Transformers, GI Joe, My Little Pony, Potato Head, Dungeons & Dragons and Tonka.
Cubles created a reinvented paper toy in which kids put together a character from strong and sturdy paperboard - no glue or scissors required - which all have moving parts. Think of Cubles as a 3D mash-up of puzzles, origami, action figures, and collectibles. Made in the U.S. and fully recyclable, Cubles transform from greeting card-sized packages to sturdy 3D paperboard characters — highly detailed and articulated — with no scissors, no glue, and no mess. Each Cuble is pre-cut and pre-scored, and is built with color-coded and number instructions. For more information, visit https://cubles.com.
From PublishersWeekly.com:
Book Characters Come to Life as Cubles
The owners of several book-based licensed properties for children have signed deals with a start-up licensee, Cubles. The company makes sustainable paperboard construction kits that allow children (and pop culture-loving adults) to make sturdy, all-paper sculptures of characters that can move—a trait that is difficult to achieve without the use of any plastic pieces. Cubles describes the product, which comes packaged in a box the size of a thick greeting card, as a mash-up of origami and a puzzle.
The first two licenses signed by now two-year-old Cubles were the odd couple of Little House on the Prairie, licensed by Spotlight Licensing, and the rock group KISS, according to founder Joel Morris, who got the idea about eight years ago when he began to engineer a project for his young daughters. “I wanted to get them off their screens and make them think,” he says.
Literary properties on the company’s roster to date, in addition to Little House, include Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man, licensed by MerryMakers; Dana Simpson’s Phoebe and Her Unicorn, a comic property published by Universal Click and Andrews McMeel, which is in development at Nickelodeon for a streaming TV series; and John Gallagher’s Max Meow middle grade graphic novel series published by Random House Books for Young Readers. Negotiations are ongoing for additional properties. Cubles’ non-literary licenses, beyond KISS, include Nickelodeon properties such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, SpongeBob SquarePants, and others; Hasbro brands such as GI Joe, My Little Pony, and, in the future, Peppa Pig and Mr. Potato Head; David Gravel Racing; and the Professional Bullriders.
Cubles’ parameters for selecting IP from which to create Cubles kits, according to Morris, include “things that are near and dear to us” and have distinctive features that remain recognizable when adapted into blocky paper sculptures. “We look for good-hearted, well-known brands that we can make cool products out of,” Morris explained. The core age group is 6–12, but the company is considering some properties that would lend themselves to figures that preschoolers and their parents or caregivers could build together.
Some of Cubles’ non-licensed kits, as well as Dog Man—which has six characters in its Cubles line to date, with three more coming in spring—have been made into classroom kits for grades three to six. Each contains 15 kits, backed by downloadable lesson plans. “When you make a Cuble you’re naturally touching on spatial reasoning, problem-solving, and linear learning,” Morris said. The sculptures include coded tabs and pre-scored seams, and there are pictures of the finished product, but there are no instructions, so students have to solve the puzzle on their own.
Cubles are made in the U.S. of recycled materials. “Part of our mission is to create jobs, and we’re doing all the manufacturing in the Twin Cities,” where Cubles is based, Morris said. Sustainability is also a priority. “I wanted to make something fun, like the plastic stuff, but not plastic,” he added. The company also offsets its paper needs by donating funds for the planting of 100 trees for each tree used in manufacturing.
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Originally published: October 06, 2021.
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