Cash Cow Franchise / Western Animation

• Woody Woodpecker was once a hugely popular franchise, allowing his theatrical cartoons to last all the way up to the early 1970s (when theatrical cartoons had all but completely died out) and make oodles of cash off loads of toys and assorted merchandise, and having a hit TV show which aired for decades also helped. But eventually, with the failure of The New Woody Woodpecker Show, as well as Universal's lack of interest in promoting the character outside mascot costumes at the Universal Theme Parks and the DVD collections, Woody's status has degenerated into a state of near-obscurity (except in countries where he's still popular such as Brazil).
• Popeye was also a juggernaut of a franchise once upon a time, but his popularity has declined since then (aside from DVD collections).
• South Park is a cash cow for Comedy Central. There are currently 322 episodes split between 26 seasons and counting. Along with merchandise, there were also the well-received RPG video games South Park: The Stick of Truth and South Park: The Fractured but Whole.
• Nickelodeon:
  • Nickelodeon and its parent company, Paramount Global, have SpongeBob SquarePants as their main cash cow. An article showed that Atlantis SquarePantis scored the show's highest ratings ever in both the original, pre-movie run and the current, post-movie run, further cementing the fact that the sponge will not die. Real-life sea sponges can live up to 700 years old, so SpongeBob may be the same. SpongeBob is Paramount's most profitable show, and has been since it was Un-Cancelled. As in, it has generated 13 billion dollars in merchandising sales. There was this SpongeBob pendant◊ that sold for 75 grand at the 2009 Sundance Festival. The first movie made over $32 million on its opening weekend, on its way to over $85 million in the United States and over $140 million worldwide, while the second movie made $321.1 million worldwide! Now THAT'S the power of the yellow sponge for ya. It's got two theme park rides, and there's even a live show in the United Kingdom and a Broadway show!
  • Before there was the sponge, there was Rugrats, one of the original three major Nickelodeon franchises (along with Doug and The Ren & Stimpy Show), which earned three movies and three spin-offs (All Grown Up!, Tales From the Crib, Angelica and Susie's Preschool Daze). Due to an increased demand for classic Nickelodeon programming and memorabilia, a reboot series was announced in 2018 and premiered in 2021.
  • The Fairly OddParents! was this back in the day. Not only is it the second-longest running Nicktoon after SpongeBob, running from 2001 to 2017, it has also spawned quite a few toylines, books, live-action films and video games. Even now that it's finally ended, it continues to rerun frequently on Nicktoons, and has gotten a live-action reboot/sequel series on Paramount+.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender: The original series had a feature film adaptation produced years after it ended, and there's a live-action series set to be released on Netflix on the way. Aang isn't airbending away anytime soon. Avatar would later beat SpongeBob in ratings for a while and on the 2008 Kid's Choice Awards. It has since spawned the Sequel Series The Legend of Korra, whose initial 12-episode season did good enough in testing that Nickelodeon ordered 14 more episodes. Then when the first 12 episodes actually aired, it did good enough that 26 more episodes were ordered, making 52 episodes total. In early 2021, Nickelodeon announced the establishment of Avatar Studios, a subsidiary that will focus solely on Avatar media.
  • Despite the show not doing well in TV ratings when it first aired, Invader Zim merchandise tends to sell really well for a Nickelodeon show, being a staple at stores such as Hot Topic. The popularity of merchandise sales was one of the factors that lead to the creation of Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus in The New '10s.
  • The Loud House is progressively shaping up to be this as well, being one of the few Nickelodeon shows in history to rival SpongeBob in ratings and essentially replacing The Fairly OddParents (which was in its last years of airing when The Loud House began) as the network's main non-SpongeBob show. It currently has six seasons finished and a seventh one broadcasting, as well as a plethora of books, mobile phone apps, and a podcast series. Nickelodeon would also go on to announce a movie in 2017 that was released on Netflix in August 2021, followed by a spin-off titled The Casagrandes in 2018 that aired for three seasons, a live-action Christmas special released in November 2021, and most recently a live-action series that premiered on Paramount+ in 2022.
  • Dora the Explorer has been the cash cow for Nick Jr. since its premiere in 2000. The Spanish-teaching Latina and her friends can be found on anything from dinnerware to pajamas. The show's two spin-offs, Go, Diego, Go! and Dora and Friends: Into the City!, have also had endless amounts of merchandise. After the show ended in 2019, it was announced in February 2021 that it would be getting a live-action reboot on Paramount+.
  • Before Dora, Nick Jr.'s cash cow was Blue's Clues. It proved popular enough to garner a spin-off in 2004 and a reboot series in 2019.
• It's dropped off in popularity since the '90s, but Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is still a profitable franchise, specially once the 2012 cartoon made the turtles immensely popular with a whole new generation of fans, and is also well received among people who grew up with previous iterations of the franchise. And that's not going into a toy line, a Lego line, and five live-action movies!
• Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes gang have definitely been a cash cow franchise from the early 1940s to the present day, largely due to TV exposure. Taz and Tweety are still being slapped on a lot of merchandise, Taz being an amazingly profitable Ensemble Dark Horse who only appeared in five shorts. Looney Tunes are well on their way to joining the ranks of Betty Boop (see below) in still selling merchandise while most consumers now have never watched the cartoon they're from.
  • Tom and Jerry is a close second in this.
• Thomas & Friends was this for HiT Entertainment before it's acquisition by Mattel, and continues to be this for them now. There is so much worldwide merchandise, it'd take all day to list it here. Each year, $1 billion US dollars worth of Thomas merchandise is sold.
• Hanna-Barbera:
  • Scooby-Doo continues to reappear every generation. For a long time, it held the world record for the TV show with the most amount of episodes. Its merchandise is insane. There's practically a Scooby-themed product for just about any inanimate object you can imagine. There are also theme park rides, and even whole shops dedicated to Scooby merchandise at said theme parks. Each episode of the original Where Are You! series has been released to video and DVD easily over a dozen times. At least one direct-to-video movie has come out each year since 1998, two successful theatrical live-action films were produced, and two live-action TV films were also made (the first one garnering Cartoon Network its best ratings ever). Not bad for a little Hanna-Barbera show from 1969.
  • Tom and Jerry is one of the few Hanna-Barbera properties still consistently running in some capacity today due to its success, along with Scooby-Doo.
  • During the studio's original heyday, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, and Yogi Bear were up there with Scooby-Doo as their biggest hits. And at least in the 1980s, The Smurfs was also a prime contender.
• Miraculous Ladybug: has had three seasons finished, a fourth season currently airing, three new seasons in production, two finished specials, two web series, and a two theratical films currently under production. It's also spawned several comic books, a manga, and a home console video game, and has become a ratings hit on various Disney Channels around the world, and it has several live stage shows. There’s also a chunk load of merchandise for the series too, from toys to clothing.
• Winx Club is this for Italy's Rainbow animation studio (co-owned by Iginio Straffi and Viacom). The show has been a ratings hit on Viacom's international Nickelodeon channels (in 2011, it singlehandedly increased Nickelodeon UK's ratings by 58%). From 2011 to 2013, Nick spent $100 million on Winx Club advertising alone. The show has spawned three CGI movies, two spin-offs, and a monthly comic series...as well as a Live-Action Adaptation, Fate: The Winx Saga, aimed at young adults.
• Betty Boop still appears on a lot of merchandise, despite the fact that a large percentage of the people buying the merchandise have probably never watched a Betty Boop cartoon in their lives. Perhaps it's a Cash Cow Franchise Zombie?
• Felix the Cat was one of the earliest animated film series to be a cash cow by modern standards, making most of its money in the 1920s. It's still limping along on merchandise as of this writing, even though the last attempt to revive the show ended in 2004.
• Seth Green practically admitted in an interview that Robot Chicken is this for him, citing this fact as the main basis behind the self-cancellation of his other show, Titan Maximum, despite its fantastic performance ratings-wise.
• Ben 10 has three sequels (Alien Force, Ultimate Alien, and Omniverse) and a 2016 reboot, four made-for-TV movies, LOTS of toys, EVEN MORE merchandising, and there's even a stage show and a game show being based off it in India. You know it's CN's cash cow when it airs on certain international CN feeds seemingly ten times a day. The 2016 series was even more toyetic, with some aliens being redesigned to be more toy-friendly and executives even once ordering extra episodes for the express of showcasing Kevin's alien forms and little else.
• Cartoon Network has sparked a cult following the addition of Adventure Time. You can find T-shirts of all sorts (including show catchphrases and a variation of the face expression Memetic Mutation), wallets in the shape of Finn's head, and so forth.
• Regular Show, The Amazing World of Gumball and Steven Universe have also been giant successes.
• Dexter's Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls (1998), Ed Eddn Eddy, and Courage the Cowardly Dog became cash cows for Cartoon Network.
• Peppa Pig dethroned Thomas the Tank Engine as the most successful preschool show in the United Kingdom and has merchandise by the boatload in its home country, as well as a movie and three different live shows.
  • One of Entertainment One's other preschool shows, PJ Masks, despite being second fiddle to PAW Patrol, and Miraculous Ladybug, is also this, getting everything from backpacks, costumes, a live show, and even two home console video games. Until Muppet Babies premiered, it was Disney Junior's highest-rated show, beating out their own in-house productions in ratings.
• PAW Patrol: Spin Master's very first TV show has spawned tons of spin-off merchandise. If there's a product for toddlers out there, chances are that there will be a PAW Patrol version of said product. The toy line upon which the show is based and the basis for what made the show popular rivals Thomas & Friends in size. There's also a series of touring shows, a theme park attraction at Nickelodeon Universe, five home console video games, and even two theatrical movies. This even gets a hilarious mention in the first movie, where Ryder reveals that most of their funding for a hi-tech base came from officially-licensed PAW Patrol merchandise.
• Teen Titans Go! has become this for Cartoon Network in the years following its debut, in spite of its heavily mixed reception. It gets higher ratings than anything on Nickelodeon or Disney Channel^note  which actually has lead to Disney losing their earnings and cancelling popular shows on networks they own such as The Muppets (2015) and Girl Meets World to lose less money, as for Nickelodeon, however, they have PAW Patrol, which does rival TTG in ratings, which they managed to get through fine., has a small toyline that is popular with kids of all ages and genders, has fast food tie ins at nearly every United States fast food chain imaginable, and eventually got its own theatrical movie!
• My Little Pony:
  • While My Little Pony was always one of Hasbro's main toy-selling franchises, its popularity was on the wane until My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic rejuvenated the brand by spawning a huge and vocal Periphery Demographic for several different reasons. This allowed them to start marketing for adults as well as their targets, young girls. Thanks to the bronies, business for this franchise has never been better. We Love Fine and Hot Topic are selling apparel and accessories by the truckload, Hasbro is selling their toys just as much, and so on. It's also to the point to where Hasbro will ask the DHX team to introduce a new pony entirely for the purpose of selling toys (for example, Princess Cadance, for a pink alicorn toy) and the team will go ahead with it.
  • Hasbro even released a spin-off film (My Little Pony: Equestria Girls) that featured the ponies as humans in a high-school setting. Originally, the bronies hated the very concept (not that this is the first time this has happened), but Hasbro stayed the course with the movie and it turned out to be both a financial and critical success, even with limited showings. It would quickly grow into an incredibly successful spin-off franchise, with several movies, television specials, and online shorts. And, of course, loads and loads of toys. Not to get left out, the main show got its own theatrical movie as well.
• VeggieTales was this during its peak popularity in the late 1990s and 2000s. There was tons of merchandise for the series including toys, home decor and clothes which was primarily sold at Christian bookstores back in the day, and CDS from the show constantly appeared in the top five of Billboard's kids' albums list, lasting all the way up until 2005. It also got two theatrical releases. Not bad for a show that started out as a Direct to Video series!
• Animaniacs was this for Warner Brothers back in the 1990's. If there was a product that could be sold to elementary school kids, chances are that there would be an Animaniacs version of it. Animaniacs characters had a prominence at Six Flags in the 90's and overshadowed the Looney Tunes ones, and there was also merchandise for the Periphery Demographic, mainly T-shirts of the characters. The popularity of the show continues today, with new merchandise being made to appeal to the original child demographic from the 90's, a show where cast members sing some of the show's most popular songs touring the country, and even the announcement of a Continuity Reboot released in 2020!
• Beavis And Butthead became an instant cultural icon in the 90s, spawning 7 seasons, comic books, video games, a music video with Cher, a movie and even appearances in some of MTV's music award videos. Their popularity was enough to get them one more season in 2011 as well as an announced reboot, plus one of the show's side characters would get her own spin-off.
• DiC Entertainment considered Inspector Gadget to be its flagship due to its success.
• Fox probably wouldn't have been as big as it was without The Simpsons, one of the biggest sitcoms in history. Once the initial Simpson-mania died down, Family Guy entered the scene, and after getting Screwed by the Network, Vindicated by Cable, and Un-Canceled, established itself as running neck-and-neck with America's Favorite Family. The two sitcoms also serve as the flagships of Matt Groening and Seth MacFarlane, respectively.
• For [adult swim], Aqua Teen Hunger Force, The Venture Bros. and Robot Chicken were their three cash cow shows in The 2000's, but in The New '10s, it became Rick and Morty, which truly put them on the map. The network was also famous for being the home away from home of Family Guy for over 18 years. It was credited for the show's aforementioned vindication and renewal, and gave it a proper sendoff when their syndication rights finally expired in 2021.
• Netflix:
  • Bojack Horseman is their big animated series, particularly for adult audiences, and established them as a maker of animation as good as any other. Rivaling the likes of Family Guy, South Park and Rick and Morty, this has even been named by some sources as the greatest Netflix Original of all time.
  • For younger audiences, the cash cow title likely goes to Voltron: Legendary Defender, as a Continuity Reboot of the classic '80s anime. The series proved the action-oriented animation wasn't dead, despite the drought of it beforehand, and open the door for general audiences in a similar manner to the above.
  • As of 2022, the dial appears to have shifted. Big Mouth has become their biggest animated series, while The Boss Baby: Back in Business is their flagship children's series.
• For PBS Kids, Arthur became a cash cow and it is the 2nd longest running animated series in America as well. To a lesser extent, Dragon Tales, Martha Speaks, WordGirl, Sid the Science Kid, Dinosaur Train, FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman, The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!, Super Why! and Clifford the Big Red Dog were this for much of the 2000s and 2010s. Currently their other flagship animated shows include Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, Curious George, and Wild Kratts.
• Wallace & Gromit is a cash cow for Aardman Animations. To date, there have been 4 short films, a feature length film (with a sequel on the way), and a spin-off coming from one of the shorts. Said spin-off got a spin-off of its own as well as two feature films. In addition, the duo have appeared in commercials and even got their own set of 2 minute long shorts (Cracking Contraptions).
• Total Drama is a money maker for Fresh TV, being their most popular and famous series by far and having received several seasons and some spinoffs. To a lesser extent, Total Drama is also this for Teletoon, as the show has earned some of the highest ratings in the channel's history and is their most popular and iconic original series.
• Johnny Test is a cash cow for Teletoon, given how it was Adored by the Network and ended up becoming one of the channel’s longest-running and most well-known shows. The show also shares this status with Caillou among WildBrain's properties, as the 2 shows are heavily featured in their promotional material and social media, and Adored by the Network by the studio's TV channels (Family Channel and its sister channels, Family CHRGD and Family Jr.), even receiving web spinoffs.
• Franklin, Babar, and Little Bear are cash cows for Nelvana, being among their most celebrated and beloved shows and being generally seen as an encapsulation of what most people think of when they think "Nelvana show". However, a few other series have some considerable claim to the title as well, such as Max and Ruby, Rolie Polie Olie, and The Backyardigans, and even the earlier seasons of The Fairly OddParents! (which they owned the non-American rights to). And before Franklin, Babar, and Little Bear, Care Bears (beginning in 1985)^note  The franchise was originally created by American Greetings, who also created Strawberry Shortcake and The Get Along Gang. served as Nelvana's flagship franchise throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, even saving them from the brink of bankruptcy after the box-office failure of Rock and Rule.
• The success of the 1964 holiday special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is responsible for making Rankin/Bass Productions a household name and put them on the map. While the studio has been around since 1960, their Rudolph special is the company's most well-known work. To a smaller degree, Frosty the Snowman and Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town also helped make the studio become well-known to the general public but not to the extent as Rudolph. Rankin/Bass is commonly referred as "The King of Christmas Specials" by the general public even after the studio shutdown in the early 2000s. ThunderCats, their other big product aside from their Christmas specials, kept them on the map throughout the latter half of the 1980s; spawning a huge amount of merchandise of its own, and becoming equally as well-remembered enough to gain two short-lived reboots — the Acclaimed Flop ThunderCats (2011) and the more Denser and Wackier Thundercats Roar.
• Upon its premiere in its native Australia, Bluey was a huge hit. However, once it was brought stateside via Disney Junior and Disney+, it became an absolute juggernaut, and the show's licensors at The BBC have made plenty a profit off its success. The Heeler family has had their faces put on just about everything marketed to kids, from toys to books to bedsheets. There's even a live show. Safe to say, Bluey may well be Australia's biggest success since the Irwin family.

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