Broadcasters in Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America have acquired Punky, Irish preschool cartoon about a fun-loving girl with Down syndrome

From C21 Media:

Broadcasters in Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America have acquired Punky, the Irish preschool cartoon about a fun-loving girl with Down syndrome.

The 20x7’ series has gone to Korea’s EBS, Denmark’s DR, New Zealand’s TVNZ and Argentina’s Educ.Ar.

These are the first sales distributor Target Entertainment has announced since picking up rights to the show in September last year.

Punky launched on Irish pubcaster RTÉ in 2010 and comes from Dublin cartoon house Monster Animation, which last year won the 2011 Producer of the Year award at Cartoon Forum in Poland.

Monster’s Gerard O’Rourke and Lindsay Segdwick are behind the series, which is claimed to be the first cartoon with a lead character that has Down syndrome. Humf creator Andrew Brenner wrote the scripts.

“Punky has a global appeal for preschoolers because of the universal themes of fun and friendship portrayed on the show,” said Target’s director of sales Hannah Worrall.

The news comes after Target parent Metrodome Group put the distributor up for sale just 18 months after acquiring it for £800,000 (US$1.3m).