Toon Creator Awards winners announced

MANILA, Philippines - Cartoon Network and Hewlett-Packard has announced the winners of the 2010 Toon Creator Awards.

The winner was selected from over 160,000 animations created by kids across the Asia-Pacific region, including individual and school entrants from the Philippines.

The Philippines’ individual country winner is 11-year-old Warner Cunanan who won for his entry titled “Chowderlot’s Kingdom: Intro,” a thrilling short animation combining characters from his favorite Cartoon Network show Chowder.

Cunanan won an HP TouchSmart PC valued at approximately $1,300, and a fantastic Cartoon Network prize pack containing a Ben 10 Alien Force Alien Creation Chamber, Ben 10 Headset Walkie Talkies, Ben 10 Omnitrix Alien Viewer; Ben 10 Quad Bike, and Powerpuff Girls Speakers.

“I never thought I would win as there are so many great competitors,” said Cunanan. “But I entered because I loved that I could choose and combine cartoon characters from my top shows, as well as create my own characters. I’m going to keep on creating ‘toons’ with my new PC as I can now create my own stories.”

Schools in the region also encouraged students to showcase their creativity through technology with Toon Creator Awards for a chance to win three HP desktop PCs for their computer lab. From the almost 3,000 school contest submissions received, the winning school in the Philippines with the most registered entries was St. Paul College, Pasig Grade School Department.

This year’s interactive contest saw the addition of a character creator function that allowed players to build personalized avatars along their online journey. Kids were able to unlock special items to enhance their final animations, providing a fresh and innovative Toon Creator experience that sparked a frenzy of online activity.

The official website attracted more than 6.3 million page views and 800,000 unique visitors by the end of October.

“Kids have really embraced the new Toon Creator experience made possible by Cartoon Network and HP,” said Benjamin Grubbs, executive director for Turner Entertainment Interactive Media. “They’ve also taken easily to the technology, and used it to create some amazing entries which have garnered an incredible level of interest.”

For the duration of the contest, more than 1.3 million animations were viewed on the Toon Creator Awards website. This equates to a phenomenal eight animations watched every minute.

“We couldn’t be happier with the way the kids have taken our cutting-edge technology and used it to inspire some of the funniest, scariest and most innovative Toon Creator animated story lines we have seen,” said Robin Seow, vice president for marketing of HP’s Personal Systems Group in the Asia-Pacific and Japan.

“The impressive quality of their work speaks as to how intuitive the HP’s TouchSmart software is, and how it can inspire the learning process for children today,” Seow said.

For more information and to view all the winning entries, log on to www.ToonCreatorAwards.com.