| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Animation, television production and distribution |
| Founded | 1989 |
| Founder | Peter Keefe, Brian Lacey |
| Defunct | 1994 |
| Fate | Acquired by Carlton Communications |
| Headquarters | Studio City, California, USA |
| Products | Television series |
| Parent | Central Independent Television |
Zodiac Entertainment was an American entertainment company that specialized in the production and distribution of animated cartoons. The company was founded in 1989 by Central Independent Television, a British media company that was aiming to establish a television production company in the United States. Two veterans of the animation industry, Brian Lacey and Peter Keefe helped establish and run the firm. The company's animation studio aimed to produce original television series that could easily be translated and broadcast around the world. To this end, its programs avoided overt Americanisms and references to U.S.-specific culture.[1]
Despite finding ratings success and notoriety with its first two animated series, the environmentalism-themed Widget and the comedic Mr. Bogus, the company struggled to compete for timeslots and advertising money with larger companies. Its third and final original series was Twinkle, the Dream Being, a Korean-American Co-production originally created to promote the 1993 Taejŏn Expo. In 1994, after its parent company was bought, Zodiac ceased producing original programming and announced that it would function exclusively as a distributor of television shows.