Scholastic Launches Books Featuring Butt-Ugly Martians

Posted on September 5, 2001

Scholastic, a children's publishing and media company, announced that it will launch a series of books featuring Butt-Ugly Martians, a comedy television series in the U.K. Starting in spring 2002, the aliens will appear on bookshelves in America in the form of digest-size chapter books, picture-driven adventure storybooks and novelty quiz and sticker books.

``We are excited about bringing Butt-Ugly Martians to the publishing arena in the United States,'' said Ellie Berger, Vice President, Deputy Publisher, Scholastic. ``We look forward to building on the success of this hot new property and expanding it to our mass and trade channels.''

The action-adventure-comedy TV series, Butt-Ugly Martians aimed at 4 to 11-year-olds, aired on Britain's CITV early this year and will launch in the U.S. on Nickelodeon in 2002. After its first airing in the UK this past February, Butt-Ugly Martians attained an 8.6 rating with boys ages 4-9 and finished with a 30% increase in April with an 11.2 rating. Other licensees for Butt-Ugly Martians include Hasbro, Hallmark and Children's Apparel Network.

Scholastic will launch with the following Butt-Ugly Martians titles: two chapter books, The Big Bang Theory and Meet Gorgan; two adventure storybooks, The Martians Have Landed and Do-Wah Rocks; and two sticker/activity books, Martian Mania: Quizzes, Puzzles and Martian Trivia; and Martian Brainteasers: Quizzes, Puzzles and Martian Trivia.

Butt-Ugly Martians tells the tale of three unpleasant-looking aliens -- B. Bop-A-Luna, Do-Wah-Diddy and 2-T Fru-T who landed on our planet sent by their evil leader Emperor Bog on a mission to invade Earth. However, they really have no intention of taking over. Instead, they fought for the assignment because they wanted to experience Earth's pop culture of fast food, video games and TV. The Butt-Ugly Martians books were developed by Marshall Direct -- part of the publishing operation of the Just Group Plc.