Buffett, the Cartoon, To Teach Children About Money

HOLLYWOOD – The Oracle of Omaha is Tinseltown’s newest animated hero.But, at least in Warren Buffett’s crystal ball, he still has no future here.“I can’t afford to go Hollywood,” he said. “There’s no money in this stuff.”If anyone knows the value of a dollar, it’s a guy with 40 billion of them. Which is why the world’s second-richest individual decided to become a cartoon character to teach children financial responsibility.Working pro bono, Mr. Buffett will play himself in an upcoming 13-part DVD series, “The Secret Millionaire’s Club,” produced by Burbank-based DIC Entertainment Corporation. The 75-year-old grandfather plays an animated version of himself who offers his wisdom with the kind of down-home delivery that has made Mr. Buffett a folk hero to investors.“An educational approach to money and investing struck me as a very good idea,” Mr. Buffett said in an interview. “People do form behavior habits very young on matters of money. I get calls every day from people who are in a financial hole.”In the series, Mr. Buffett offers advice to a group of children who want to raise money to ward off an unscrupulous developer aiming to shut down a youth center in Mr. Buffett’s hometown of Omaha, Neb.To raise money for the center, the children auction some valuable baseball memorabilia they discover in the attic of the club. After paying off the club’s mortgage, they turn to Mr. Buffett for advice on what companies they should invest in.Not surprisingly, the stories, aimed at children 8 to 12, reflect many of Mr. Buffett’s own investment preferences. The kids invest in an ice cream franchise and a candy store. Mr. Buffett’s holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns International Dairy Queen and See’s Candies.His skepticism toward risky technology stocks also shows up in another episode, when kids pull the plug on investing in a company fraudulently claiming to have invented a self charging battery.The series also teaches basic principles of managing money, especially avoiding debt, a pet subject of Mr. Buffett’s.“The American public is in love with credit cards,” he said.The chief executive of DIC, Andy Heyward, approached Mr. Buffett about the project about six months ago.“Our company is focused on education programs for children, and we felt this is an area that has not been addressed,” he said. “When you talk about teaching kids financial literacy, he’s the gold standard. He brings a credibility that doesn’t exist anywhere else.”Mr. Buffett has known Mr. Heyward since the early 1990s, when DIC was a unit of Capital Cities/ABC, in which Berkshire Hathaway was a large investor. Mr. Heyward led a buyout of DIC after Capital Cities/ABC was sold in 1996 to Walt Disney Company.Mr. Buffett asked Mr. Heyward to assist one of his charities, a children’s theater in Omaha. Mr. Heyward not only helped develop stories for the theater, but he also began using local actors to record voices for his company’s cartoon characters, which include Trollz, Inspector Gadget, and Strawberry Shortcake.Mr. Buffett soon tapped Mr. Heyward to produce humorous cartoons for Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meetings. In last year’s show, a takeoff on “The Wizard of Oz,” Mr. Buffett played Dorothy while Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates – his good friend and the only person on Earth richer than Mr. Buffett – played the Scarecrow.Mr. Heyward also gave Mr. Buffett a small part as James Madison in the DIC series “Liberty’s Kids,” which was shown on PBS. “The Secret Millionaire’s Club” will begin production this month, with Mr. Buffett and other characters recording their voices in Omaha. DIC is negotiating with a home video distributor for the series, which will cost about $4 million to make and premieres this fall, Mr. Heyward said. One of the two authors of the series is a University of Connecticut finance professor who is an expert on Mr. Buffett’s “value investing” approach.Although the project was led by Mr. Heyward, Mr. Buffett made some key suggestions, including nixing one story idea that had the children winning money in a lottery.“The last thing in the world I want to do,” Mr. Buffett said, “is to encourage kids to play the lottery.”

Buffett, the Cartoon, To Teach Children About Money

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