Illustration: Alvin Fai
Paw Patrol and the Twilight of the World-Conquering Kids TV Show
The cartoon about rescue puppies now generates more than $1 billion a year, and even its creator worries it might be the last of its breed.
Keith Chapman is on the receiving end of a multibillion-dollar empire fueled by shows on screen and stage, backpacks and bathing suits, cereal boxes and plastic toys. The 59-year-old lives in Monaco, the affluent principality on the Riviera. He drives Aston Martin sports cars while collecting millions in royalties each year from a group of cartoon puppies that he drew in 2011 and who now appear on televisions in more than 160 countries speaking more than 30 languages.
It’s the kind of animated world domination that even Chapman, the creator of Paw Patrol, worries might never happen again. “It’s harder now to get something to become a success because there are so many channels and so many outlets and so many more shows,” he said in an interview. “If you wrote it all down—from the spark of the idea to a global brand doing a billion dollars a year—it’s almost impossible. It’d be harder than winning the lottery.”