Mr. Stephen L. Hodge is the Anguillian CEO of Toon Goggles, a US company which went online in 2011 and offers child-safe content for children ages 3 to 12. It is an on-demand entertainment service offering animated cartoons, live action shows, games and music worldwide.
The Anguillian national, whose father is the well-known Mr. Lowell Hodge, of The Anguilla Printers, is based in Los Angeles, California, where Toon Goggles has developed partnerships with many large consumer electronics companies. Mr. Hodge Jr and Toon Goggles were featured in an article in the Washington Times of Thursday, August 13, 2015.
In the front page article, the writer, Mr. Eric Althof, quoted Hodge as saying: “With Toon Goggles, there is no chance that a curious youngster might stumble upon content such as ‘Orange is the New Black’”. He went on: “Toon Goggles has none of that content so the entire platform from the ground up is designed for children to access appropriate content in a safe and easy manner. There’s no sex, there’s no violence, there’s no foul language – nothing like that is included in any our content.”
He is further quoted as follows: “Nor are there ‘classic’ cartoons such as ‘Tom and Jerry’ and ‘Looney Tunes’. Although the cat-and-mouse team and the likes of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck sired the humorous sensibilities of earlier generations, their undeniable violent escapes keep them off the list of Toon Goggles offerings.
“We review every bit of content there is so that certain things aren’t there. The ‘Tom and Jerry’-esque things that we grew up on, those will not be found on the service. We stay away from that, being that we don’t feel that those things are accepted by the majority of parents in this day and age.”
Mr. Hodge is the father of three children. He was again quoted as saying that “his offspring, as well as those of many of his team members in Southern California, helped to steer the movies, TV shows, interactive games and other content on the multimedia platform.”
He went on: “Any parent could put Toon Goggles in front of their children and be sure that [it] has a safe, protected environment for children where even the ads are pre-screened to make sure they are appropriate for children. As…[for] the parents that do not like the idea of advertising, we also have the option for them to become a paid subscriber that allows them to turn off advertising…We just plan to continue to grow and license content as well as develop our own content so that we can become a brand that is synonymous with providing safe fun, educational children’s content to help us grow our platform.”
According to the article, Mr. Hodge “foresees a day when children and other media consumers will order specific services…” He also sees a day “where people have the ability to select a very simple package of CBS, Showtime, Toon Goggles and CNN. And Toon Goggles knows that it is poised to be ready for that world when it comes.”
