Early one Monday morning in October 2005, I turned up to work at the ABC, tapped out a short email advising my boss I was resigning from the ABC after 20 years’ service with the national broadcaster and pushed the send key.
And that was that.
My thinking was that if I didn’t get out of the ABC after 20 years, then I’d end up spending my entire working life there, which was not something I wanted to do.
I left the ABC with no grand plan in mind and I had no other job lined up, rather, I just wanted to work on projects that interested me and to be in a place where I would be my own boss to oversee and manage what I was doing.
So in early 2006 I registered a business, which combined my mother’s first name with a plan to work on specific projects and the business was named Stella Projects.
My partner Deb Ryan is the joint owner of Stella Projects and the two of us have worked in the business from the outset and that continues to this day.
It’s now 2026, and looking back, here are the highlights from Stella Projects’ 20-year playbook:
Making Stuff
Our first TV production project was to produce for Warner Brothers US a remake of the original Banana Splits TV show – for those of you old enough to remember Banana Splits, it had the famous Tra La La theme song and featured a band with the suited characters Fleegle, Bingo, Drooper and Snorky.
The major TV series that Stella Projects was commissioned to produce was Lah-Lah’s Adventures for Channel 7 Australia & BBC Worldwide and featured the live action Lah-Lah’s Big Live Band in a beautiful animated world.
Since 2024, we have been producing a monthly music audio podcast and bi-monthly music video show called My Singalong with Catters & Mouseman which streams on YouTube and on all audio podcast platforms like Spotify & Apple Podcasts.
My Singalong features the best of Australian and New Zealand children’s music artists and is a music hits show for young children.
Licensing Stuff
Then there were the years as a licensing agency, starting with Miffy and LazyTown in 2009 and going on to represent an amazing array of entertainment properties but finally having had enough of late-night international phone calls and dealing with a few pushy principals, stepping away in 2016.
The licensing team at Stella Projects – Lou Elkington, Anna Dupree (Westley) & Claire O’Connor – were truly great at their jobs and more importantly to me, wonderful people.
Lou Elkington
Anna Dupree
I loved working with Lou, Anna and Claire and being part of a team managing these properties:
Annoying Orange, Domo, Guess How Much I Love You?, LazyTown, Me To You Tatty Teddy, Miffy, Ms Moni, Monty Python, Pac Man, Pevan & Sarah, Roald Dahl, Rubik’s Cube, Shaun the Sheep, Thunderbirds, Trash Pack, Where’s Wally?, Wot Wots, Yu-Gi-Oh! and Zhu Zhu Pets.
Having Fun
Deb and I like to travel to interesting places and in the interests of a good work/life balance, we’ve managed to take two overseas holidays every year for nearly every one of our 26 years together.
Argentina, Belgium, Belize, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Egypt, England, Ecuador, France, Galapagos, Greece, Guatemala, Iceland, Indonesia, Italy, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malta, Mexico, Morocco, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Oman, Portugal, Qatar, Scotland, Singapore, Spain, The Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, United States & Vietnam.
Writings On the Wall
In 2016, Tony Bugg asked me to write a column for The Bugg Report about TV and licensing, which I was more than happy to do. I continue to write the Wide Eyes News from the Tube column.
When Tony and Matthew Bugg told me about their plans to publish The Toy Universe magazine in 2022, I pitched them the idea of writing a column about some of the weird and wonderful things I’ve encountered in the toy & licensing businesses along the way.
Matthew said, “Sure, we’ll take a look,” and the Stories from GG’s Toy Box column has been featured in most editions of The Toy Universe since Issue 2.
In a League of Their Own
For all of the last 30 years I have been blessed to work with Jeannette Rowe, pre-school author / illustrator extraordinaire, Chris Chard, Managing Director at Roadshow Entertainment, Australia’s leading video distribution company, Paul Donovan, Director at Allen & Unwin, Australia’s best independent book publisher and Fred Gaffney, global licensing agent. These are my friends, and how lucky I am.
This article was written by Grahame Grassby, the Founder and Managing Director at Stella Projects.
This article also appeared in Edition 55 of The Bugg Report Magazine
