Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review Volume 23 Number 2 Article 3 1-1-2003 How the Summer of the Spinoff Came to Be: The Branding of Characters in American Mass Media Benjamin A. Goldberger Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/elr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Benjamin A. Goldberger, How the Summer of the Spinoff Came to Be: The Branding of Characters in American Mass Media, 23 Loy. L.A. Ent. L. Rev. 301 (2003). Available at: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/elr/vol23/iss2/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews at Digital Commons @ Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. HOW THE "SUMMER OF THE SPINOFF" CAME TO BE: THE BRANDING OF CHARACTERS IN AMERICAN MASS MEDIA Benjamin A. Goldberger* I. INTRODUCTION "If in past summers Hollywood seemed to surrender its creative soul to the making of sequels, prequels, spinoffs, remakes and franchise films based on comic books, television series or video games, take a deep breath and prepare for the summer of 2002."1 With these words, the New York Times' Rick Lyman dubbed this past summer "the summer of the spinoff."2 Although it is most apparent in the movie theater, mass media art of all types in the United States is becoming increasingly derivative.