Entertainment has always been one of the best method for communicating with our children. Working in the music business has showed us how powerful music's influence has been on people's lives, especially children.

Children can sing every lyric to popular songs at an early age. They learn them because they are fun. Thursty does whatever a human recording artist does. He makes records, does television appearances, creates music videos, concerts, books and film. Thursty is the foundation for generating other characters and stories that are lessons for all children.

To build the character, I needed a great musician/singer who could write and sing positive messages. The musician/singer had to be willing to use his/her music and persona as inspiration for a cartoon character. One day I was at a gas station and saw an old friend who is a great musician, singer, writer, and producer, and also has a positive spirit. His name is Thurston Bilal. I said to him, "Let's do some children's music." One year later, we created Thursty the Elephant's. The next day, I created a drawing for Thursty the Elephant based on Thurston. Thursty is the name his family called him as a child. Thurston and I formed a partnership to produce Thursty and his music. Over the next ten years, Thurston and I wrote the songs for the Thursty album. During this period, we tested "ABC" and "123" with children and adults nationally. Everyone loves it, so we moved forward. In June 2000, I began to commute between Los Angeles and Austin, Texas--two weeks in LA, two weeks in Austin. Initially, I came to Austin to help Meredith Beal, a childhood friend who also worked with me at Motown as the Director of Marketing and later became a global webmaster for Dell Computer.

In Austin, we went to the downtown Head Start to find an expert in early childhood education. We developed an early childhood television show concept with Brenda Thomas, Director, Child, Inc. Brenda has worked with pre-schoolers for 19 years and is happy to bring her knowledge and experience with curriculum, kids, teachers, and schools as well as her contacts to Thursty and his team.

We needed some young people who could dance, speak well, and help the children "feel" Thursty. We went to then Huston-Tillotson College now University to find the young people who would bring Thursty to life. HTU President, Dr. Larry Earvin, and then Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs, Dr. Sandra Vaughn, liked the concept and allowed us to teach the "Video Production" course. Thurston Bilal, Meredith Beal, Herman Matthews and I team taught this class. The students made Thursty's first music video, "It's Time to Read. They wrote, casted, acted, produced, directed and video taped the entire project. This was and amazing project for student that never work in video or television.Thie making of this video brought the school to life and gave the students an experience that they will never forget, they worked as a team ina a classroom situation with everyone working on 1 assignment. The It's Time to Read video has been aired on local television for 3 years and continues to air to this day.

We next taught an animation class at St.Edwards University. The students at St.Edwards University produced a childrens puppet television show called "The Pet Shop".

We co-created another cartoon character named Wiley the Crab, for the College for all Texans Foundation campaign called Education. Go Get It. Student authors from the Hayes Academy, an alternative high school in Kyle, Texas, created Wiley. These high schools student wrote a bilingual children's book called Wiley's Way. The book is about a crab who changes his life by going to college. It was commissioned by the College for all Texans Foundation. The purpose of the book is support the Education Go Get It campaign. The mission of the campaign is to prepare and send an additional 500,000 people to college by the year 2015.

IIt's time to meet our team. These good people and institutions have been involved in making Thursty famous in Central Texas.

Herman Matthews,Ph.D founder and Excutive Director for the Center for Exploratory Studies Ph.D. (Physics), and former professor at The University of Texas with 25 years in video production-- a true genius (for real) and a great man.

Thursty has a great working relationship with the Austin Independent School District. We produced a children's book titled "Thursty Goes To The 4th Grade," Written by the students at Campbell Elementary in Austin, Texas. Thursty is featured on our television show called "It's Like That" hosted by The Word Genie, AKA Cara Briggs a child television star on Caraasolendas the first bilingual television show in the United States and Sonrisas both national PBS shows. A veteran of children's theater and an established actress, Cara brings over 30 years of children's entertainment experience and knowledge. Cara is also the producer, director and head writer of "It's Like That". The show airs Saturday mornings at 8:30am on The Austin Music Network. Thursty has appeared at many events for the Austin Independent School District, Austin Parks and Recreation, HeadStart and The Music Network.

Baby Iassc is the youngest mamber of the Uplift Comic family. He was born August of 2009. He is the creation of Artist/Designer Charles VeennII who came up with the idea after seeing what television was offering to his 3 year old boys Immanuel, Romello and Iassc.

Funmi and Friends was created by Funmi Ogunro. to educate children (ages 2-7) on the basic concepts of nutrition. The show works to influence children to consume more healthy foods such as fruits and vegetables, using fun and informative subject matter and demonstrations of how to make quick and easy snacks.

Collectively we have built great characters, great stories and fantastic music. Now it's time to share them all with the children of the world.

You can purchase the Thursty the Elephant album from: