• by Dacia Ray , September 30, 2004

Studio One Networks and Toys "R" Us have paired to create a birthday party planning Web site designed to make gathering the troops a less painful, messy--and yes--expensive task.

Birthdaysrus.com will be used as an online component of "Geoffrey's Birthday Club," a site where parents can register their children to receive a birthday gift and a birthday card from the giraffe. The site also suggests ideas on what to buy children of different age groups, giving parents an option of twelve or so gifts for both boys and girls.

The new addition to the site is a creative and realistic approach to giving a birthday without so much of the marketing hype. The site offers constructive, simple, and cost-effective ways to host a birthday party, so that Martha fans and keep-it-simple folk alike can succeed at dinosaur, movie, or magic-themed parties geared toward any age group.

And, for any that missed the birthday party etiquette class in Parenting 101, the site offers helpful hints for party attire and thank you notes. The content is created by former editors and writers at publications such as Ladies' Home Journal, Today's Parent, and Family Circle, and is renewed with different ideas each month.

This is not the first major deal for Studio One Networks. The company operates several other information-based Web sites that are sponsored by major advertisers, such as Nestle and Carnation for Yourbabytoday.com, Bridgestone USA for Drivingtoday.com, and Friskies for Thedailycat.com, among others.