Surge Licensing is a licensing corporation started by Mark Freedman in 1986. Freedman had heard of Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles through Palladium Books, and became convinced that he could spin the property into a viable franchise. After getting Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman on board, he approached a number of toy companies to pitch the Turtles as a toy line. Eventually, he got Playmates Toys to bite and signed a contract for $150,000. Through some brief false starts and troubles getting it through the Playmates pipeline, they got Murakami-Wolf-Swenson to produce an animated series to serve as a vehicle for the toys, which in tandem launched the franchise into a multi-million dollar success.