[1] In the 2000s, CINAR became the subject of multiple business scandals, including accusations that the company had used offshore accounts to transfer money out of the company, had plagiarized the concept of one of its series, and had obfuscated the involvement of U.S. screenwriters in its productions in order to continue receiving Canadian tax credits for domestic productions.

Over a decade later, these scandals would result in criminal charges, convictions, and fines for four suspects, which included two executives at the company, co-founder Ronald A. Weinberg and chief financial officer Hasanain Panju.

In 1984, CINAR changed their focus from media distribution to production and moved operations to Montreal, Quebec, where they concentrated on family-oriented television programming, including The Little Lulu Show, Animal Crackers, Emily of New Moon, Mona the Vampire, and The Wombles, as well as the English and French dubs of the anime series Adventures of the Little Koala, Ronin Warriors, The Adventures of Albert and Sidney, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Spanish television series The World of David the Gnome, and the English dub of Ultraseven.

As a production company, CINAR was also involved in the work of Are You Afraid of the Dark?, A Bunch of Munsch, The Busy World of Richard Scarry, Madeline (specials 2 to 6), The Real Story of Happy Birthday to You, The Country Mouse and the City Mouse Adventures, Space Cases, and its most well-known works, Arthur, Zoboomafoo, and Caillou.

On November 1, 1996, CINAR announced that they would purchase the programming library and animation unit of the London-based FilmFair from the Caspian Group for $10.5 million.

[10] The success of Charest, Weinberg, and CINAR ended in March 2000, when an internal audit revealed that about $167 million (CAD) was invested into Bahamian bank accounts without the board members' approval.

[11] CINAR had also paid U.S. screenwriters for work while continuing to accept federal grants and tax credits for the production of Canadian content.

The names of Canadian citizens (generally non-writers connected to CINAR, including Charest's sister Helene) were credited for the works.

[23] The company opened up a Japanese office in May[24] and announced their first new pre-school property The Doodlebops in August for a delivery to Kids' CBC in January 2005, deemed by Cookie Jar to be their flagship franchise.

[28][29] On March 30, 2009, Cookie Jar made a $76 million counter bid for Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake.

Mazza planned to broaden Cookie Jar's slate by pursuing Canadian co-productions intended for global saley.

[32] In February 2011, Cookie Jar announced a new imprint known as The Jar, which it intended to use on series targeting U.S. primetime television; its development slate included Lori Kirkland Baker's All Over You for Lifetime, Blah Girls for MTV, Andrew Orenstein's Lords of the Playground for CBS, and Steven E. de Souza's Spyburbia for Fox and Global.

At the time of Cookie Jar's acquisition of the company, DIC had been programming a weekend morning block for CBS known as KEWLopolis.