By Cole Watson and Andrea Hernandez

BBC

In a new global partnership, Japanese toyco TOMY International will bring the Beeb’s  flagship preschool franchise Bluey into the bath play category. TOMY plans to launch a new range of Swimming Bluey Toomies—toys that sing and swim in the tub—in the US, Canada, Australia and the UK in Q3 this year. The rollout will continue into next year across the EMEA region. 

Kidoodle.TV

Snoop Dogg’s preschool series Doggyland: Kids Songs & Nursery Rhymes is heading to safe streamer Kidoodle.TV. The iconic rapper co-created these CG-animated shorts (17 x two minutes) with actor Claude Brooks and R&B songwriter October London, and they initially launched on YouTube in August 2022. Snoop (real name Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr.) voices canine lead Bow Wizzle, who acts as a big brother and mentor to a group of young pups. Kidoodle.TV also picked up Brooks’ 2006 live-action musical Hip Hop Harry (26 x 20 minutes), which is set in HIP Hop Central, where Harry the bear teaches preschoolers how to dance and sing.

APC Kids 

The Paris-based distributor has acquired rights to sell CG-animated series Jade Armor (26 x 26 minutes) worldwide, excluding the Americas and China. The series for kids ages six and up is produced by French prodco TeamTO, and made its debut on France Télévisions’ Okoo SVOD platform for kids last September. It stars a teenaged martial-arts superhero who fights villains while managing her drama-filled high school life. 

CAKE

The London-based distributor has drawn up a successful sales strategy for two Pioneertown Productions series: Draw With Will and Will Sliney’s Storytellers. Targeting the five to 12 set, Draw with Will (40 x nine minutes) shows kids how to draw animated characters from IPs like PAW Patrol. Meanwhile, Will Sliney’s Storytellers (42 x 11 minutes) sees its namesake artist  demonstrating drawing techniques for eight- to 12-year-olds by designing around a young Viking cartographer character. Both series have been sold to TV Catalunya España, SVT (Sweden), Czech TV, MTVA (Hungary), Latvian TV, YouTube channel Sunflower TV (Ukraine), True Visions (Thailand) and PCCW Media (Hong Kong, Macau).  Draw With Will premiered on Sky Kids in June 2021, and Will Sliney’s Storytellers got its start on RTÉ Kids (Ireland) in October 2021.