WildBrain is entering the autumn kids’ content market with a new preschool acquisition and a slate engineered around two speeds: shortform independent content and long-established franchise packages. The distributor has taken global rights to Nick the Mechanic, a 26-episode CG animated series of 6.5-minute episodes from Polydont Films.
The show follows a boy who runs a repair workshop hidden in his parents’ garage, where he and his team fix broken toys and give them a new purpose. The narrative is built to show children how everyday objects function while encouraging creative thinking, care and reuse instead of disposal.
Why the deal matters
For WildBrain, this is a barbell slate. At one end, Nick the Mechanic offers buyers a fresh preschool property with short episodes and a sustainability-friendly premise. At the other, the Peanuts Collection and Strawberry Shortcake formats provide deep library value and brand recognition.
That gives streaming and linear buyers two different entry points: low-cost, curriculum-friendly shortform for repeatable viewing, and proven franchises that can anchor a kids’ SVOD, linear or FAST block.
The preschool category remains one of the most stable commissioning segments in streaming because parents look for safe, repeatable content. A fix-it theme also aligns with rising buyer interest in sustainability-adjacent children’s programming, even when the show is animated.
- Nick the Mechanic: 26 x 6.5 minutes, global distribution, preschool repair premise.
- Secrets at Red Rocks S2: 8 x 24 minutes, live-action family fantasy from Libertine Pictures.
- Strawberry Shortcake: Bake Shop (26 x 3 minutes) and The Berry Best Baking Show (12 x 5 minutes), shortform and hybrid cooking formats.
- Peanuts Collection: The Snoopy Show, Snoopy in Space and Camp Snoopy.
WildBrain will present the slate to buyers at MipJunior and Mipcom next month. The company is also bringing season two of Secrets at Red Rocks, a live-action family fantasy adaptation from New Zealand author Rachael King’s novel set on a coastline where the human world meets selkie mythology.
The Strawberry Shortcake titles show how a legacy IP can be cut into different formats for different windows: a 3-minute Bake Shop short for YouTube or FAST environments, and a 5-minute hybrid baking show with follow-along recipes for co-viewing and interactive extensions. The Peanuts titles give partners a library-backed package across multiple episode lengths, from 8-minute space shorts to 22-minute series.
What media buyers should track
For ad-supported and subscription platforms, the practical lever is episode length and repeatability. The 3-to-6.5-minute formats are designed for high-frequency short sessions and algorithmic discovery, while the 22-to-24-minute Peanuts titles suit scheduled blocks or longer viewing sessions. Buyers evaluating preschool acquisitions should ask how a show holds up on the third repeat view, not just the first, because repeat viewing drives much of the category’s value.
For Indian and Southeast Asian platforms, this kind of slate is worth watching because many regional services are expanding kids’ libraries with international preschool content to support family subscriptions. The shortform titles can be slotted into mobile-first or YouTube-led strategies, while the franchise packages offer safer bets for linear or FAST launches.
Source: C21Media
