At Cartoon Forum next week, 75 creative teams from around Europe will gather in Toulouse to pitch their animated TV projects, in hopes of connecting with potential buyers, co-producers and other partners. And every day this week, we’ll be featuring a different series or special that we believe deserves a closer look. Stay tuned over the next few days to find out more about these high-potential projects. (And you can also catch up on yesterday’s highlight, This Moose Belongs to Me.)

“Delightfully offbeat” is how producer Idris Lettifi describes Cartoon Forum 2025 entry Sam & Watson (78 x seven minutes).

This 2D-animated series for upper preschoolers is the first kids project from Lettifi’s Paris-based banner, Piano Sano Films. Based on a same-name French kids book series, it’s about a six-year-old boy and his feline bestie who ponder big questions and try to make sense of the world around them.

Even a quick glance at any of the 16 published titles by philosophical authors Ghislaine Dulier and Bérengère Delaporte will give you a sense of the series’ solid co-viewing potential. For instance, Sam & Watson veulent tout, tout de suite (2020) tackles consumerism through a story in which a spoiled Sam gets upset when he can’t have ice cream. Watson teases him and poses questions about moderation in a world that loves to buy, buy, buy.

Despite these high-concept musings, the Piano Sano team says it’s planning fresh and fast-paced stories for the on-screen iteration of Sam & Watson. But Lettifi says the TV adaptation will retain the essence of the books, which is all about trusting kids to understand deeper themes and nuances. “At a time when many would prefer to shield them from everything, we want to show with Sam & Watson that children pick up on everything and are perfectly capable of grasping most subjects…provided it’s done with codes that speak to them.”

Reminiscent of Calvin & Hobbes, each episode will feature fantasy sequences in which Sam and Watson step into an imaginary world where their thoughts come to life. Lettifi says these sequences open the door to whimsical moments—from meeting historical figures, to negotiating a peace treaty between bees and bears.

Sam & Watson is poised to benefit from a built-in following of young readers—and not just in France, either. While 70,000 copies have sold in the books’ domestic market, they’re also a hit overseas in countries like China, where eight titles have sold roughly 50,000 copies. And Lettifi says the sales figures are similar in South Korea, Turkey, Poland, Taiwan and Vietnam.

Appealing to these burgeoning international audiences has been a priority from the early development stage, Lettifi says. “It’s a French IP with English-language screenwriters and a brand already established in Asia.” Those scribes are Ciaran Murtagh and Andrew Barnett-Jones—a prolific creative team whose kids TV credits include Mr. Bean, Toad and Friends, Miffy’s Adventures Big and Small, Numberblocks and Super Happy Magic Forest. 

With a US$7.5-million budget for the series, Piano Sano is also considering extending the franchise through online shorts and interactive content—as long as they “stay true to the show’s sharp, irreverent tone,” Lettifi says.

Piano Sano will be presenting Sam & Watson on Wednesday, September 17 at 3:15 p.m. (local time) in the Pink Room.