Hidden Pigeon Company ended up at the top of the pecking order after two shows based on Mo Willems’ books were picked up by Paramount+ as the post-merger regime gets to work on its kids content strategy. What a coup (pun intended)! Here’s what we said about it last week.

GOLD STAR WINNER – Hidden Pigeon Company: After several projects with HBO Max, Mo Willems’ IPs are flocking to Paramount+. The streamer just ordered two new animated series—The Elephant & Piggie Show! and The Pigeon Show! Starring the Pigeon from Hidden Pigeon Company, tapping into the author’s popular books. With these two greenlights and Jennifer Dodge joining Paramount Animation in the new year, could we be seeing the start of a big push into kids content at the revamped Paramount?

And here are our Gold Star runners-up, who also had great weeks: 

Disney: The Mouse House has opened up its prized IP vault and given access to its most popular characters to…OpenAI? Now, you may be thinking, isn’t Disney suing AI companies for using its IPs? And you’d be right! But this three-year agreement is different because now Disney controls how those characters can be used. (No more Elsagates, thanks!) Beginning next year, users will be able to generate Disney-approved content on Sora and ChatGPT with company assets and share these “creations” on Disney+ and other social channels. And the studio has sweetened the deal by promising a US$1-billion equity investment in OpenAI, as long as it builds new experiences for Disney’s subscribers. As Goofy would say—Gawrsh!

GO-N Productions: Going, going, GO-N! The Parisian studio is ending 2025 on a high note with its adaptation of the Elle(s) graphic novels—which has next-big-thing written all over it. You may remember that the French company’s popular Cartoon Forum pitch attracted the most buyers at the September event. And nine of them stepped up this week to contribute development financing to the tune of US$70,000 (EUR€60,000). This series premise about a teen girl battling the multiple sides of her personality—represented by different hair colors—is one we can’t wait to see on the small screen.

Mark Rober: The wildly popular STEMfluencer is writing the next chapter for his expanding kids media empire with Scholastic. Not only is the kids publishing behemoth serving up several Rober-related books, it’s also rolling out a brand-new STEM-focused Discovery Fair promoting other consumer products from Rober’s CrunchLabs company. Scholastic’s legendary book fairs take place in schools all around the world; and if these new ones are anything like them, Rober will soon be reaching a lot of kids this way.

Spuree: It might be a new kid on the animation block, but this AI-fuelled tech studio just announced its first big project—and it’s based on one of the most popular children’s publishing brands of all time. Spuree is teaming with kidlit icon Mary Pope Osborne to adapt her Magic Tree House books into an animated series—which, frankly, we can’t believe hasn’t been made yet. Others have tried and failed, but Osborne credited the fledgling studio for finally allowing her “a real seat at the table” in adapting her iconic books. Now let’s get time-hopping!

Check back after the holidays for our next batch of nominees. Hope to see you then!