The business is slowly revving back up after the holiday hiatus, but we’ve already got some big names making winning moves. Welcome back to Kidscreen‘s Gold Star, where we pick the five people or companies who had the best week in the kids industry, and you vote to decide who gets the big prize on Monday. 

Oh, and do you want a say in who gets nominated every week? Email us at submissions@kidscreen.com by noon every Thursday, and we’ll take your thoughts into consideration. 

Now onto the noms! And don’t forget to vote below.

The Animation Guild: TAG, you’re it! The union that represents more than 6,000 industry pros is welcoming another 57 Netflix Animation Studios workers into its ranks and gearing up to fight for equal benefits on behalf of DreamWorks Animation’s remote workers in the US. DreamWorks workers are already covered by TAG, but only when their work is done in the office, so this new effort is to “address longstanding inequities” between the cubicle haves and have-nots. If this works out, who knows? Maybe we’ll see even more animators set free from their in-office chains in the future.

Caitlin Friedman: The Scholastic veteran is going to be very busy. She’s taking on an expanded role, heading things up at Brown Bag Films, where she’ll unify three studios around the globe into one cohesive team. She’s planning to bring her YA development and production experience into play as she expands Brown Bag’s focus to cover older-skewing content, digital-first projects and (the big one) feature films. And if that wasn’t enough for one plate, she’s also still developing some book franchises into TV series for Scholastic, including 39 Clues and Animorphs. If Friedman works any harder, she might turn into a bee.

Disney: This week, the Mouse House has a lot of reasons to be glad…starting with GLAAD. Disney titles earned a whopping 30 nods on the org’s annual awards shortlist, which means it’s doing valuable work in championing LGBTQ representation—despite dropping the ball in more than one instance over the past year. And even though one of those instances—Pixar’s Elio—didn’t exactly set the box office on fire, it got some unexpected love from the Annie Awards this week, managing to keep pace with the Netflix mega-hit KPop Demon Hunters and score 10 nominations. Speaking of turning lemons into lemonade, after a string of high-profile flops earlier in the year, Disney got the last laugh by crushing the competition in the final 2025 box-office tally. 

The LEGO Group: They’re calling it the most innovative change to LEGO’s play system since the minifigure—packing lights, sounds and motion-sensing tech into one tiny brick. The new LEGO SMART Play system is difficult to explain (most outlets couldn’t, so we did it for them), but in essence, the Danish brick-maker is trying to amp up the experience with a brick that responds to how kids are playing with their sets. And to launch it, LEGO has turned to the brand with the most iconic sounds: Star Wars—so kids will soon be able to play to the scream of TIE fighters, the hum and crackle of lightsabers and the bombast of Darth Vader’s theme song (don’t pretend you don’t know it). Play experts may be skeptical about LEGO straying from its classic formula, but the company is confident these new bricks are here to stay. 

Mediawan: The French studio has traded in its Volkswagen for a BYD. With content funding dollars caught in a vice grip, Mediawan has started scaling up its productions by bringing in more brands to fund new content through product placements. Its newest partner is Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD, whose cars will be featured in the upcoming Miraculous feature film—and the companies are also planning to produce a special episode of Miraculous Chibi together. After all, kids can’t buy cars, but they certainly have a lot to say about it when their parents make a purchase. Mediwan forged a similar partnership with Volkswagen in 2023, so maybe this type of licensing deal is becoming a go-to move in the studio’s playbook.

Vote below!