With producers increasingly turning to YouTube to launch their next kids hit, and with streamers and broadcasters looking to the platform to discover creators they want to work with (here’s looking at you, Mark Rober), Kidscreen is spotlighting fresh projects brewing there that we think have longer legs.

Here’s a curated selection of three new series all starting out on YouTube, but with ambitions to break out and become the market’s next big obsession.

Princess Penelope’s Purse of Preposterous Things (pictured above)

Blue’s Clues and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood creator Angela Santomero is already making a splash on YouTube with her new live-action/CG-animated series, produced by Santo Studios.

With a Blue’s Clues-meets-storybook feel, it focuses on Princess Penelope, who with help from the kids watching, digs into her purse for three things to help solve fantastical problems. In one episode, for example, she has to figure out how she can help a dragon use his fire for good. She pulls out pine cones, pillows and pink marshmallows, and ends up helping the scaled beast use his flames to toast the marshmallows.

Dressed as a princess and wearing a tiara, Santomera appears on screen as a host/narrator to read the story to the audience. A seasoned preschool show creator, Santomero took a different approach with this series by chucking out a golden rule of preschool writing that says each episode must be a self-contained story. Instead, Princess Penelope’s episodes move the story a bit further along in telling an ongoing narrative, in order to keep preschoolers engaged.

“I love to try new things, and this kind of ongoing storyline is very popular in the digital vertical [microdrama] space, but we haven’t seen it made for a young audience before,” she says.

So far, the approach seems to be working. The IP’s YouTube channel generated more than three million views in its first month (with only 1,500 subscribers). And the first episode of the series alone, released on January 19, already has 1.7 million views.

Santomero has plans to roll out more episodes, music videos, songs and compilations. And she’s already secured a four-book publishing deal for Princess Penelope’s with Loyola Press, which is gearing up to drop a first title in April.

Show Your Glow

Toronto-based Headspinner Productions is lighting up YouTube with a new live-action series that’s all about letting kids show their glow.

In this series, host and singer Sadie Grace talks to kids about their passions—the talents that set them apart and make them glow, like magic, contortion skills, crafting and music.

Headspinner, the studio behind Denis and Me and Aunty B’s House, started releasing episodes last month on its Headspinner Kids YouTube channel (47,000 subscribers). It’s currently making a first batch of six episodes (each one roughly five to eight minutes long) with about US$14,600 (CAD$20,000) in funding from the Canadian Arts Council. Four episodes are completed, and two more are still in production.

The goal is to use them as a proof of concept to bring in a Canadian broadcaster, additional funding (perhaps from the CMF) or corporate sponsorships to scale the series, says Headspinner president Michelle Melanson. Eventually, the company would like to make 50 seven-minute episodes, which it says it can do for roughly US$730,000 (CAD$1 million).

Besides the appeal of its low production price tag, Melanson feels that Show Your Glow could also be a successful format in the global market, since kids everywhere have passions, and they’re eager to share them.

Rebel Girls Weekly Sports Show

Empowerment platform Rebel Girls is looking to bring sports and culture together for kids in its new weekly series.

Rebel Girls Weekly Sports Show, which premiered on YouTube last month, features young reporter and Rebel Girls brand ambassador Pepper Persley mixing interviews, hot takes and short clips to cover all the world of sport. Given the timing of its launch, several of the show’s videos to date have focused on the Winter Olympics. But Rebel Girls is planning to roll out a new episode (all under 10 minutes long) every Thursday.

Sports are a hot topic with kids, and a major priority for the band. This series is looking to fill a gap in content focusing on girls and sports, while remaining relevant and timely, says Rebel Girls chief content and marketing officer Emma May-Bradley. Beyond being open to broadcast and distribution deals, there are opportunities for partners to either sponsor Rebel Girls Weekly Sports Show episodes entirely or sections within them, she adds.

This is the first of four sports-focused series that Rebel Girls is launching on YouTube this spring to reach both eight- to 12-year-olds and an older 12-plus audience. The other projects are: Stronger Than Ever, an inspiring eight-episode documentary title featuring elite female athletes; Rebels in Residence, a three-episode series highlighting athletes on the rise; and The Climb: Rebel Girls Take On Aconcagua, a four-part doc about climber Carla Perez’s journey to reach the top of the Argentinian mountain.

If you’re an established producer with a new series heading to YouTube first, you can share the details with us at submissions@kidscreen.com.