Dandelooo’s Emmanuèle Pétry

Dandelooo has been distributing and producing preschool series for many years, and its current catalog is packed with series such as Ioguis, Billy the Cowboy Hamster, The Treehouse Stories, Hungry Bear Tales and so many more. Emmanuèle Pétry, producer and head of distribution at Dandelooo, speaks to TV Kids Weekly about what shows for the youngest viewers need to make an impact in today’s crowded landscape.

TV KIDS: What does a preschool show need to stand out today, both for broadcasters and platforms and for audiences?
PÉTRY: It’s the same old good ingredients, but even more so because kids are more sophisticated. You need humor; you need sensitivity. You absolutely need a good story. You need emotional stakes. More and more, kids are driven by things that matter to them. You need real characters, not clichéd characters, and stories about relationships.

What the platforms and broadcasters [are asking] for is brand awareness. That drives me crazy because they only want to look at things that are well-known, but if we’re all only delivering old stuff, it’s pathetic. You need to have creativity. I’m sick of people saying, Oh, I love your stuff, but I’m looking for brands.

TV KIDS: It’s frustrating.
PÉTRY: It’s frustrating because it’s an easy route. I keep on saying this, but it’s true: Broadcasters are looking for “McDonald’s.” They just want to feed stuff to kids that is easy to chew on and that kids will [want], like sweets and grease. That’s why we have to be careful of not just delivering what they’re asking for, [but] being stubborn in what we’re offering them. That’s why I think humor and sensitivity are more important than anything else.

TV KIDS: How big of a role can preschool programming play in not only entertaining but also educating?
PÉTRY: It’s huge. I’m a very strong believer in edutainment and educational programming. I grew up with Sesame Street, and I was fascinated by Sesame Street as a kid. I grew up in Boston from 4 to 10, so it was just the beginning of Sesame Street, and it was eye-opening for me. I still have the songs in my head.

I truly believe that kids love to learn. For them, it’s fun to learn. It’s definitely a game. When I look at my grandchildren, I can say, Hey, let’s play a game, and they’re immediately up for it. As long as it’s fun, learning is a game. It’s only when you start going to school and you have homework that it becomes [boring].

I cannot accept the fact that kids are watching TV just for entertainment. To me, it’s such a waste of time, energy and money [to make something] just to make them go crazy. There’s so much energy [being put into] the eyeballs watching a screen. You have to take advantage of that and feed them some takeaways. We have a project about yoga. The idea is to have comedy and intertwine yoga poses. When they have problems, they can resolve them with yoga poses. Almost all of the shows we’re developing have an educational component. It’s so important. Why do this job if you cannot feed in information?

TV KIDS: What are some themes you would like the preschool content you’re producing and distributing to tackle?
PÉTRY: There is one theme that we haven’t really been tackling yet that I think is really important. One of my projects is to think of how we could develop a show about resolving conflict. War in any sense of the word is everywhere. I’m not talking about Ukraine, but in any kind of playground, kids are fighting with each other. More important than learning math and geography is how to listen to each other, hear each other’s needs, hear each other’s wounds and why they’re there. [We have to] unplug the seeds of conflict. If kids start to learn that in animation, it can help them. [If] something [happens] that could build up into something huge, [they can] actually say, “OK, I get it. I understand. This is what we’re going to do.” I think it’s really crucial today to try to save humanity. It’s a bit ambitious, but that’s what I would like to do.

TV KIDS: How are you expanding diversity and inclusion in the preschool space, both on- and off-screen?
PÉTRY: It’s not a problem at all for girls for parity. I’m a female and I’m surrounded by females, so it’s something very natural for us to have girl leads and to have the same amount of girl and boy characters. I have to keep on reminding myself of other diversity: the color of skin, disabilities, non-binary [and other genders], etc. It’s not something natural for us, so we have to keep on reminding ourselves to bring in some diversity, and not in a cliché way. That’s the most difficult part. Not just, hey, let’s put a Black girl in there or let’s put a kid in a wheelchair. That’s like putting a sticker on. It has to be woven into the story. It’s definitely something to work on.

TV KIDS: How has the proliferation of global SVODs, AVODs and FAST channels that cater specifically to kids impacted the market? What kinds of programming are these types of platforms looking for?
PÉTRY: I think the companies that are only looking for profit, are on the stock market and are looking for more and more subscribers are looking for “McDonald’s food” programming. They’re looking for brands, action-adventure, sexy girls, because that’s what drives the audience. Then you have all the smaller ones that are really looking for quality and not quantity and are trying to bring tools to children. They’re looking for more original shows, shows that are more sophisticated.

When I see kids on trains at 3 years old watching YouTube and horrible shows, it breaks my heart. It works; their parents are just trying to be free and not hear the kids scream. It’s sad. I wish we could balance more and have more beautiful shows that are appetizing to kids. That’s really my goal: to make shows that are sophisticated for a wider audience.

The pubcasters, at least in Europe, are still fulfilling their role. In the U.S., it’s tough, but there are some platforms like Kidstream that are really trying to make beautiful shows and build their audiences slowly.

TV KIDS: Are there any digital extensions that you employ when developing and distributing preschool properties?
PÉTRY: I cannot give you the name yet, but we are about to sign a deal with a company that is creating specific YouTube channels with some of our brands and building brands from some of our shows. That’s going to be a really interesting experience in the coming year. They’ve chosen The Treehouse Stories and some of our [other] shows to build these franchises.

Usually we don’t have time to create digital. We distribute some shows that are not ours, like Royals Next Door, which is a really great show for older kids, 8 to 12. The producer in Spain, Pikkukala, and the director, Veronica [Lassenius], have been creating a lot of TikTok and YouTube bonuses. They’re doing really well; I mean, thousands of followers. We use them in our distribution and offer these tools to broadcasters. But they did that themselves because they had all the material, all the footage, and then she had lots of ideas. The producer supplies that. Same with Hungry Bear Tales. The Czech Republic producer has been supplying us with really cool recipes and webisodes attached to the series. When the producers give them to us, we’re really happy. But ourselves, we don’t really do that yet except with this new deal coming up.