American Film Market Dailies

Mini Pet Pals, the successful animated series co-produced by Italian pubcaster Rai and Gruppo Alcuni and directed by Sergio Manfio, landed in China.

The 104 episodes of the first two seasons, digitally animated in 2D (with option for the next 52) will be available from next November on several VOD platforms in the People's Republic of China, starting from Iqiyi, one of China's largest online video platforms (owned by Baidu, the most important search engine in China), thanks to an agreement with Beijing's JY Animation.

The Mandarin version was made directly in China while distributors chose to leave the opening theme song in Italian, to make Italian language known to Chinese children.

Conceived for preschoolers, Mini Pet Pals follows the same protagonists from the hit Pet Pals property (also from Treviso-based Alcuni and Rai, distributed in 137 countries worldwide) but at a younger age. Pio the frog still has the tail of a tadpole, Top Hat the rabbit still has braces on his teeth, Nameless the chick has just hatched, Diva is a cute and tiny duckling, Holly is a big-eyed kitten and Moby is a puppy smaller than a daisy.

The 6-minute episodes deal with the emotions and the daily discoveries of young children: joy, friendship, sadness, jealousy, fear, envy. It also focuses on the inventiveness and whims of children, who are well represented by the 6 characters.  Each episode takes place in a playground and ends in a lesson; the Mini Pet Pals are helped along by a wise grown-up tree that intervenes at the beginning and end of each episode, or whenever the youngsters need help or advice.

Season 2 is currently in production with lots of new, thrilling mini-discoveries.

In Italy the episodes are broadcast on Rai YoYo, the public channel aimed to younger audiences and their airing is currently scheduled in groups of 5 episodes. The series achieved excellent audience ratings since the very first days of programming last year, exceeding the 3% share, with over 490,000 viewers and with more than 25% audience among the children up to 7 years.