“Bloui”
One of the most notable preschool hits of recent years is a modest and cute Australian series about a family of dogs. Although it is intended first and foremost for a very young audience, along the way it also won the hearts of parents who were tired of “Sammy the Fireman” and “Adventure Bay”. The episodes are short (8 minutes per piece) and the plot is minimal – Bloi plays with friends and with her sister and parents, all humanized and colorful dogs.
“Bloui” is particularly addictive for several reasons. First of all, she is visually charming, with accurate body language and expressions, detailed backgrounds and happy but not too busy colors. Besides, the series is committed to the child’s point of view. The “drama” often comes in games that get out of control and everyone talks and behaves like real parents and children and the feeling is that we are watching a nice afternoon of a normal family (as if, of dogs). The girls try to be smart and work on the parents, they always look a little exhausted, but in the end they are having fun with every game or joke.
Disney Plus or Disney Junior Channel (HOT/Yes/Cellcom TV)
“Baymax!”
The Disney movie “Six Heroes” introduced Baymax into our lives, a robot-doctor with a cute and sticky design. He recently got his own series on Disney Plus, to call it sweet would be an understatement – it’s the television equivalent of a cup of chocolate with a hot cookie on the side. The plot is simple: in each episode, Baymax helps another person deal with some medical condition, be it an elderly woman with a bad back, a food truck salesman who develops an allergy to fish or a girl who got her period for the first time.
Baymax’s charm, in the series and in the original movie, is the combination of professionalism, empathy and being a big, clumsy balloon. He has a lot of good intentions but also a lot of “robotic” characteristics that prevent him from understanding how people behave and why his patients don’t always flow with the advice he gives. Besides, he tends to drop things and do damage by accident, a characteristic that children tend to like very much. The series makes excellent use of all of the above and adds beautiful animation and a heartwarming atmosphere, the kind that makes the viewer want to jump in and join life in the charming and imaginary city.
Disney Plus
Cuphead
The animated series based on the surprisingly difficult game is part of a long tradition of screwy children’s series. Ones that are not afraid to touch even the dark, ugly and disturbing, but are ultimately aimed at a target audience of children. The extreme example is of course “Ren and Stimpy”, but you can also count “Real Monsters”, “Tom and Jerry”, “Zim the Intruder”, “Brave the Cowardly Dog” and even “SpongeBob”.
Cuphead and Magman are two cute brothers with mugs as heads, who live with an old jug-grandpa. Cuphead is reckless and brash, Eggman is responsible and stressed, and together they get into stupid and messed up trouble. Say, losing Cuphead’s soul to the devil in a carnival game (which is also the plot of the first game), or sneaking into a shady club on a boat and causing it to sink. It’s probably not content for kids, but if you have a teenager or pre-teen who is already slamming doors and answering sarcastically, he’ll probably enjoy it.
Netflix
My nephew Benz
This comedy is an addictive brilliance from the educational house, which is also suitable for adult viewers who do not have children around. Yoni, an idealistic high school teacher, signs a deal with the devil – he will pass his son, Benzifar (Uri Vared), through his high school diplomas, and the devil in return will get him a job as a manager. Benzifer is not that interested in studies and uses his magical powers to trick, cheat, take shortcuts and make messes. His girlfriend Neta (Noa Cohen) serves as his conscience and teaches him to behave like a human boy, and there is also a goth girlfriend, a rich bully with an obsession with Instagram and a European boy who is stuck in Israel under mysterious circumstances.
If all of this still doesn’t sound like something that justifies your time, get a taste of the cast – Maor Cohen as Satan, Daniel Koren as Yoni the teacher, Usherit Sarosi and Gigit Fischer as the vice principal and principal of the school, Avi Greinik as an almost mute servant. What’s more, there is a guest appearance by Tomer Sharon in the role of Haman.
Here is educational
the owl house
If the name of this series is familiar to you but you have no idea where it came from, you may have come across Shipstorm that arose around it as a children’s series – and another Disney one! – with LGBTQ characters. Indeed, the series has an extensive and joyful queer representation, but that is certainly not the only thing about it that is unusual. “The Owl House” is a fantasy and horror comedy with a visual style that draws inspiration, among others, from artists such as Hieronymus Bush.
The heroine Luz is a Weirdo who stresses everyone out at school with epic stories and scary characters. On the way to a summer camp that is supposed to make her more normal, she accidentally arrives in a magical but also threatening world, and there she immediately connects with outsiders – and especially with the cheeky witch Eda and her cute elf King. She begins to learn magic and deals with the strange and stressful world she has arrived at. Two seasons have already been broadcast and the third, which will include 3 specials to conclude the series, is already on its way. Recommended for boys and girls who love fantasy and for adults who grew up on The Craft.
Disney Plus, Disney Channel (HOT/Yes/Cellcom TV)
the ghost city
Want to raise children with Edge? Watch this great series with them and hope for the best. City of Ghosts, which combines animation with real footage, follows a group of curious children who investigate supernatural phenomena around Los Angeles. It’s not as macabre as it sounds – it’s about friendly and cute spirits who don’t want to harm anyone. The ghosts are just an excuse to tell interesting stories, which are based on real interviews with fully alive people, mostly from marginalized cultures. There are skaters, punks, theater and art people and even a nice chapter on the indigenous history of the area.
The series has won numerous awards and praises and is bursting with originality, beauty and charm. Creator Elizabeth Ito said that the series is “not for a certain age but for a certain type of people”, that is, sensitive and thoughtful children with patience for relatively slow and quiet content (who also speak English). At the moment there are only 6 episodes, but technically the series has not been officially canceled – somehow, despite a lot of praise and awards, Netflix did not rush to renew it and made the creator, sorry for that, Ghosting.
Netflix
the girl
A spectacularly beautiful adaptation of a graphic novel by Luke Pearson, which itself draws inspiration from Scandinavian folklore. The series, which boasts stylish 2D animation, a soundtrack by Grimes and a host of cool-looking fantastical creatures, is totally worth watching even for those who aren’t even a quarter child.
The girl (Bella Ramsay, Yaanu Liana Mormont from “Game of Thrones”) lives in the middle of nowhere with her mother and a fox named Twig. Although there is a creature made of wood that freely enters her home, a giant that pops up every night in the yard and a huge and hostile kingdom of thousands of tiny ones in the yard, but who cares, life is beautiful. Until one day the girl’s mother finally decides to move to the city and she has to go to school, meet other kids and other such disgusting things. The move to the city does not calm her down, and together with her friend the tiny elf Alfur and two new friends she continues to go on adventures and fight for magical creatures.
Netflix
the dragon prince
Everyone lived in peace and harmony in the fantastic world where elements of nature turn into magical powers, until someone’s lust for power led to a bloody war and ongoing enmity between the members of different kingdoms. If it sounds like “Avatar: The Last Airbender” to you, it’s not by mistake – the creator of this series, which automatically returns for a fourth season, was also the main writer of the aforementioned masterpiece. Here, too, the complicated plot contains a lot of complex and difficult things, but remains fun enough and engrossing for the whole family to be glued to the screen.
Everything you could want from an epic fantasy series is here – intrigue! Political struggles! Elves that look like the Targaryen family! Beautiful dragons! Round and deep figures! Really good animation! And of course, a board game inspired by the series that will take you fifteen minutes just to understand its rules!
Netflix
The greens in the big city
The Green family is forced to leave their farm and move to the city with their grandmother. Life in the stressful and noisy city is not easy for a family that is used to the quiet village life, and the city residents are not exactly in a hurry to accept these weirdos into their ranks either. Basically, we already know the procedure, but this cartoon comedy takes all the city mouse-country mouse clichés to the extreme, including a lot of winks for adults (parody episode of “Black Mirror”, anyone?).
There are many things to be said for this comedy. Let’s say, the fact that she is crazy in a good part, very funny and coolly drawn, but what finally decided in her favor was actually the dubbing in Hebrew. Somehow funny voices in standard Hebrew sound better than the generic hillbilly-southern accent of the original.
Disney Plus, Disney Channel (HOT/Yes/Cellcom TV)
Wolfboy and the Everything Factory
This series fell completely under the radar when it came out last September, but it’s worth giving it a chance if only for its spectacular aesthetic. It looks like a children’s book come to life, with amazing backgrounds and sweet characters that come to hug.
The story is simple and not told in a standard way – an innocent child with a developed imagination escapes from bullies and reaches another world, where magical creatures create everything in the world – clouds, elements of nature, memories, etc. In this new world the child discovers that being strange is actually a great thing, because the strange and the dreamers are the ones who change the world. The uniqueness comes, as mentioned, from the amazing visual aspect, but also from the charming characterization of Wolfboy – a relatively rare presentation of a boy whose strength comes precisely from the gentleness, acceptance and love he gives to others.
Apple TV