Channel 5’s Milkshake! confirmed as the home of MixMups

Channel 5’s children’s strand, Milkshake!, has announced that it will be the broadcast home of MixMups, its first animated preschool series to feature disabled lead characters and to be made by a team with lived experience of disability.

Developed and produced with support from the UK Government funded Young Audiences Content Fund (YACF), which is managed by the BFI, and in collaboration with Raydar Media, the groundbreaking 52 x 10-minute stop-motion animated series for three- to five-year olds shines a light on different preschool play styles and the joy of mixing up objects and ideas to create stories.

The show’s premise is inspired by all children’s love of “mixing” and combining items as a way of playing, exploring and discovering, and centres around three loveable friends, the “MixMups”. Neat and tidy Pockets, creative and inventive Giggle, and boisterous and physical Spin, along with their lovable assistance pets, Roller Guinea and Yapette the guide dog, all live in a wheelchair-accessible Helter-Skelter house in “Mixington Valley”. Each episode sees the friends use their magical wooden spoon and mixing box to ‘Mix up the Magic’ of play and transport themselves on a host of comical adventures, where they embrace a variety of ways to play, entertain each other and embark upon day-to-day problem-solving challenges with the help of the trunky-beaked Lucky Loover Bird. Core themes include the joy of individuality, imagination, friendship and flexible thinking.

Now entering production, Milkshake! will premiere MixMups in March 2023.

MixMups was created by Rebecca Atkinson, the founder of the viral #ToyLikeMe campaign, which called for more diversity in children’s industries. The series will be produced by award-winning Manchester-based animation house Mackinnon & Saunders (Postman Pat, Raa Raa the Noisy Lion, Twirly Woos). The project initially received development support from the YACF and converted to a broadcaster commission with Milkshake! last year.

“We couldn’t be more thrilled that the wonderful MixMups, a show that celebrates individuality and the distinct play styles and personalities that preschoolers have, is joining the Milkshake! line-up,” says Louise Bucknole, Vice President, Children’s Programming, Paramount UK and Ireland. “It’s vital to us that our young audiences and their families see themselves reflected in our storytelling, so our cast of MixMups all have very different characters, and when they come together, magical things happen.

“It is also our first commission which from its very genesis, has been entirely inspired and created with the experiences of disabled children in mind. Working with Rebecca and a core production team that has lived experience of disability, we are confident we can bring a level of authenticity, understanding and commitment to the show, unlike any other.  We can’t wait for fans of Milkshake! to fall in love with the MixMups just as we have.”

Series creator, Rebecca Atkinson adds: “I am over the moon that MixMups will be joining Milkshake! It was my dream to create a compelling show that draws on my own experiences as a disabled person to create lovable characters and stories and really ‘mix’ up what disability representation looks like. As a child I loved mixing up potions, food, cake mix, paint, even toys in the bath!  I hope that MixMups will inspire a generation of preschoolers to reach for the nearest wooden spoon and ‘mix up the magic’ of play too.”

The agreement was brokered by Raydar Media on behalf of MixMups Entertainment Limited, a joint venture between Toy Like Me, Mackinnon & Saunders and Raydar Media. A global licensing and merchandising programme helmed by Valerie Fry at Raydar Media will roll out in 2023. Trade and consumer PR will be handled by Kirsty Barr of Grapevine PR on behalf of MixMups Entertainment Ltd.

Disability visibility: ToyLikeMe’s mission to change the children’s industry with MixMups

MixMups, the new stop-motion animated pre-school series created by #ToyLikeMe’s own Rebecca Atkinson comes with one mantra: There is always another way.

Currently in production under the expertise at Raydar Media and an extended ‘dream team’ comprising some of the kids’ entertainment space’s most influential names, MixMups is the animated embodiment of actual change.

Put into development in the midst of strict lockdown measures across the UK, Atkinson’s project is one that has taken to life amid a challenge to the status quo. Meetings are held remotely, schooling is being conducted in the home, and the talent behind the production of the series has found a way to make the concept animatic, all while practising social distancing.

On top of this, MixMups is on the precipice of a moment of great change. By placing disability at the very centre of its narrative, and visible within a mainstream pre-school TV show, it’s in Atkinson’s own words that “changing the children’s industries to make them more inclusive is possible.”

Aimed at three to five year olds, MixMups follows three friends, Pockets, Giggle, and Spin and their magic mixable dress-up box. With a wooden spoon they mix up the magic inside the box, and are transported on dress-up adventures. During these adventures they meet the Lucky Loover Bird, their guide and philosophiser of the message that ‘There is always another way.’

“There is always another way is something of a metaphor for disabled living,” Atkinson, the show’s creator and founder of the #ToyLikeMe movement, tells Licensing.biz. “Disabled people, and I include myself here, are expert problem solvers. Much of the time, having a disability is about working out other ways to do things. But the show’s mantra is also a universal message for all children about resilience and problem solving.”

Key to the show is that two of its characters have physical disabilities. Pockets is partially sighted and has a lazy, but dutiful, guide dog called Yappette, and Giggle is a wheelchair user who has an assistance guinea pig on tiny roller skates. Together, the MixMups live in a Helter Skelter home constructed with integrated wheelchair access with a lift, walkways, and automatic doors.

In MixMups, Atkinson has created a world accessible to children living with disabilities; one starkly different to that she – being partially sighted and partially deaf herself – grew up in.

“I am very inspired by the British seaside, but most rides are off limits to children with wheelchairs because design has excluded them,” she says. “I wanted to create a world for the MixMups that was designed to include everyone.”

Another major inspiration for MixMups is the phenomena of wheelchair fancy dress, which sees children with wheelchairs and their parents create large cardboard structures to transform their chairs into whatever their imagination can create, be it an ice cream van, a digger, a rocket, the potential is boundless.

“Fancy dress allows children to be anything they dream of, while the concept of MixMups allows these disabled characters to break out of any stereotypes,” Atkinson says. “They can be literally anything they choose. It’s all about play, fun, and possibility.”

MixMups is the culmination of five years of hard graft. In 2015, Atkinson established the #ToyLikeMe movement, a campaign to bring about better representation and inclusivity of disability within the children’s industry. Over the years, Atkinson has been instrumental in much of the change the toy and entertainment space has seen to date. Today we are beginning to see Barbie dolls with wheelchairs, others with cochlear implants, and play-sets embracing accessibility. MixMups is now Atkinsons chance to truly bring the message to the mainstream.

“I wanted to create a comical mainstream brand, bursting with fun and colour, which would be compelling to all children and which would translate with ease into consumer products,” she says.

“I wanted to move the aesthetics of disability on from tired stereotypes and create a playful brand which was unapologetic, and really welcomed and celebrated disabled children, while maintaining really strong mainstream commercial appeal.”

Atkinson makes no secret of the matter that MixMups was developed with toys, publishing, and consumer products in mind from the get-go. In fact, it’s something she wears with pride: the chance to bring a ground-breaking new brand that talks openly about disability – with it embedded in its DNA – to the mainstream, is exactly what her #ToyLikeMe campaign is all about.

“I wanted to truly fulfil the remit of the #ToyLikeMe campaign and see real consumer choice when it comes to disability representations,” she says. “The brand has play schemas embedded in the format and design. MixMups consumer products will be as innovative and creative as the show itself, so expect something quite extraordinary here too.”

Under the guidance of Valerie Fry, an expert in the field of licensing consumer products and the founder of FryDay Brands, MixMups is on a mission to find the kind of partners who understand and resonate the passion of MixMups and its goal of bringing change to the industry. Alongside this, Atkinson is looking to license the Loved By ToyLikeMe endorsement on all products, to help support awareness raising work of the campaign in schools.

Valerie Fry is one part of the ‘dream team’ that Atkinson has assembled around the MixMups brand and its mission statement. A cast of talented and experienced individuals, including Debbie MacDonald (former VP at Nickelodeon) as script editor, Alison Rayson (Raydar Media) as executive producer, Chris Bowden and Andy Burns at McKinnon and Saunder (who have worked on Postman Pat, Raa Raa, and Moon and Me) producing and directing, and with Karen Newell (formerly of Ragdoll) across children’s response testing, each have a first hand experience of living with disability. It’s given the team the ability to make that experience a central part of the series.

At the heart of it, MixMups comes with a real potential to not only change the lives of the some 150 million disabled children worldwide through better representation in the mainstream, but changing the face of the mainstream altogether.

“The little kid in me is hopping around on the ceiling to have reached this point,” says Atkinson. “I just love what I do. I’m very lucky to have the most incredible, creative problem-solving job I could wish for. I love the way that because disability is such uncharted waters in children’s industries, there is just so much creative potential to explore.”

#ToyLikeMe lands pre-school series MixMups to give disability better visibility on screen

A new pre-school, stop frame animated TV series that highlights the importance of giving disability better visibility on screen and in children’s entertainment and media is going into production.

Called MixMups, the series concept was devised and created by Rebecca Atkinson, founder of the viral #ToyLikeMe campaign that has been the catalyst for many changes in attitudes towards inclusivity and representation both in the toy space and the wider children’s entertainment sphere.

Atkinson is recognised as a forerunner in the disruption of the global toy industry with the #ToyLikeMe campaign, which has now helped to deliver inclusivity for 150 million disabled children worldwide. Her latest achievement for the movement sees Raydar Media join forces with Mackinnon & Saunders to bring the new pre-school series into production.

The exciting new series – developed with support from the BFI’s Young Audience Content Fund – sees Pockets, Giggle, and Spin transported from their Helter-Skelter home, through a Magic Box Dress-Up portal, to embark upon costume-filled, problem-solving adventures which address the day-to-day life experiences of children living with and without disability.

“In MixMups I wanted to create an innovative show and brand, bursting with fun, magic and play, which would bring disability representation into the mainstream in a way which has never been done before,” said Atkinson.

According to Raydar Media’s Alison Rayson, the “dream team” that Atkinson has assembled to work on the series is a particular feather in the cap for its production, with all involved having first hand experience of disability and the ability to make that experience a central part of the series.

“Debbie Macdonald who is also co-writer on MixMups brought Raydar into the team and I feel very blessed that she did. Having a son with Down Syndrome, I know first hand that MixMups is the opposite of a “tick box” series,” said Rayson.

“It’s a character driven, funny show that everyone will be able to enjoy. We wanted to show that all children play differently and that this is something to embrace – MixMups encapsulates the joy of individuality and demonstrates that “there is always another way to play”.

Mackinnon and Saunders, whose credits include work on global preschool brands such as The Twirlywoos, Postman Pat SDS and Raa Raa the Noisy Lion will produce the show from their Manchester based studio and workshop facilities.

“We fell in love with MixMups the moment we saw it and are delighted to be able to use our considerable experience in producing preschool programming to bring the show to life,” said studio co-founder, Peter Saunders. “MixMups is first and foremost a fun filled entertaining show about these three lovable, highly authentic and highly individual kids through who audiences around the world can experience all the comedy ups and downs of pre-schoolers at play but in this wonderful, magical world that Rebecca has created. It truly is a show for everyone.”

There are licensing plans afoot for the series, too and the team has enlisted the licensing expert, Valerie Fry, as part of the Radar Media team to oversee the development of a global consumer products programme in tandem with the television rights team.