When it comes to Pixar franchises, Cars is usually seen as one of their weaker ones since it’s often seen as less ambitious and emotional compared to their other ones. However, it’s incredibly profitable due to how much kids love it. As for my thoughts on the franchise, it’s a weaker Pixar franchise, but I still get some enjoyment from it. Cars 1 is alright. Cars 2 is alright is if you see it less like a sequel, and more like a Mater spinoff. Cars 3 is genuinely good. As such, one would probably wonder why the upcoming series, Cars: Lightning Racers, is being made for Disney Junior. Well, I think it makes sense for the show to be made for Disney Junior. Why is that? Well, let me explain why as I also talk about trends in preschool shows based on movies, and how this series could follow them. It’s fitting to do this in June since the original movie is now 20 years old. Spoilers will be ahead.
1. Why Make The Show For Disney Junior
I did kind of spoil the answer, but I think it’s important to elaborate why the franchise is popular with kids. It makes the idea of this being a Disney Junior show make sense. The biggest shows that sell a lot of merchandise, especially ones based on established franchises, are the ones that really appeal to little kids. The Cars franchise is no exception. The movies do solid numbers at the box office, but absolutely dominate when it comes to merchandise. By the time Cars 2 came out in 2011, the franchise made 10 billion dollars in merchandise. From a financial standpoint, making the show for Disney Junior makes sense since you can get the biggest audience, kids, hooked onto the franchise early on, and give them tons of merchandise to play with.
From a quality standpoint, it makes sense for Pixar to let the people at Disney Junior and Disney Television Animation make the show. A thing people don’t always get is that, unlike most movies that become TV shows through their television division, Pixar is still involved with the series. They may not be making it, but they still have final say over everything to make sure that the people at Disney Junior and Disney Television Animation still obey the world of Radiator Springs. It’s similar to how Marvel Studios has ultimate authority over the Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur TV show. They give the people at Disney Television Animation creative freedom to do just about anything, but also make sure to not contradict whatever plans they have for anything related to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They basically act as consultants. Buzz Lightyear Of Star Command has Toy Story storyboard artist Jeff Pidgeon as a consultant. Monsters At Work had Pete Docter, Kelsey Mann, and Bob Peterson, who worked on different projects in the franchise, looking over scripts. This series will most likely have Jay Ward, the creative director of the Cars franchise, as a consultant. Even if Pixar is just lightly involved with a project aimed at a younger audience then the projects they directly make themselves, they still want to have enough creative input to maintain the spirit of the franchise.
2. The All Star Team
What makes me confident in the show being successful is the people making it. The series is executive produced by Travis Braun and Frank Montagna, which is a pretty good combination. Travis Braun previously created fellow Disney Junior shows TOTS and Pupstruction, both produced by Titmouse. Unlike most preschool shows, which mainly have a story editor, regular writers, and freelance writers, his shows had dedicated writers rooms due to having at least 2 staff writers per season. This helps to ensure a consistent voice across the series. He also has a “story by” credit for 1 episode of Monsters At Work, and thus has some insight into how Disney Television Animation makes a show based on a Pixar franchise. I appreciate Travis’s method of breaking down gender norms with his shows, something that’s more comfortable territory for preschool shows since they’re quiet but confident about it. TOTS is a show starring young boys taking part in a job involving a stereotypically female profession, caretaking, and has this be seen as a strength. Female characters like KC The Koala and Captain Beakman are treated as professionals alongside them regardless of age. He would later make Pupstruction, which flips things around in a good way by taking a stereotypically male activity, construction work, but has 2 boys and 2 girls be the main characters. The company is run by Phinny’s mother Maya while his father Harry is comfortable basically acting as the domestic caretaker. I’m confident about Cars: Lightning Racers being good since it seems to take cues from both shows, taking a stereotypically masculine activity, racing, but has its two leads be a girl and a boy. You can also see a bit of this in Goldie And Bear, a show he briefly wrote on, which also focuses on a female and male duo, but also does the rare thing with these duos by not being afraid to lean into the female character’s flaws more. We can certainly expect good storytelling from the new leads.
Frank Montagna is no stranger to Disney Junior since he served as art director for The 7D (which is a Disney XD show, but it originally started development at Disney Junior), Elena Of Avalor, and Alice’s Wonderland Bakery, as well as serving as co-executive producer on the latter. He also served as an animator at Walt Disney Animation Studios on movies like Mulan and Tarzan. He can certainly bring visual flare to the show. Much like Travis Braun, the shows I mentioned are quite good at subverting what we expect from them. The 7D is executive produced by Tom Ruegger and Mr. Tom Warburton, and thus carries the strengths of shows like Animaniacs and Codename: Kids Next Doors, like the bouncy animation, humor, and absurd stories, which he brings to life well. I mean, female characters like Queen Delightful and Hildy Gloom are just as funny as the guys, which is helped by Animaniacs writers Deanna Oliver and Sherri Stoner being story editors. Elena Of Avalor is a pretty serious show, but still has enough Disney Junior charm to make these moments feel authentic, whether it’s for serious moments or happy moments. Much like other preschool shows involving princesses, the integration of the royal character Elena with her non-royal friends is seen as a strength. Alice’s Wonderland Bakery continues this by having Alice be a young girl that runs a business, yet she still retains her sweetness and humility by working with royal and non-royal people that she sees as friends. The bouncy animation is a plus.
The story editor for the series is Dana Starfield. She’s written freelance for various shows like Sofia The First and Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures, but she developed the DreamWorks preschool show Madagascar: A Little Wild. While that show had freelance writers like Maria Escobedo and regular writers like Dave Polsky, both Roxy Simons and Laura Zak were staff writers. Even though that show was explicitly non canon to the movies, she still had a writers room to ensure that the show’s voice was consistent. I feel like something that isn’t talked about enough is the idea of having a woman tackle a story starring male characters or create a project based on a franchise traditionally seen as more male focused or male dominant. Usually you see the opposite, a female starring story with a male creator. Both have their own strengths when properly developed. In the case of female creators/story editors tackling something more male focused, it’s being able to lean into the funny bone or something more serious while not afraid to be more sensitive regardless of gender. Dana mastered that kind of storytelling with Madagascar: A Little Wild, and she can bring that quality writing to this show. Like, the first episode of the series, “The Bear Necessities”, is about Marty being determined to return a teddy bear to a young boy. Such a simple premise has a sweet characterization of Marty mixed with a fun sneaky adventure.
Finally, there’s supervising director Nathan Chew. He has plenty of Disney Junior experience since he previously served as an episodic director for Elena Of Avalor and supervising director for Alice’s Wonderland Bakery, which both excelled at their respective types of stories and characters, as mentioned above. He was also an episodic director on Transformers Rescue Bots, which is pretty huge since it’s the first Transformers show co-created by a woman, Nicole Dubuc. She helped frame rescue work as something legitimate and admirable regardless of gender, and had added some good sensibility that he helped bring to life. It doesn’t have the usual Autobot/Decepticon conflict that most other shows have, but it still had a strong enough heart to become the longest running Transformers show. He can bring that level of quality to here.
3. Animation
A question I’ve heard from people is why Pixar can’t just directly make a Cars TV show that’s 20-25 episodes a season. Why let Disney Television Animation handle it? Well, it’s basically impossible for Pixar to make a TV show season of that length with feature quality animation. Major studios like Pixar, Walt Disney Animation Studios, DreamWorks, Sony Pictures Animation, and more have specific styles of animation that are pretty impressive, but take a very long time to make look good, and thus cost a lot of money. A typical theatrical animated movie spends 4-5 years in development at most. You can’t exactly get that kind of feature animation on a TV budget since they have smaller budgets and shorter deadlines to make 20+ episodes per season, and thus require more speed in order to keep up with demands from the studios. This usually means cutting out or downplaying certain visual elements seen in the movies. When you have the main studios make projects that aren’t movies, like shorts and TV specials, it’s easier for them to maintain feature level animation, or at least less difficult, since they’re small side projects usually done by people who work on the movies, but not the main writers and directors. In fact, when you look at the shows that Pixar directly makes, it’s either a series of shorts (like Cars Toons and Cars On The Road) or they’re basically miniseries if they’re regular length episodes (like Dream Productions and Win Or Lose). That’s why there’s usually dedicated television divisions devoted to making shows based on the movies. They have the skills needed to make 20 plus episodes on a budget and short timeframe.
TV shows based on movies, especially recent movies, are always going to be a visual downgrade from the source material simply because they don’t have the time and resources to match them. We can see this in the preview image released in April, where Lightning and Mater look much simpler and cuter compared to the movies. Even if this wasn’t a Disney Junior show, the designs for the established characters would have less detail compared to the movies. It’s not always a bad thing though. If you get a good animation studio, and give them the time and resources needed to make a good looking show, you can overcome this. In fact, I’m confident that the show will look good because of the animation studio attached, Icon Creative Studio. They’re a Canadian CGI animation studio that are known for their work on television. They’ve been animating Disney Junior shows for over a decade, such as Goldie And Bear, Elena Of Avalor, TOTS, The Rocketeer, Alice’s Wonderland Bakery, Firebuds, Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures, Ariel: The Little Mermaid, Minnie’s Bow Toons: Pet Hotel, and Sofia The First: Royal Magic. The thing these shows have in common is with how they can show really expressive animation and smooth action. While they do often reuse models and assets from their other shows, they have enough visual flare to make them stand out. Of course, they aren’t only known for Disney Junior shows. They also worked on the Monsters Inc sequel series Monsters At Work. Pixar is definitely being smart here by hiring an animation studio that already worked on a show based on one of their franchises to animate this show.
4. Voice Cast
One thing that definitely stood out to most people is the voice cast. A lot of the voice actors from the movies are returning, most notably Owen Wilson and Larry The Cable Guy as Lightning McQueen and Mater. That’s definitely quite impressive. When you think about most TV shows based on movies, it’s rare for the original actors to come back. They’re usually replaced by professional voice actors or actors that are somewhat big, but don’t require huge paychecks to keep onboard. This is definitely the Pixar influence shining through. It may be a preschool show based on one of their franchises, but it’s still being treated with a good deal of care put into it with this kind of casting. Of course, the reason they’re probably going with the movie actors is because of how they’re not the main characters here. I’ll talk more about in the final entry, but just know that it would be less expensive to keep the movie actors if they’re only being paid to play their roles as supporting characters.
One thing that isn’t talked about enough is the voice actors for the new characters created for the show. The show’s main leads, Pipes and Miles, are voiced by Leah Lewis and Yuri Lowenthal. That’s definitely some star power. While Leah Lewis is mainly known for live action, she’s built a good voice acting resume recently. She’s best known for voicing Ember in the Pixar movie Elemental, thus adding to the legitimacy of the series by being part of another Pixar franchise. She also voices Batgirl in Batwheels, another preschool show starring talking vehicles that’s also based on an established franchise. She’d definitely do well here. Yuri Lowenthal is basically voice acting royalty with all the franchises he’s been part of, like Ben 10, Spiderman, Superman, He Man, and much more. The thing I find most interesting is that we have lead characters in a preschool show voiced by adults, something you don’t see too often since there’s usually a push for child actors. That’ll definitely help in giving the show some edge performance wise. We have another character named Ms. Blinker, who’s voiced by Sheryl Lee Ralph. She’s mainly known for live action, but also has voice acting, like Ms. Joyce in Weather Hunters. I can definitely commend the voice acting here. It’s not about getting famous voices. It’s about getting the right kind of voice for a character regardless of whether they’re played by a veteran voice actor, a newcomer, or an A List star.
5. The Way Preschool Shows Based On Movies Function
The next thing to talk about is how preschool shows based on movies operate. For the most part, they fall into one of these two camps, the alternate continuity and the shifted perspective followup. Let me explain.
One of the more common kind of preschool shows based on movies is to make it an alternate continuity. You have a show that takes the characters, and keeps them mostly the same, but places them in a story and setting that can’t exactly be canon to the original movie. A good example comes from the 2024 series Ariel: The Little Mermaid, which stars Ariel as a young girl, and keeps her mostly the same in terms of personality, but also takes clear creative liberties with the franchise. Notably, it makes her the niece to Ursula, and makes her good as if it’s a regular thing. Another example comes from Playdate With Winnie The Pooh. Admittedly, Winnie The Pooh is a franchise Disney often markets to really young kids, but it’s definitely the case here given how this show presents the characters as kids, makes Rabbit a girl, and has them all live in what’s basically a playground. More examples can come from DreamWorks Television Animation. You have Dragons: Rescue Riders and Madagascar: A Little Wild. The former show technically takes place in the How To Train Your Dragon world, but it focuses on siblings Dak and Leyla, and makes the dragons talk (though only they understand them). The latter show focuses on Alex, Marty, Gloria, and Melman as kids, but changes up some of the personalities, and has them frequently go on adventures outside the zoo. The people working on the show even said that it’s not canon to the movie franchise. It’s worth noting that the idea of alternate continuity movie cartoons isn’t only a preschool thing given how shows like Hercules: The Animated Series and The Penguins Of Madagascar are also in their own continuities. Even some more recent shows like Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight fall into this. It’s just that they’re more easy to get into for a preschool audience since connecting to the movies isn’t usually a priority.
Probably the more popular format is, as mentioned, the shifted perspective followup. This is a project that is technically a continuation, but we focus on different characters while the original characters are in supporting roles. This is actually pretty popular for Disney Junior given how they’ve done it quite a bit. Jake And The Neverland Pirates is a followup to Peter Pan, but the focus is on Jake, Izzy, Cubby, and Skully. Hook and Smee are still a constant presence, but Peter only shows up a few times, mainly specials. The Lion Guard takes place after The Lion King, and within a specific timeframe of The Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride, but we focus on Simba’s son Kion. Original movie characters like Simba, Nala, Timon, Pumbaa, and more are only recurring characters. The Rocketeer is a followup to the 1990s movie of the same name, but focuses on Cliff Secord’s great granddaughter Kit Secord. Alice’s Wonderland Bakery takes place after Alice In Wonderland, but this Alice is the great granddaughter of Alice from the movies. The only movie character to regularly appear in the series is the Cheshire Cat. Cars: Lightning Racers shifting the perspective to Pipes and Miles while keeping Cars characters in supporting roles makes sense since it’s following what other Disney Junior shows have done. If you need more convincing, just look at Monsters At Work. It’s not a preschool show, but it follows the same template since the Monsters Inc characters were supporting characters while Tyler Tuskmon and other new characters take the spotlight. Pixar let Disney Television Animation do it before, and they’ll do it again.
6. A School Setting?
One thing that stands out is the announcement of the character Ms. Blinker. Of the characters made for the show that were announced so far, she seems to be the only one with some kind of authority. She could be a teacher of sorts to Pipes and Miles given her name. If that is the case, then this makes even more sense to make the show for Disney Junior. A very common thing with preschool shows, especially ones animated by Icon Creative Studio, is that there’s some kind of emphasis on school or another educational setting. You see this with many of their Disney Junior shows. Isabel Flores from Elena Of Avalor is the youngest of the show’s main characters, and thus usually gets the more child centric stories involving school. Notably, her first focus episode is “Crystal In The Rough”, which shows her struggles in adjusting to regular school. The season 2 finale of TOTS sets up the TOTS Nursery School, which is the focus for some season 3 episodes. Alice’s Wonderland Bakery has Alice open a baking school during the last few episodes of season 2. Firebuds has Gearbox Grove Elementary pop up from time to time. Notably, the season 1 episode “Shelter Island/Escape From Shelter Island” has the Firebuds become town celebrities when they save the town from a flood. The episode that explores this story is the episode after this, “The Super Safety Show/Job-A-Rama Day”, which takes place at school. While Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures has adventures outside the temple, the description for the series talking about the lessons they learn highlights how this series is about the education of a Jedi. You see this with how Padawans are written to be like mentors that function as older siblings. Sofia The First: Royal Magic definitely shows this given how Sofia goes to magic school here. Even outside of Disney Junior, the preschool shows that Icon Creative Studio does, notably Action Pack and Super Monsters, the latter being a show they directly produced, take place at school. That’s not to say that school shows are only a preschool thing. Shows like Winx Club, DC Superhero Girls 2015, Big Nate, and Unicorn Academy are proof of this. I’m saying that leaning into a more lesson focused, aspirational curriculum is common for school based preschool shows, which would make sense for this show.
7. The Canonicity?
The final thing to bring up is the idea of the show being schrödinger’s canon. What is schrödinger’s canon? Let me explain. It’s basically a continuation that is simultaneously canon and non canon to the source material. An example would be the comics based on My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Series director Jim Miller said how the comics can be considered canon to the show, but the show is considered the main canon regardless of what the comics do. You see this with the main villain for the season 3 premiere, King Sombra, who’s basically an evil unicorn. He’s given more depth and backstory in the comics, even pulling a heel face turn. When he returns in the season 9 premiere though, he’s still as villainous as he was in the season 3 premiere since the writers didn’t know anything about the later comics. This mentality can also apply to Cars: Lightning Racers. It’s a continuation of the Cars franchise that’s technically canon, but if Pixar decided to make a Cars 4 in the future themselves, they can retcon the show since they didn’t directly make it. This can be a double edged sword since it would make it seem like the show is inconsequential in the grand scheme of the Cars franchise, but it could work. Season 3 of The Lion Guard has Kion and his friends journey to the Tree Of Life due to what happened in the season premiere, thus explaining why they weren’t around during the events of the second movie. A possible finale for Cars: Lightning Racers could be Pipes and Miles graduating or something, and they’d leave Radiator Springs. If Pixar makes Cars 4, ignoring the TV show makes sense since they don’t need to bring them up.
And that’s all I have. What do you think?
