EXCLUSIVE: “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose,” goes the well-known Dr. Seuss chorus – and the late creator’s universe of characters are steering instantly in the direction of YouTube.
Dr. Seuss Enterprises is in the present day launching Seuss Circle Time, an eight-part YouTube summer time takeover sequence that helps early studying via storytelling, singing, dancing and interactive play. This is a part of a significant funding into the corporate’s YouTube channel following a large spike in viewership.
The present will likely be hosted by presenters Ziggy and Tizzie and Dr. Seuss’ characters, with every 30-minute episode that includes music, video games and studying actions in imaginative settings such because the Circle Time House and Truffula Forest, earlier than hour-long episodes start in September.
The sequence comes after the Dr. Seuss YouTube channel relaunched with new funding in July 2024, resulting in subscriber development of 1,084% and viewing up 998%, in line with its personal evaluation.
Currently the channel has 476,000 subs, with the content material aimed toward youngsters aged 3-7 and their mother and father and educators. It’s one other instance of how the Google-owned platform is more and more dominating TV viewing hours amongst households and appearing the principle platform for a lot of international manufacturers. In an unique interview under, Susan Brandt, President and CEO at Dr. Seuss Enterprises, referred to as the platform “a top company priority.”
To additional the purpose, Dr. Seuss Enterprises has prolonged its current pact with All3Media-owned Little Dot Studios, which has produced two extra sequence, Crafty Fun with The Cat within the Hat and Learn to Draw Dr Seuss Babies. Little Dot, whose personal fame as a key participant within the YouTube ecosystem is burgeoning, will proceed to handle the channel with Dr. Seuss, and can work with Electric Studios, which is a part of Electric Theatre Collective, on the animation.
Little Dot has already made a number of reveals for the channel, together with Learn to Read with Dr. Seuss Babies, The Lorax’s Nature Keeper’s Club, The Cat within the Hat’s Quirky Quiz and Draw Your Dream Pet.
“As we think about where to bring the iconic IP of Dr. Seuss, we are always looking at where the next generation of fans are spending their time,” mentioned Brandt.
“With so much family co-viewing happening on YouTube, we felt it was important to take a deliberate approach to building out our channel with high quality, entertaining content. In collaboration with Little Dot Studios, we have been able to quickly, and successfully, scale this destination into a hub that lets millions of fans delight in the iconic Dr. Seuss characters they love on a daily basis.”
James Loveridge, Co-Managing Director – Agency at Little Dot Studios, added: “With our deep understanding of YouTube and children’s media, we’re proud to help grow the brand’s legacy by reaching families across the U.S. and beyond. Dr. Seuss characters are already so beloved, and we are confident that audiences are going to relish viewing their favourite characters in new and interesting ways.”
Dr. Seuss Enterprises was launched in 1993 to advertise and shield the literary and inventive works of Dr. Seuss (actual identify Theodor Seuss Geisel), who wrote and illustrated a sequence of whimsical tales that embody a number of the hottest youngsters’s books ever written with lots of of hundreds of thousands of gross sales. His tales have been tailored as TV sequence and films quite a few instances, with Seuss profitable two Primetime Emmys throughout his lifetime.
Jim Carrey starred as The Grinch in a 2000 Ron Howard film, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and the story was later tailored as an animation by Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment as The Grinch in 2018. The animated movie stays the highest-grossing Christmas film of all-time. Illumination additionally tailored The Lorax as a function movie in 2012.
The Dr. Seuss model has a packed schedule developing, with a function movie in growth with Warner Animation Group, two sequence and a particular at Netflix, and several other podcast sequence with Wondery. Aanimated function The Cat within the Hat is scheduled for theatrical launch in February 2026.
We sat down with Dr. Seuss Enterprises boss Brandt and Joie Yale, the corporate’s Entertainment Manager, to dive deeper into its YouTube plan.
DEADLINE: How would you finest describe the extent of funding into this YouTube program pillar, and your total stage of funding into video content material for Dr. Seuss?
Susan Brand: We acknowledge that households with younger youngsters are more and more co-viewing on YouTube and we perceive how vital the channel is for model constructing and long-term engagement. As such, we’ve prioritized YouTube content material creation making it a high firm precedence. This means we considerably elevated our monetary funding as a way to develop a sturdy and dynamic library of content material. Our purpose is to determine the channel as a number one vacation spot for youngsters’s leisure which is aligned with our mission at Dr. Seuss to teach and entertain generations world wide via all mediums.
What kinds of content material are working finest on your YouTube viewers?
Joie Yale: We deal with three core content material classes: Reading Reimagined, Wondrous Wonderings, and Curious Creations when growing with our content material for our YouTube viewers. These classes information our content material technique and permit us to ship a balanced mixture of literary programming, exploration of the world round us, and imaginative, artistic experiences. For our core viewers of ages 4 to six we acknowledge that particularly vivid, dynamic visuals, themes of nature and animals, and acquainted characters resembling The Lorax or The Cat within the Hat have carried out very effectively. The mission that we’re most enthusiastic about proper now’s Seuss Circle Time, a brand-new YouTube unique sequence that includes live-action expertise that brings collectively all three content material territories in a single present. It’s a robust instance of how we’re increasing the world of Dr. Seuss on YouTube via segments that each educate and entertain.
DEADLINE: How robust is the notice of the Dr. Seuss tales amongst new mother and father and their youngsters?
SB: Dr. Seuss has nearly 100% consciousness within the United States amongst new mother and father. We are a generational property, with one technology passing their love of our characters and tales right down to the following technology. Our problem is to make sure every technology has the chance to interact with our tales, characters and life classes.
DEADLINE: Does the YouTube channel assist deliver youngsters to the Dr Seuss e-book tales?
SB: Our technique has at all times been to leverage new content material extensions as entry factors for the model and as a chance to construct lifelong followers. Given the period of time that younger households spend collectively on YouTube, we noticed it as a chance for fogeys to introduce their favourite childhood books and characters to their youngsters, to share their love of Dr. Seuss with their children. It was not misplaced on us that probably the most looked for Dr. Seuss immediate on YouTube is e-book readings. We wished to provide our followers what they’re already on the lookout for, new and pleasant methods to interact with our traditional tales. Not surprisingly our animated Storytime episodes are certainly one of our hottest sequence so far. We are at all times on the lookout for artistic methods to deliver our unique books to life.
DEADLINE: What did Little Dot counsel you do to maximise the efficiency of the channel?
JY: The crew at Little Dot are consultants in youngsters’s content material creation and channel administration. We leveraged their experience and, collectively, explored a spread of content material codecs to serve totally different viewers wants, together with storytelling and artistic play in addition to early studying and nature-based exploration. Together we developed a strategic programming combine that features full episodes, shorts, compilations, marathons and seasonal content material. This strategy permits us to persistently attain households with participating content material that resonates and performs effectively throughout numerous viewing habits.
DEADLINE: Do you’ve gotten some other TV or movie tasks in growth?
SB: We are thrilled that our new content material and strategy are resonating with our followers. We are dedicated to persevering with our vital funding and constructing on the momentum from the previous 11 months throughout which our subscribership elevated by 1,000%. At the identical time, we’re at all times broadening our leisure portfolio and have a number of thrilling tasks on the horizon together with three new movies with Warner Animation Group, two sequence and a particular with Netflix, and a number of podcast sequence with Wondery at Amazon. We are notably enthusiastic about our upcoming animated function, The Cat within the Hat, scheduled for theatrical launch in February 2026.