Amazon adds to kids’ originals

Amazon’s Tara Sorensen speaking at Content London

Amazon has commissioned two series for children, including a reboot of veteran producers Sid and Marty Krofft’s Sigmund & The Sea Monsters.

The live-action series is based on the classic Saturday-morning television series from the 1970s and follows the US streaming service signing a development deal with the pair last year.

The show centres on two brothers and a cousin who befriend a friendly young sea-monster that they must protect from an ambitious sea-monster hunter.

Amazon has also ordered an animated adaptation of the children’s book series Bug Diaries, which follows a comic trio of slimy, crawly and buzzy bug friends whose tiny world offers up huge adventures.

Tara Sorensen, head of kids’ programming at Amazon Studios, said the preschool comedy would highlight “important life lessons” for the service’s young viewers.

Sigmund & The Sea Monsters, meanwhile, has a “strong message of friendship,” Sorensen added.

The commissions follow Sorensen’s appearance at C21’s Content London yesterday, where the exec railed against “lean back” children’s programming, saying she wanted shows that “impact” viewers’ lives.