Mickey's going to be getting a new preschool series in 2017 called Mickey and the Roadster Racers, which I'm worried about. Hopefully it won't be a Dora clone like the last series, and that it won't succeed the shorts aimed at older kids. And at least the animation looks better with Mickey's ears always facing the screen.
I have more faith in Disney with their preschool shows. Seems they've completely turned that dreadful corner of MMC and My Friends Tigger and Pooh (which was frankly,
worse considering) with Miles from Tomorrowland, Doc McStuffins, and that cowboy series among others. Nick Jr still
frustratingly forces the Dora model in some of its shows, and it's a shame because some of them actually aren't bad. I'm very disappointed that the thing about Mer-children does it as does the Monster Truck thing (caught a minute or two of them... Guy who played Uncle Ted in Bobby's World plays a fish in the mer-kid one). They're otherwise kinda cute and fun. Seems that Nick's the
only company that even bothers with that anymore since even PBS shows dropped it with Super Why just hanging around somehow.
I wish Disney didn't market Mickey as a preschool icon, oh well.
You wanna know the sad thing about Mickey Clubhouse? It brought Mickey back into the mainstream after
years of relentless Pooh marketing. And it even took some fairly obscure characters with him like Clarabelle Cow and Ludwig VonDrake, even giving them some of their first physical merchandise in some cases. And sadly, in a way greater (pejoratively, not quality wise) than House of Mouse did. I HATED that show didn't air in my area because of my local ABC affiliate cutting to terrible local programming at that hour. But I saw a mark rise in Mickey and Co merchandise since the show premiered. Pete got a Pez dispenser! I'd venture to say that because of that preschool show that someone said "we need to get Mickey away from this sort of thing" and that lead to these very shorts. So I begrudgingly have to say that MMCH was a
good thing, at least in terms of reintroducing the characters to younger audiences.
But back to Mickey in a racing cartoon. I'm actually surprised they didn't just have Pixar sign over the characters of Cars to be a preschool series, rather than a series of shorts. Come to think of it, much as I despise Planes as a movie, I'm surprised they didn't just make it a preschool series. It would actually
work as one.