6 ms·

TIL Paw Patrol brand is popular enough in Europe to have product tie-ins

by foobarian 3y ago

Cthulhu_ 3y ago
The copaganda seems reasonably popular with young kids, if toy stores and the like are anything to go by.
Waterluvian 3y ago
Canadian culture infiltrating the world, one pup at a time. Though Bluey is definitely the better product.
- blamazon 3y ago
  There's a new one in the mix too, called Pupstruction, which seems to be Disney's "this is legally distinct from paw patrol" entry. Watch Disney Junior and you'll see a lot of Bluey and Pupstruction. Bluey is still king to me, but Pupstruction being centered around construction rather than law enforcement is a positive distinction in my eyes.
  - adam-a 3y ago
    There seems to be a weird popular misconception about Paw Patrol being some sort of police recruitment propaganda for toddlers. I've (unfortunately) had to sit through hundreds of episodes and it really isn't. The police dog is not particularly treated as a main character as all of them are given pretty equal screen time and storylines (out side the recent film, which does focus on him). And even when the episodes do focus on Chase it's barely police work, certainly he doesn't go around pointing his gun at immigrants. His main ability as a police officer seems to be that he has a megaphone.
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      Indeed. And even if it had some police propaganda, this wouldn't be that bad anywhere in the developed world except the US. The perception of police spending most time harassing minorities and exacerbating humanitarian crises? That's a US problem. Literally no one else has it. Which is what makes the attitudes to LEO that US exports sad, and perhaps even dangerous.
      - civilitty 3y ago
        > The perception of police spending most time harassing minorities and exacerbating humanitarian crises? That's a US problem. Literally no one else has it. France just had weeks of riots because the police shot Nahel Merzouk [1] due to similar dynamics that have been developing in France since at least the Algerian crisis [2]. I don't know if "spending most time" is a fair characterization of French minorities' perception but the antagonistic relationship between police and minorities is far from a US only problem. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahel_Merzouk_riots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahel_Merzouk_riots [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_massacre_of_1961 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_massacre_of_1961
        stavros 3y ago
        I think that merely the fact that people are bothered enough to riot shows that the problem in the US is much more extended, where shootings by the police were such an everyday phenomenon that the biggest reaction you'll get is an extra-high shrug.
        civilitty 3y ago
        The French do love a good riot but don't forget that the George Floyd protests just a few years ago were the largest in US history - during pandemic lockdowns, no less. They devolved into something resembling riots in only a few cities but "extra-high shrug" is hardly how I'd describe that series of events or the other smaller protests since. The Minneapolis ones only wrapped up in May of this year after the criminal cases were resolved. I think with US suburban sprawl it's just a lot easier to ignore what's going on in the cities.
        stavros 3y ago
        Ah, interesting, I may be wrong then. I remember the George Floyd protests, but didn't know of any more recent.
        rsynnott 3y ago
        Well, also, it is _France_; proud tradition of very large dramatic protests and riots going back over two hundred years. It's kind of their thing. French farmers routinely shut down whole cities when they're vaguely irritated about something; it's unsurprising that protests around more serious and emotive matters than France enforcing an EU ban it was already meant to be enforcing on a pesticide get a bit dramatic.
    - autoexec 3y ago
      > And even when the episodes do focus on Chase it's barely police work, certainly he doesn't go around pointing his gun at immigrants. If he did go around pointing is gun at immigrants that would be the opposite of police propaganda wouldn't it? Most young kids don't interact with police directly, so nearly everything they know about police comes from the media they consume. The question comes down to what kids need to learn about police and what role media plays in that education. Families in certain communities have been educating their children on how dangerous police are for a very long time. Is it better to introduce an idealized version of police to kids and let them learn on their own that police are dangerous or is it better to present police in children's media realistically so that they're prepared when they see their 8 year old classmate thrown to the ground, handcuffed, and arrested because they acted up in class or so they understand when they see protesters march past their house because police officers beat and murdered another person on camera without consequences? I suspect that it's better to show kids what police are supposed to be like before introducing them to the harsher reality we live in, but I can't blame people for looking at shows like Paw Patrol and thinking that it's giving kids a very unrealistic view of policing at a time when they should be increasingly made aware of the issues and the risks they face.
      - ztrww 3y ago
        > the harsher reality we live in as terrible as it is if we focus on the whole developed world “we” is just a tiny minority (even in the US, just unfortunately not as tiny…) > unrealistic view of policing so maybe they could do a separate version for Americans?
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >Canadian culture infiltrating the world, one pup at a time. Maple syrup was already here
- hotnfresh 3y ago
  I only recently saw Bluey for the first time (only one of my kids is still, barely, in the demo for it). God damn it’s good. It’d be a solid choice for a lazy Saturday afternoon of getting baked and zoning out on TV, even for those without kids. Mellow, funny, you get little wins to root for, and some fun bits that go over kids’ heads. Rare for a show targeted that young to be as appealing to (or, at least, tolerable for) adults. Far better than, say, Daniel Tiger, which is already well above the bottom tier of that kind of show. [edit] incidentally, I think Fred Rogers would have been disgusted by all the heavy-handed auto tune in Daniel Tiger. Giving kids a wildly incorrect model of what ordinary, real human singing sounds like strikes me as the kind of thing that would have prompted him to bring down the “no” hammer on his own show in a damn hurry, if someone had suggested it. Bugs me every time I watch it.
  - Al-Khwarizmi 3y ago
    I also love Bluey but I think we might be somewhat biased, because it clearly makes an effort to cater to adults as well (most chapters can be seen as being about parenting, and sometimes contain non-obvious lessons for parents). Perhaps from the viewpoint of a child it wouldn't be so superior to other cartoons. Although it does have the quite objective advantage of not being overstimulating. Most current cartoons look overwhelmingly overstimulating for me as an adult, and move at such a fast pace that in some I can barely follow the action, and we throw them at small kids...
    - aequitas 3y ago
      My kids really love this show, coincidentally it's even on at this moment. Regarding the parenting lessons, they resonate with the kids as well. There was an episode after which one of our kids compared the story of an episode with something that happened in our household and it gave us a nice chance to talk about it on their level. The Bluey writers really do a terrific job. My kids never learned a lesson from Paw Patrol, except wanting to buy their merchandise.
      - Waterluvian 3y ago
- konschubert 3y ago
  Bluey is just very different. You can tell that it is made with love. I think if my daughters weren’t watching it, I would watch it alone.
Al-Khwarizmi 3y ago
Sure it is. I'd even go as far as to say that in Spain, it's probably the most popular cartoon among 3-5-year olds (I have a 4-year-old son who doesn't especially like it, but many of his classmates love it, all of them know it, and almost every kid in the neighborhood has some kind of toy, stickers, etc. from the franchise).
TeMPOraL 3y ago
Isn't it literally why it exists - to push stuff to kids? It's pretty much a way to work around regulations pertaining to advertising to children. At this point in Poland we have a Paw Patrol variant of literally anything a kid could use or consume - from regular and electric toothbrushes, through clothes, sheets, toys, shower gels, food, beverages. Whatever you think of, there's a version with a Paw Patrol dog being sold somewhere.
- croisillon 3y ago
  same with Peppa Pig i guess
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    Not to the same extent. Paw Patrol seems to be its own category, rivaled only by Frozen.
isoprophlex 3y ago
My dude/person, it's beyond popular, we have an entire shelf in the toy cabinet dedicated to "paw patrol stuff" There is a full feature paw patrol movie in which one of the characters breaks the fourth wall and says "How can we afford this? Licenced paw patrol merchandise!". And all the parents in the audience groan. It's pure, unadulterated kiddy crack
lenzm 3y ago
Paw Patrol was created by a toy company to sell products. They design the new products with each new season which includes new vehicles/accessories/etc.
mrweasel 3y ago
You're not allowed to advertise to children in the EU, so shows like Paw Patrol is a brilliant workaround. The show itself itself is a product, that can be picked up by various TV stations, but it's also an indirect way to advertising the toys and other co-branded products. The show is innocent enough that nobody will complain about it, so it's a clever marketing strategy.
- Al-Khwarizmi 3y ago
  > You're not allowed to advertise to children in the EU Maybe in some EU countries, I guess. In Spain, toy ads are common. Recently, the government prohibited toy ads that are segmented by sex (e.g. marketing dolls or toy kitchens specifically for girls) but otherwise there are no limits as far as I know.

TIL Paw Patrol brand is popular enough in Europe to have product tie-ins

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

The copaganda seems reasonably popular with young kids, if toy stores and the like are anything to go by.

Waterluvian 3y ago

Canadian culture infiltrating the world, one pup at a time. Though Bluey is definitely the better product.

blamazon 3y ago
There's a new one in the mix too, called Pupstruction, which seems to be Disney's "this is legally distinct from paw patrol" entry. Watch Disney Junior and you'll see a lot of Bluey and Pupstruction. Bluey is still king to me, but Pupstruction being centered around construction rather than law enforcement is a positive distinction in my eyes.
- adam-a 3y ago
  There seems to be a weird popular misconception about Paw Patrol being some sort of police recruitment propaganda for toddlers. I've (unfortunately) had to sit through hundreds of episodes and it really isn't. The police dog is not particularly treated as a main character as all of them are given pretty equal screen time and storylines (out side the recent film, which does focus on him). And even when the episodes do focus on Chase it's barely police work, certainly he doesn't go around pointing his gun at immigrants. His main ability as a police officer seems to be that he has a megaphone.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    Indeed. And even if it had some police propaganda, this wouldn't be that bad anywhere in the developed world except the US. The perception of police spending most time harassing minorities and exacerbating humanitarian crises? That's a US problem. Literally no one else has it. Which is what makes the attitudes to LEO that US exports sad, and perhaps even dangerous.
    - civilitty 3y ago
      > The perception of police spending most time harassing minorities and exacerbating humanitarian crises? That's a US problem. Literally no one else has it. France just had weeks of riots because the police shot Nahel Merzouk [1] due to similar dynamics that have been developing in France since at least the Algerian crisis [2]. I don't know if "spending most time" is a fair characterization of French minorities' perception but the antagonistic relationship between police and minorities is far from a US only problem. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahel_Merzouk_riots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahel_Merzouk_riots [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_massacre_of_1961 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_massacre_of_1961
      - stavros 3y ago
        I think that merely the fact that people are bothered enough to riot shows that the problem in the US is much more extended, where shootings by the police were such an everyday phenomenon that the biggest reaction you'll get is an extra-high shrug.
        civilitty 3y ago
        The French do love a good riot but don't forget that the George Floyd protests just a few years ago were the largest in US history - during pandemic lockdowns, no less. They devolved into something resembling riots in only a few cities but "extra-high shrug" is hardly how I'd describe that series of events or the other smaller protests since. The Minneapolis ones only wrapped up in May of this year after the criminal cases were resolved. I think with US suburban sprawl it's just a lot easier to ignore what's going on in the cities.
        stavros 3y ago
        Ah, interesting, I may be wrong then. I remember the George Floyd protests, but didn't know of any more recent.
        rsynnott 3y ago
        Well, also, it is _France_; proud tradition of very large dramatic protests and riots going back over two hundred years. It's kind of their thing. French farmers routinely shut down whole cities when they're vaguely irritated about something; it's unsurprising that protests around more serious and emotive matters than France enforcing an EU ban it was already meant to be enforcing on a pesticide get a bit dramatic.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    > And even when the episodes do focus on Chase it's barely police work, certainly he doesn't go around pointing his gun at immigrants. If he did go around pointing is gun at immigrants that would be the opposite of police propaganda wouldn't it? Most young kids don't interact with police directly, so nearly everything they know about police comes from the media they consume. The question comes down to what kids need to learn about police and what role media plays in that education. Families in certain communities have been educating their children on how dangerous police are for a very long time. Is it better to introduce an idealized version of police to kids and let them learn on their own that police are dangerous or is it better to present police in children's media realistically so that they're prepared when they see their 8 year old classmate thrown to the ground, handcuffed, and arrested because they acted up in class or so they understand when they see protesters march past their house because police officers beat and murdered another person on camera without consequences? I suspect that it's better to show kids what police are supposed to be like before introducing them to the harsher reality we live in, but I can't blame people for looking at shows like Paw Patrol and thinking that it's giving kids a very unrealistic view of policing at a time when they should be increasingly made aware of the issues and the risks they face.
    - ztrww 3y ago
      > the harsher reality we live in as terrible as it is if we focus on the whole developed world “we” is just a tiny minority (even in the US, just unfortunately not as tiny…) > unrealistic view of policing so maybe they could do a separate version for Americans?
FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>Canadian culture infiltrating the world, one pup at a time. Maple syrup was already here
hotnfresh 3y ago
I only recently saw Bluey for the first time (only one of my kids is still, barely, in the demo for it). God damn it’s good. It’d be a solid choice for a lazy Saturday afternoon of getting baked and zoning out on TV, even for those without kids. Mellow, funny, you get little wins to root for, and some fun bits that go over kids’ heads. Rare for a show targeted that young to be as appealing to (or, at least, tolerable for) adults. Far better than, say, Daniel Tiger, which is already well above the bottom tier of that kind of show. [edit] incidentally, I think Fred Rogers would have been disgusted by all the heavy-handed auto tune in Daniel Tiger. Giving kids a wildly incorrect model of what ordinary, real human singing sounds like strikes me as the kind of thing that would have prompted him to bring down the “no” hammer on his own show in a damn hurry, if someone had suggested it. Bugs me every time I watch it.
- Al-Khwarizmi 3y ago
  I also love Bluey but I think we might be somewhat biased, because it clearly makes an effort to cater to adults as well (most chapters can be seen as being about parenting, and sometimes contain non-obvious lessons for parents). Perhaps from the viewpoint of a child it wouldn't be so superior to other cartoons. Although it does have the quite objective advantage of not being overstimulating. Most current cartoons look overwhelmingly overstimulating for me as an adult, and move at such a fast pace that in some I can barely follow the action, and we throw them at small kids...
  - aequitas 3y ago
    My kids really love this show, coincidentally it's even on at this moment. Regarding the parenting lessons, they resonate with the kids as well. There was an episode after which one of our kids compared the story of an episode with something that happened in our household and it gave us a nice chance to talk about it on their level. The Bluey writers really do a terrific job. My kids never learned a lesson from Paw Patrol, except wanting to buy their merchandise.
    - Waterluvian 3y ago
konschubert 3y ago
Bluey is just very different. You can tell that it is made with love. I think if my daughters weren’t watching it, I would watch it alone.

Al-Khwarizmi 3y ago

Sure it is. I'd even go as far as to say that in Spain, it's probably the most popular cartoon among 3-5-year olds (I have a 4-year-old son who doesn't especially like it, but many of his classmates love it, all of them know it, and almost every kid in the neighborhood has some kind of toy, stickers, etc. from the franchise).

TeMPOraL 3y ago

Isn't it literally why it exists - to push stuff to kids? It's pretty much a way to work around regulations pertaining to advertising to children. At this point in Poland we have a Paw Patrol variant of literally anything a kid could use or consume - from regular and electric toothbrushes, through clothes, sheets, toys, shower gels, food, beverages. Whatever you think of, there's a version with a Paw Patrol dog being sold somewhere.

croisillon 3y ago
same with Peppa Pig i guess
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  Not to the same extent. Paw Patrol seems to be its own category, rivaled only by Frozen.

isoprophlex 3y ago

My dude/person, it's beyond popular, we have an entire shelf in the toy cabinet dedicated to "paw patrol stuff" There is a full feature paw patrol movie in which one of the characters breaks the fourth wall and says "How can we afford this? Licenced paw patrol merchandise!". And all the parents in the audience groan. It's pure, unadulterated kiddy crack

lenzm 3y ago

Paw Patrol was created by a toy company to sell products. They design the new products with each new season which includes new vehicles/accessories/etc.

mrweasel 3y ago

You're not allowed to advertise to children in the EU, so shows like Paw Patrol is a brilliant workaround. The show itself itself is a product, that can be picked up by various TV stations, but it's also an indirect way to advertising the toys and other co-branded products. The show is innocent enough that nobody will complain about it, so it's a clever marketing strategy.

Al-Khwarizmi 3y ago
> You're not allowed to advertise to children in the EU Maybe in some EU countries, I guess. In Spain, toy ads are common. Recently, the government prohibited toy ads that are segmented by sex (e.g. marketing dolls or toy kitchens specifically for girls) but otherwise there are no limits as far as I know.