Elena Lyalina, CEO and producer at Polydont Films, shares with ScreenMDM the origin story of Nick the Mechanic, a CG preschool series that WildBrain recently acquired the distribution rights to for launch at MIPCOM and MIPJunior.
“Set in a secret workshop where every toy has its own personality and story to tell, the series inspires creativity, problem-solving, and the joy of discovering new possibilities in cherished toys, making it a fresh and distinctive offering for preschool buyers worldwide,” said Katie Wilson, VP of global sales and acquisitions at WildBrain, in announcing the deal with Polydont Films.
Ahead of the series’ Cannes launch, Lyalina tells ScreenMDM about what makes the show distinctive in the current preschool landscape and shares her vision for working with WildBrain to turn Nick the Mechanic into a 360-degree IP that kids can engage with in multiple ways.
What made WildBrain the right global distribution partner for Nick the Mechanic, and what does this partnership unlock for Polydont Films that you couldn’t achieve on your own?
When we were looking for a partner, we wanted someone who could see Nick the Mechanic not only as a series, but as an IP that could grow. WildBrain was a great fit because they have global reach and strong experience in growing children’s properties across content, platforms, licensing, and consumer products.
Polydont was launched in 2022, but our team has more than 20 years of experience in animation. We know how to create great kids’ content, but building an international IP requires a completely different network and expertise that would take us many years to build independently. WildBrain gives us access to that global ecosystem along with the expertise to navigate it and find the best home for our show.
For us, it’s really about combining our creative and production experience with WildBrain’s international reach, with a view towards what’s possible for Nick the Mechanic long-term as a brand.
The preschool CG space is highly competitive. What do you believe sets Nick the Mechanic apart in the market?
We knew from the beginning that Nick the Mechanic had to have a very clear identity. It starts with a simple question: what happens when something important to you gets broken? Nick is a young boy who loves fixing things, and every episode brings a new toy into his workshop with a unique story and problem to solve. Through curiosity and creative thinking, he finds a way to repair what’s broken, helping others see new possibilities where they might only see something damaged or lost.
What sets Nick the Mechanic apart is its combination of emotional storytelling and problem-solving. Nick doesn’t just fix things; he helps kids see that something broken can still have value, and that, with a little creativity and care, it can be given a second life. The show is about caring for something important to you and finding a way to make it whole again, something kids everywhere can relate to and understand.
Nick doesn’t always know the answer straight away. He experiments, tries different approaches, and learns through the process, showing kids that a problem can have more than one solution. That blend of emotional connection, creativity, and problem-solving gives the series its own identity in a crowded preschool market.
It was also important to us that the series feel premium. Nick the Mechanic features high-quality CG animation, stories developed by experienced writers and child-development specialists, and original songs in every episode that give children another way to engage with the characters and stories.
The show’s core concept—toys that can be repaired, repurposed, and loved again—has an underlying sustainability message. How intentional was that positioning, and how do you see it resonating with broadcasters and platforms that are increasingly looking for values-driven content?
Sustainability was part of the idea from the beginning, but we didn’t want to make it a heavy-handed lesson. Children experience things breaking or no longer working the way they should. Sometimes something that seems worn out or unusable still holds meaning because of the memories and emotions connected to it. That’s where Nick came from.
Instead of saying, “You should recycle,” Nick says, “Let’s see if we can fix it.” Sustainability is part of the story, but it’s not the main message. We want children to fall in love with the show, the characters, the music, and the fun first. The values come naturally through the storytelling.
What’s your vision for Nick the Mechanic in terms of consumer products, licensing or brand extensions—and how does WildBrain’s global network support that ambition?
First, we want children to fall in love with the show. WildBrain’s strength is its deep relationships with broadcasters and platforms around the world and its ability to connect great content with the right audiences. For us, that global distribution expertise is incredibly valuable as we introduce Nick the Mechanic to families in new markets.
We see Nick the Mechanic as a world that can grow beyond the screen. Nick has his workshop, tools, and vehicles, plus a delightful cast of friends: Frank, a practical and slightly grumpy truck; Emmy, an imaginative little dinosaur; Volt, a smart, detail-oriented robot; and Sherry, an energetic, caring rabbit. The workshop setting also creates natural opportunities for play and imagination—we can see kids having their own Nick-style workshop, building, fixing, and creating things.
We have a big vision for Nick, but we want to grow it step by step and make sure that every extension feels authentic to the world of the show.
Looking at the current state of the kids’ content market, what gave you confidence that now is the right time to launch this new IP with WildBrain?
The kids’ market is challenging. There is a huge amount of content, and children have more choices than ever before. At the same time, the idea behind Nick feels very relevant today. Everything moves very quickly now. Technology changes, children grow up quickly, and we live in a world where it’s often easier to replace something than to fix it. Nick represents almost the opposite idea: slow down, look at the problem, try to understand it, and see what you can create. I think children need that kind of thinking. Those ideas of care, creativity, problem-solving, and renewal are very universal, and they resonate regardless of where a child lives.
What has the development journey looked like for Polydont Films as you’ve gotten the series market-ready?
Nick the Mechanic is very special for us because it’s one of the projects that helped us launch Polydont as an independent company. We wanted to create our own original worlds and characters, projects that reflect our values and the kind of stories we want to tell.
The original idea was simple. Something breaks, and we throw it away. Children grow up, and their toys are passed to someone else. A toy loses a wheel or stops working, and suddenly it’s considered useless. And I kept thinking: what if someone looked at it differently? What if someone said, “I can fix this”? That someone became Nick. From there, we expanded the idea into a full world, creating Nick, his workshop, his friends, and the storytelling format that would bring the series to life.
We wanted every episode to present a clear problem to solve while leaving room for humor, emotion, music, and different ways of finding a solution. As the project evolved, we considered every aspect, from creative development and production to marketing and international distribution. For us, Nick the Mechanic is more than our first major international project. It represents why we created the company in the first place—to build our own original IP and share it with audiences around the world.
