From vitamin jar to TV heroes: IvyBears brings AI cartoon to Cannes
A gummy made to tempt a child who would not eat is now fronting a cartoon series during television's key sales week. Creator Kaan Haylaz, chief executive and founder of Malta-based Moontrail Animation Studios, laid out the IvyBears plan to Variety in an online interview after MIPJunior, the children's screening event that precedes the main market. MIPCOM Cannes 2026, the annual international TV market where channels and streamers shop for shows, runs from October 12 to 15 at the Palais de Festivals in Cannes.
Haylaz, a theatre and film studies graduate, said the idea began at home. His son Pars was struggling with food, and IvyBears started as a personal mission to help him. That mission grew into an international consumer brand now turned entertainment IP, a term for characters that live across products and screens.
Haylaz told Variety the brand was never simply a vitamin label that decided to try television. From the start, he said, each gummy was designed as a super-powered hero, with the same characters mirrored on product labels and in animated stories. He calls the product-first model a "reverse flywheel strategy" and pitches the tone as "A-Team" meets "Angry Birds".
The series launched earlier this year billed on the brand's own channels as the world's first children's TV series animated by artificial intelligence, according to Facebook. Production press Animation World Network reported in March that episode one was slated for an April premiere, with new episodes released monthly through official channels. Haylaz said Moontrail used AI tools guided by human talent. Creative direction, storytelling, emotional decisions and artistic judgment stayed purely human. AI is the tool, he said, not the film-maker.
The universe is already widening. "The Dr. Muppy Show" is a second format pillar, meaning a separate show strand alongside the adventure series, extending the franchise beyond one type of storytelling, as reported by Kyodo News. The same July report put IvyBears past 2.5 million subscribers. A May announcement flagged the official YouTube premiere of episode two after what the brand described as a breakout global launch.
Buyers in Cannes are sorting through a busy animation slate. Animation Magazine published a MIPCOM Market Picks list of 10 fresh animated projects in early October. One example is Harlo, a brand-new 2D preschool series of 52 episodes of 11 minutes each about a cautious five-and-a-half-year-old bunny.
What makes this stand out is the order of business. Most cartoons sell toys after the show. Here the gummy came first. For families, that means the entry point is YouTube and the brand's official channels, where monthly episodes have been rolling out.
