General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

My Magic Pet Morphle

My Magic Pet Morphle (also known simply as Morphle) is an animated preschool series created in 2011 by the Dutch animator Arthur van Merwijk, following a young girl named Mila and her magic pet Morphle, a small red creature that can transform into anything Mila imagines.¹ Originally produced for the Morphle TV channel on YouTube, the series became one of the platform's largest children's shows and was acquired by Moonbug Entertainment in 2018.¹^•² A Disney co-produced spin-off, Morphle and the Magic Pets, premiered on Disney Junior and Disney+ in 2024.³

Key fact	Detail
Created	2011 by Arthur van Merwijk, a Dutch animation graduate, as a YouTube nursery rhyme channel¹
Premise	Mila's magic pet Morphle morphs into anything she dreams up, from dinosaurs and trucks to dogs and dragons¹^•⁴
TV-show format	Introduced in 2015; the channel then began producing episodes like a traditional television show¹
YouTube scale (2020)	Close to 8 million subscribers and more than 5 billion views on the main channel¹
Ownership	Acquired by Moonbug Entertainment in 2018, together with Toddler Fun Learning²
Spin-off	Morphle and the Magic Pets, 52 seven-minute episodes plus 50 three-minute shorts, premiered March 20, 2024 on Disney Junior and Disney+³
Setting	The magic pet-filled city of Petport, where Mila's father runs a magic pet store⁵^•⁶

Spoilers

Premise and characters

Mila is a young girl whose father runs the only magic pet store in the city, a place where each animal has its own magic power; he has given her the most magical pet of all, Morphle.⁶ In his natural state Morphle is a small red round shape with short arms and legs, long droopy ears, and big eyes; when he transforms he gains the abilities of whatever he has become while keeping his face and his ability to talk.⁴ Across the series he becomes everything from a puppy to a dragon to a lorry.⁴

The stories are set in Petport, a town filled with magic pets, where Mila and Morphle combine teamwork, creativity, and Morphle's morphing powers to solve problems and save the day.⁵ A recurring mischief-maker is Orphle, a green character who looks like Morphle; in one episode he damages a farm, and Mila has Morphle turn into a crane, a sheep dog, a road sweeper, and a robot in turn to fix the mess.⁴ The series is aimed at preschoolers and teaches lessons about friendship, problem solving, and creativity.⁷

In the original episodes Mila was voiced by Sabrina Glow, and Morphle by creator Arthur van Merwijk.⁶

Episode format

TheTVDB lists 36 episodes in the first season of the original series, with titles built on Morphle's transformations, such as "My Magic Train," "My Pet Dinosaur," "My Red Racecar," and "My Pet Unicorn."¹² Streaming listings group the series into multiple seasons, rated TV-Y in the United States and U in the United Kingdom.⁶^•⁹

History and production

Van Merwijk started the channel in 2011, just out of animation school, as a nursery rhyme project. He designed Morphle as a through-line for the songs: in "The Wheels on the Bus" the pet could be the bus, and in "Itsy Bitsy Spider" the spider, giving children a play friend across the videos. He cited the shape-shifting Barbapapa and the Dutch comic Oktoknopie as inspirations.¹

The 2015 format change turned the channel into a scripted series. Van Merwijk said that, to his knowledge, Morphle was the first preschool YouTube channel to approach its videos as episodes of a traditional television show, at a time when most children's channels offered songs, educational clips, toy unboxings, or uploads of TV-originated programs; after the change, the channel's popularity took off.¹

The early production was minimal. For the nursery rhymes, van Merwijk's sister, a professional singer, provided the music, and nobody was paid upfront; profits were shared. For the first year of TV-format episodes he did everything himself, including backgrounds, animation, and voices, with his girlfriend performing the female and children's voices. He then reinvested the earnings to open a studio in Amsterdam and hire animators and artists.¹

Speed-oriented workflow. To sustain YouTube's demand for volume, the studio built its own pipeline, including in-house software written by a programmer. The result is that one person can storyboard and animate a four-minute episode in a single week, faster than is typical for a show of this kind. Van Merwijk attributed the workflow's success partly to Dutch animation schools training generalists rather than specialists, and to an independent-minded work culture; the writer/director/animators Mark Bastiaan and Danne Bakker each create episodes independently and were key to developing the Morphle world.¹ Episode credits from 2018 also name Nicole Derksen, Jessy Suharyanto, Jesse Tamerius, Merel Hamers, Etienne van Emden, Ruben Zaalberg, and Jeroen Koffeman among the episode creators, with background art by Jan-Jaap Schraverus and sound design and music by Spoon-sound.⁸

Moonbug ownership and distribution

Moonbug, a global entertainment company for children's content based in London and Los Angeles, announced in 2018 that it had acquired My Magic Pet Morphle, along with Toddler Fun Learning and its show Gecko's Garage.² The acquisition did not change how the show is made, but it expanded its reach: by 2020 Morphle had reached Netflix and Amazon Prime in addition to YouTube, and Morphle toys were being prepared for sale.¹ The series was added to Netflix in the United States on December 1, 2019 and removed on January 1, 2024.⁹ As of recent listings it streams on Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, and Disney+ in the United Kingdom, among other services.⁶ Moonbug's broader catalog, which includes Morphle alongside CoComelon, Little Angel, and Gecko's Garage, is carried on more than 150 platforms worldwide and available in 32 languages.¹⁰

Morphle and the Magic Pets

In 2024 the franchise expanded with Morphle and the Magic Pets, co-produced by Moonbug Entertainment and Disney Branded Television. It premiered on Disney Junior and Disney+ in the United States on March 20, 2024, with 52 seven-minute episodes and 50 three-minute shorts planned, and a later global rollout excluding China.³ The spin-off gives the series an updated look and more in-depth storytelling, and adds Jordie, Mila's stepbrother, after Mila's father marries Jordie's mother; the two children find "magic matches" for new magical pets, keep them out of mischief, and solve the town's problems.³^•¹¹ Mila is voiced by Lexie Foley, Jordie by Ayden Elijah, and Morphle by Ben Pronsky.¹¹ Mark Palmer (Hello Ninja) co-developed the series with consulting producer Jill Sanford (Go! Go! Cory Carson).³

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Unscripted, reality, and web-native series › Web-native and streaming-original series › Comedy, drama, and general-genre web series

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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