On a small plane to a tiny island in the Caribbean, shortly after PAW Patrol launch in 2013 on TVOKids and Nickelodeon, creator Keith Chapman ran into a preschooler wearing a backpack covered in the pups.

“I thought, ‘We’re thousands of miles from home and here it is.’ That’s when I knew this was going to be a hit,” he tells Playback. Since that flight, the show — about a group of rescue dogs that work together to help their community — has run for 260 episodes across 180 countries, spawned two feature films and more than $14 billion in worldwide retail sales.

But, while creating a hit show is not a perfect science, the key to success for this behemoth preschool show is actually quite simple, according to Laura Clunie, SVP of development, current series and feature film at Toronto-based Spin Master Entertainment. “Kids love puppies,” she says. “And it’s empowering for kids to watch the characters have jobs they can understand, be super competent and have agency in their world.”

The core elements that Clunie is referencing have remained the same in the past 10 years. However, there’s a drive at Spin Master to push the envelope thematically and create new locations, she says. This keeps kids engaged, even as other toddlers age out, and leads to new toys for parents to buy.

For example, in season four they head to the ocean for Sea Patrol and in season 10 there’s a Jungle Pups storyline. Then there are the movies where the stakes and budget are higher. The first feature, PAW Patrol: The Movie had a $26 million budget according to Forbes, and raked in $151 million at the box office. The second movie, PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie, has grossed more than $182 million — proving that audiences are hungry for more content.

Bringing those storylines to life with an intriguing visual look is the job of Toronto-based Guru Studio, which took a distinct departure from the typical preschool series. In the early 2010s, kids shows commonly used a technique where all of the characters were visible at the same time with minimal variation. “Instead, we used camera cuts, distance and reaction shots, the general film language for theatrical releases,” says Guru’s CEO Frank Falcone. “We didn’t talk down to kids, and I think that engaged them even more because they felt respected. It also loosened up storytelling for preschoolers.”

Guru and Spin Master work simultaneously to make sure that if kids see a new underwater headquarters on the screen, they can buy one that looks identical in stores.

When the show first launched, Spin Master had toys on the shelves within six months, much quicker than most preschool shows, according to James Martin, Spin Master’s SVP of marketing and global business unit for preschool. The toys also always need to be interactive and exciting: Spin Master isn’t just releasing Marshall’s fire truck, for instance: it’s a fire truck with a ladder that launches directly up in the air so kids can stage their own rescues.

To keep the ravenous audience satiated, there’s a lot more PAW Patrol coming. The main show has two more seasons in the works, the spinoff series Rubble & Crew has been renewed after it aired its first season this year, a third movie is underway and, of course, there are tons of toys to represent it all.

“We stay abreast of trends; we make sure that the content is what kids want to watch, we make sure the messaging is what parents want to see, and we try to stay exciting to preschoolers,” says Martin. “Will it continue for 20 more years? We’re going to do everything possible to make that happen.”

This story originally appeared in Playback‘s Winter 2023 issue