It' Saturday morning! Pour some cereal into your favorite bowl and gather 'round the television to watch some...Netflix?
The online movie and television service has added "My Little Pony," "Transformers Prime," "GI Joe: Renegades," and several other children's cartoons to its streaming section, Netflix announced Tuesday morning. The toons have been added as part of a new deal with Hasbro's multimedia wing that will bring 10 of the popular toy-and-game-maker's television shows to Netflix Instant.
"My Little Pony," Tranformers Prime," Pound Puppies," "G.I. Joe: Renegades" and "The Adventures of Chuck & Friends" are available to watch on Netflix right now (sorry, everyone's boss); "JEM & The Holograms," "Transformers: Generation 1," "G.I. Joe: Real American Heroes," "Transformers: Beast Wars "and "Transformers: Rescue Bots" will start streaming later this year.
The terms of the deal, including the length of the contract, were not released.
All of these action figure shows are part of Netflix's own "transformation" (heh) into a streaming-first service, and these shows will reside in the streaming site's new "Just for Kids" section. That section launched in August 2011 and was somewhat obscured by the widespread subscriber backlash over the now-infamous price hike of July.
That furor has mercifully died down, and now Netflix is concentrating on bolstering its streaming catalogue. Recent major acquisitions include the exclusive first rights to the "The Artist," 2012's Academy Award for Best Picture, as part of a larger deal for foreign films and documentaries distributed by the Weinstein Company; and "Hemlock Grove," a new original series from horror maven Eli Roth ("Cabin Fever," "Hostel").
That announcement is part of an "experimental" push by Netflix to add its own exclusive content, which began with the premiere of mob dramedy "Lilyhammer" in February and will continue with Season 4 of "Arrested Development" and the David Fincher-Kevin Spacey collaboration "House of Cards" later on.
Those series are likely to appear on Netflix in 2013; right now, however, Netflix subscribers can enjoy Optimus Prime destroying a building, GI Joe fighting the bad guys, or Rainbow Dash and Pinky Pie...uh...being little ponies. All of those shows are now appearing in the "Just for Kids" section on Netflix's website.