Noodle & Caboodle Entertainment (“N&C”) and KaizenPop LLC today announced a strategic co-development partnership on Chuck Loris™, an original animated martial-arts action-comedy for audiences aged 8 to 12. Created by Rich Staplehurst, Moonbug Entertainment alum and CCO of Noodle & Caboodle, the property will be developed across multiple platforms from his original concept, characters and story.
Chuck Loris™ pairs an animated series with an interconnected, character-driven game, conceived from the outset as a single world rather than an adaptation of one medium into another.
The two companies co-develop the property end to end. Noodle & Caboodle originates the world and leads creative, character design, narrative, scripting and wider brand extensions. KaizenPop co-develops alongside them across series, game and social, structures the production and financial framework, and applies its audience intelligence practice to identify and build the property’s audience ahead of launch.
Chuck Loris™ also enters KodaPop, KaizenPop’s tribe-first IP incubator, as a title in its Creators Program. Launched in 2026 on the principle that creators keep their masters, KodaPop gives the property a direct route to a community of creators and the audiences those creators already hold, from development onward rather than at release.
The partnership is creatively led by Rich Staplehurst (Founder & CCO, Noodle & Caboodle), developed in tandem with Ailing Zubizarreta (Cofounder & CCO, KaizenPop), with Bruno Zarka (Cofounder & CEO, KaizenPop) as Producer, overseeing the production and financial framework.
The announcement follows the appointment of Jay Francis, formerly Vice President of Development at Disney, to the Noodle & Caboodle advisory board, adding further senior development experience to the studio as it enters this phase of growth.
“I first shared Chuck Loris™ with Ailing last year at MIPJUNIOR in Cannes, and I knew after that conversation that KaizenPop were the right partners. At its heart, the show is a tribute to the action heroes and martial artists I looked up to as a kid in the 90s. The characters and concept are hugely inspired by my Sensei, Gabriel, and my own journey as a karate student at Dojo Van Rel in Camden. I want to make something with a hint of nostalgia that is fresh and exciting for young audiences, whether they practise martial arts or not. It’s an action-comedy where the morals and philosophy arrive inside the entertainment rather than on top of it, with a group of characters who will entertain young audiences, not simply distract them. Chuck has been built from the ground up as one world with huge transmedia potential from day one, and KaizenPop’s reach and community-building expertise make them the right partners to land it with the audience it was made for,” said Rich Staplehurst.
“Rich did not bring us a pitch, he brought us a world with its point of view already living inside it. Chuck Loris™ is about the difference between not just copying something (principles, attitudes or moves) but truly understanding it, and that is a beautiful thing to give a nine-year-old. What KaizenPop does is find the kids that world belongs to and bring them to Chuck Loris™ before the series arrives, never after,” said Ailing Zubizarreta, Cofounder and Chief Creative Officer of KaizenPop.
Chuck Loris™ is in active development now, with a social-first rollout preceding the screen debut. Both teams will attend MIPJUNIOR in Cannes this October.
