Rethinking Inclusion in Children’s Animation: The Cartoon Able Model in Lampadino e Caramella nel MagiRegno degli Zampa

Abstract

Contemporary debates have repositioned children’s animation within broader cultural and pedagogical discourses, challenging its long-standing confinement to the domain of entertainment. This shift is closely linked to animation’s expressive capacities beyond photographic realism and to its ability to mobilise universal codes and intuitive visual languages for the mediation of knowledge, values and social difference. Within this framework, the article examines the Cartoon Able model, developed by the Italian animation studio Animundi in collaboration with the publishing house Puntidivista for the production of Lampadino e Caramella nel MagiRegno degli Zampa (2020–), a series broadcasted by the Italian public service RAI. The analysis argues that the Cartoon Able model represents a singular experiment within the Italian animation landscape, explicitly conceived to formalise inclusion-and accessibility-oriented practices for children’s content and to position them as potentially transferable. By deconstructing the model, the article investigates how inclusion is articulated not only through narrative and aesthetic strategies, but also across the production, institutional and regulatory frameworks underpinning Italian television animation. Methodologically, the study combines close textual and formal analysis with a production-oriented perspective, integrating approaches from animation studies, disability studies, media education and media industry studies.