Not A Box is an animated Apple TV+ Preschool Show based on the book of the same name by Antoinette that came out on June 13, 2025. The show centers on a young girl named Riley, who goes inside a box, and uses her imagination to go on all sorts of adventures. She's under the audience of an "Adult" who functions as an Interactive Narrator.
Watch the trailer here
and this clip here.
Tropes Associated With The Show:
- Black Bead Eyes: Riley is a rabbit who has beady, black eyed buttons.
- Bunnies for Cuteness: Riley is a bunny girl, and she's very adorable.
- Food as Bribe: Riley uses a peanut to get an elephant to stop chasing a bunny.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Each episode title goes "It's A (insert subject of the episode)".
- Interactive Narrator: The Adult is a character that's heard but never seen.
- Kids Prefer Boxes: The entire premise is Riley building fantastical imaginative adventures starting with only a single box.
- Mad Libs Catchphrase: At the beginning of every episode, the narrator asks Riley "why are you [Verb]ing that box?", and Riley responds "it's not a box, it's a [noun]".
- Mr. Imagination: Riley turns the box into anything and anyplace by saying so, and pulls objects out of Hammerspace by miming the actions of using them.
- Named by the Adaptation: Riley never gave her name in the original book.
- Sugar Bowl: The series is very optimistic and upbeat, with small scale conflicts.
- Two Shorts: Each episode is made up of 2 11 minute segments.