Founded by Farah Pahlavi in 1965, the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (IIDCYA, or “Kanun”) today stands as a powerful production center of literature and films aimed at children in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Funded by the Pahlavi regime and oil industry in its pre-revolution years, the Kanun developed a monopoly on media produced for children and media depicting children. As is often the case with state sponsored media, one might suspect that the Kanun served as an instrument for Pahlavi-sanctioned propaganda. However, I argue that up until the Islamic Revolution the Kanun supported revolutionary activities that played a pivotal role in the Islamic Republic supporting the existence of the Kanun until today. Due to the experimental nature of its films and revolutionary methods of distribution, the institute avoided being labeled a relic of the corrupt Pahlavi period and instead has actually thrived under the Islamic Republic. Building on Hamid Naficy’s A Social History of Iranian Cinema series, this project fills in the gaps in the Kanun history by exploring how these narratives directed at children espoused a revolutionary ethos and primed the Kanun, and children’s media in general, to become a focus of the post-revolutionary government’s national ideological project. Scholars point to the potential for media to moralize its spectators as a significant interest of the Islamic Republic. Yet, overwhelmingly, the films produced at the Kanun prior to the revolution did not possess moralizing themes. Instead, artists like Abbas Kiarostami and Bahram Beizai employed neorealist aesthetics to create narratives that offered intellectually stimulating alternatives to commercial cinema, and paved the way for the Iranian New Wave. In the animation department, Nourredin Zarrinkelk produced surrealist shorts involving political commentary, while Ali Akbar Sadeghi evoked pre-Islamic mythical poetry in his works. Drawing on films made by and about the Kanun, memoirs, and trade publications, I argue that through the free exhibition of these films all over Iran, as well as the affordable ticket pricing and provided transportation to the annual International Children’s Film Festival, the Kanun prioritized the lower classes as its target audience. By making cinema available to children throughout the country the Kanun located children as critical audiences for ideological productions. This examination of the Kanun repositions children’s media producers as crucial and foundational to our understanding of national film industries.