What Were your Favorite Childhood Shows and Characters?

 

What Were your Favorite Childhood Shows and Characters?

Cadence Scheunemann

When I was in Elementary School, I was obsessed with watching PBS kids. PBS kids was an app that held a combination of multiple television series that taught young kids lessons about different things. The best show by far on PBS kids was Wild Kratts. Wild Kratts taught the watcher about different animals, one per episode. The show presented video footage of the producers, Martin and Chris Kratt, with the animal in that episode, then they would show a funny animated story about their animated counter parts trying to find the animal in the wild. The Wild Kratts in the animated part of the show had a whole team of people working together in a giant, flying turtle robot to stop the bad guys from turning innocent animals into food, robots, or clothing. To be able to save the animals, Martin and Chris had to use creature power disks that their friend Aviva made them. Creature power disks gave Martin and Chris creature powers of whatever animal they touched! As said by Chris, "[The best part of the show is] the impact it’s had on kids watching our shows... [also] seeing kids... get so excited about animals and nature" (Gezlinger).

In Wild Kratts, Chris and Martin would show videos of themselves with real life animals. The animals would play with the brothers, or munch on food straight from their hands. It allowed me to see animals that I never would have been able to see otherwise. I remember watching baby wolves howl, kangaroo joeys attempting to kick box Chris, and pandas munching on bamboo with their wrist bones which acted like opposable thumbs. The Kratts always make sure to treat the animals with respect as they teach the watcher about the animal too. This teaches a great lesson to kids tuning in. As said by Martin, "'[We make sure to] always give a creature his space, and what we... do with our tone and the way we act is [to] show respect for the animals'" (Low).

One of the funniest parts in Wild Kratts is in the animated portion of the show when Zach Varmitech, one of the three main bad guys, is trying to turn a gila monster into a robot-like wrench. His wrench isn't strong enough and he decides that using an animal with a super strong bite will be more effective. However, he underestimates the gila monsters' strength and the gila monster bites his butt! The cool thing about gila monsters is that their grip is so tight humans are unable to pry them off once they have bit something and once they have clamped down, venom is released into their prey. So, Aviva makes a batch of anti-venom to stop the venom from spreading into Zach's veins. But, even Aviva isn't smart enough to make the gila monster let go. So Zach has to sit on a stretcher waiting for the gila monster to let go for a really long time. It was super funny! Making this show, not only the best by being educational, but Wild Kratts also makes the watcher laugh.

In the animated part of Wild Kratts, Chris and Martin team up with their friends, Jimmy Z., Koki, and Aviva, to stop the three main bad guys, Zach Varmitech, Donita Donata, and Chef Gourmand, from harming animals. Somehow one bad guy or another always seems ready to out-smart them. Until, Aviva makes the brothers a creature power disk. Then, Martin and Chris can use creature powers by inserting their creature power disk into their vest and touching an animal. This turns the brothers into that animal, along with all the powers of the creature. The Kratt brothers help to convince kids that they can be anything they want to be, literally and figuratively. 

Works Cited:

Gezlinger, Neil, The Brothers K, New York Times, (20, August, 2000),  https://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/20/nyregion/the-brothers-k.html, 13, October, 2023

Low, Elaine, How the Nature-Loving Kratt Brothers Became PBS Rock Stars for the Younger Set, Variety, https://variety.com/2021/tv/features/kratt-brothers-chris-martin-wild-kratts-pbs-1235008925/, 13, October, 2023