On this edition of SNAPSHOTS, it’s crazy to believe that last week, Wonder Pets premiered 20 years ago on Nickelodeon, and now we are on the cusp of the 2nd season of Wonder Pets: In the City tomorrow, Friday, March 20th, on Apple TV+.
“Wonder Pets: In the City” season two sees the return of the heroic trio as these classroom pets live in a kindergarten in New York City and travel all around the globe in their amazing “Jetcar” to rescue animals in musical, mini-opera-themed adventures. When the going gets tough, Izzy, Tate, and Zuri always remember to combine their talents and abilities and work together to save the day – because together, there’s nothing they can’t do!
Here to talk to me about the new season is Emmy Award winner & Executive Producer Jennifer Oxley
Jennifer, the original Wonder Pets debut 20 years ago on Nickelodeon, and here we are now on the cusp of the second season of Wonder Pets: In the City, which starts Friday on Apple TV+. How does it feel to see the legacy of this wonderful series continue after 20 years?
Yeah, it is a little bit unreal. Going back way back when, to when we worked on the original, I never in a billion years would have thought that I’d be working on it 20 years later as a spin-off that just didn’t cross my mind. Even when Nickelodeon reached out to me and said, “Hey, we’re thinking of a spin-off of the Wonder Pets,” I was just like, totally blindsided. I’m like, “I did not see that coming,” but of course, I mean, it’s like a show that’s just beloved in my heart, like getting a chance to go back to this world and revisit it for a new audience.
It was such a great opportunity. I seized it, and then, being able to bring a lot of the original team back, that was a joy for me, because we really did have quite an amazing team of people working on the original, so getting a chance to bring a lot of those people back for this update was a joy.
I was watching the episodes last night, and they are so sensational. It feels like stepping back into the world of 20 years ago now, for those of us who have not seen the very first season on Apple TV+, can you give us a quick recap of what happens?
Going back to that call, Nickelodeon was like, “We’d like to reboot the Wonder Pets, but we want a brand-new team of pets. And we want to stick with the format. We still want animals that save other animals in distress while singing opera. They still want it to stay true to the original photo puppetry style, which made me happy. But then it was sort of like, explore what that could be, pitch us some ideas. I thought, “What if our original Lyn, Tuck, and Ming, who lived in this quintessential red classroom in the country? What if they’re not alone? What if there’s this vast network of pets all over the place? You know, in China, under the sea, and what if we zone in on this new team of pets, and they are living in a classroom in the big city. So it’s not that Lenny Tuck and Ming, Ming, aren’t still doing their thing in their red schoolhouse and getting their calls. It’s just that there are so many calls that now we get a chance to meet another team that’s also answering those calls.
That’s sensational. Now you touched on something just moments ago about the photo puppetry, because you developed that cutout animation style for the series. How did you use this animation to help tell the tale of Wonder Pets 20 years ago and to bring his new series to life?
So, it’s this photo puppetry style, and what’s involved is photographing real animals. And when we can’t photograph real animals, we source those for those photographs. So everything is a photo, whether we take it ourselves or source it from other photographers or photo sites. So, an interesting thing is that 20 years ago we had one technology, and now it’s really evolved. And so for me, I was like, “Well, I don’t want to push so far that the show loses what was charming about the original, but I also wanted to feel of the now. I wanted to sort of meet the production-value expectations of our newer generation.” So it was really a balance between staying true to the original style and taking advantage of all the advancements that have come along the way. I was able to get a lot of the original tech animation team back for this original. I think that I couldn’t have done it without them – the Rob Powers, Zach Dexter, Andrew Roberts, the list goes on. These guys all worked on the original, and they all came back from this reboot.
I’m glad that you’re able to bring back some of the people who worked on the original into the new series and still make it relevant. Now, of all the Wonder Pets that we follow, not only in the original series but the new series, which one of those do you relate to most?
Oh my gosh, that’s a hard question.
Well, I have to say. There’s a new reboot. I love bees. I always say to people, “When I grow up, I want to be a beekeeper, and I want to have my own honey and design the jars.” On the original, I wrote an episode and created a character, this little bee, and that character doesn’t come back in this new reboot spin-off. However, there is a bee episode in which we meet the Queen Bee. And I would say the bee, in a way, because it goes back to something that I love, and goes back to an original character that I developed way back when. We sort of took it to the next level for this spin-off with this new kid, Queen Bee, who speaks to me. I love them all. So it’s really hard for me to pick, but since you said since your question, sort of like goes back to the very beginning, I think I’m going to pick that one.
Now, what can fans of the first season look forward to in the upcoming season?
So I feel like in season one of this spin-off, we were really establishing this new world, this new city classroom, these three new pets, their personalities. They fly in this jet car. They get phones. We’re sort of explaining the world. And we definitely got a chance to play with some episodes that broke the format. But then, for season two, once that was all out of the way, we felt like we checked that box. I feel we were allowed to push even further.
So there were episodes where they went into a Soumaya painting and saved a frog painted in a traditional Souvier style. They save a character that’s made out of origami. Because in the classroom, we have all of these wonderful kids’ art projects. They don’t just save animals; they can actually save just about anything if they can get there. And then there’s even an episode where we get a chance to explore one of the kids from the classroom, because we always hear these kids. We hear them as they’re leaving, saying goodbye to the pets, and then at the end of the day, the pets get their call. But in this episode, we get to learn about Tallulah, a little girl in the classroom. She’s had a birthday party, and she got this red balloon, and through audio and through shadows, because we don’t actually show her, we see out the window that she loses her, she’s really sad about it. And kids feel that, you know, as a kid, everybody has lost a balloon, and so, you know, the door closes, the music kicks in, and the wonder. Pets are kind of like, you know what? We don’t just save animals, we save balloons too, and they’re, they’re in it to get this balloon back for Tallulah, awesome.
Check out Wonder Pets: In the City – Season 2 as it starts their rescues Friday, March 20th on Apple TV+
Until next time, See You…. Out There!
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