This week PBS Kids is premiering a new show! The show is called Odd Squad, and it premieres on Wednesday November 26th at 3 pm Central on Alabama Public Television. Check local listings for the times in your local area. Odd Squad is being made by the Fred Rogers Company, and will be one of the few live action kids shows on PBS Kids. Tim McKeon and Adam Peltzman, behind other great kids shows like Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, The Backyardigans, Wallykazam, The Electric Company, Gravity Falls, and Adventure Time, are bringing us a kids show filled with weird things, and math concepts.
Each episode of Odd Squad will feature kid investigative agents in two 11-minute stories. The show stars Dalila Bela and Filip Geljo as they attempt to unravel mysterious happenings. The first season will have 40 episodes released throughout the next two years, and the show will feature a wide variety of math topics inducing addition, subtraction, temperature, time, numbers, measurements, and basic geometry. Since other shows like S.H.I.E.L.D., Adventure Time, and Gravity Falls are very popular because of the mysteries on their shows, Odd Squad is wanting to bring the same mystery formula to educational kids TV.
As PBS vice president of children’s programming Linda Simensky says, “Math has an absolutely terrible reputation. It’s considered hard and boring and useless — not just by kids but by parents, too. Math needs new PR people!” Last year, PBS Kids launched Peg + Cat which teaches math to a younger audience. Odd Squad will be aimed at older kids aged 5-8. Along with the math concepts, you will also get some comedy, mystery, and plenty of good story lines, including a story arc. The creators are wanting kids to think there is an Odd Squad branch in their hometowns. And you will see ties to other classic movies and TV shows like Men In Black and The X-Files.
Even the Odd Squad headquarters is kid sized, which means the ceilings are small, and adults have to hunch over. With movies and TV shows similar to Odd Squad already very popular, I have to wonder if Odd Squad could become a hit not only with kids, but with adults too. If that happens, what will happen to the main kid cast when they get bigger? I guess we will find out! Odd Squad premieres on Wednesday November 26th at 3 pm Central on Alabama Public Television. Check local listings for the times in your local area. Learn more about Odd Squad at: http://pbskids.org/oddsquad/
Also, I wanted to share this other PBS Kids project featuring Ruff Ruffman of FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman. They are wanting beta testers to test out their new site for kids and parents about media and technology. If you want to take a look, go to: http://pbskids.org/fetch/ruff/
All videos and photos copyright from PBS
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