Wonder Pets! is an American educational animated preschool children's television series produced by Little Airplane Productions. The series follows a trio of classroom pets—Linny the Guinea Pig, Turtle Tuck, and Ming-Ming Duckling—who use teamwork to help animals in need. Most of the characters' dialogue is sung in the style of operetta. Each episode is set to original music by a 10-member live orchestra.
Josh Selig and Jennifer Oxley developed the idea for Wonder Pets! while working on their previous show, Oobi. The series started out with two animated shorts called "Linny the Guinea Pig", which acted as pilot episodes. To animate them, Oxley created a style of animation called "photo-puppetry" that uses photos of real objects and moves them using Adobe After Effects. The shorts featured Linny going on adventures set to classical music. In 2003, Little Airplane screened the shorts at the wrap party for Oobis second season. The shorts caught the attention of Nickelodeon, who picked up the shorts to air in between shows on the Nick Jr. block.
The two original shorts were aired throughout 2003 and 2004. For the full-length series, the characters of Tuck and Ming-Ming were added to form a team of hero pets. Tuck was created using photos of Jennifer Oxley's own pet turtle (a red-eared slider). The first long-form episode debuted on March 3, 2006, as part of the Nick Jr. block on Nickelodeon. On that same day, the series started airing on Noggin as well. It ran for three seasons and 62 episodes. The final episode aired on October 17, 2016. The first two seasons and majority of season 3 aired on Nickelodeon, while the last 9 episodes only aired on the separate Nick Jr. Channel.
Overview
Each episode (two separate eleven-minute segments or a single twenty-two-minute episode) follows a similar structure, with many hallmarks and repeated elements. As each episode begins, children are heard from off-screen, leaving school at the end of the day. They say goodbye to the classroom pets. The classroom is always decorated with student artwork and other items related to a given episode's particular storyline, featured animal, or geographic location. Once the classroom is empty, a pencil holder rattles to create the ringing of a phone.
One by one, the classroom pets notice the ringing phone. As the phone rings, they put on their accessories (a hat for Linny, shoes and a sailor's cap for Tuck, and aviator goggles for Ming-Ming) and make their way towards the phone while singing their opening verses. The Wonder Pets answer the phone and find that an animal is in trouble somewhere. Linny, the Guinea Pig, explains the situation to the other two: Tuck Turtle and Ming-Ming Duckling. They all jump into a box filled with fabric scraps and jump back out wearing different outfits, often alluding to the area of the world they will be visiting. They make a quick joke and jump back into the box, emerging again in superhero capes.
Once dressed, they assemble a flying vehicle called the Flyboat. In some episodes, the Wonder Pets opt for a different mode of transportation by adjusting the Flyboat. Usually, the pets encounter an obstacle before leaving the classroom. The solution is invariably similar to the action they will need to take to save the animal in trouble.
When saving the animal, the Wonder Pets always fail on the first few attempts. The danger escalates, prompting Ming-Ming to sing, "This is sewious!" Suddenly, the Wonder Pets remember how they solved the problem in the classroom and realize that the rescue has a similar solution. They have to work together to achieve the rescue. Once the animal is saved, its parent or other relative appears to give grateful thanks to the Wonder Pets. The pets celebrate with a celery snack. The rescued animal's parent sometimes adds a bit of regional food or insists on a regional preparation. The pets fly back to the classroom and wordlessly return to their cages as their hats and capes come off. The Flyboat automatically disassembles upon landing. Ming-Ming is always the first one to get back in her cage, Tuck is the second, and Linny is the last. A musical riff relating to the episode's rescue is played as Linny takes a bite out of the celery in her cage and winks at the camera. Other pets have winked at the camera including Tuck in Save the Rhino, Ming-Ming in Back to Kalamazoo and In The Land Of Oz and Ollie in Ollie to the Rescue and The Amazing Ollie. Another episode or the end credits then begin.
Episodes
The series debuted on March 3, 2006, on Nickelodeon's Nick Jr. block.