| Wonder Pets! | |
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| Genre | |
| Created by | Josh Selig |
| Written by |
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| Directed by | Jennifer Oxley |
| Voices of |
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| Theme music composer | Larry Hochman |
| Opening theme | "The Wonder Pets!" |
| Ending theme | "The Wonder Pets!" (instrumental) |
| Composers |
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| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 3 |
| No. of episodes |
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| Production | |
| Executive producer | Josh Selig |
| Producer | Tone Thyne |
| Editors | Romeo Alaeff Susie Herang |
| Running time | 22 minutes |
| Production companies | Little Airplane Productions Nickelodeon Animation Studio (credited as Nick Jr. Productions for seasons 1–2) |
| Original release | |
| Network |
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| Release | March 3, 2006[2] – October 17, 2016[3] |
| Infobox instructions (only shown in preview) | |
Wonder Pets! is an American animated musical 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 a sung-through musical.[4] 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.[5] The shorts featured Linny going on adventures set to classical music.[6] In 2003, Little Airplane screened the shorts at the wrap party for Oobi's 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.[7] 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).[5] The first long-form episode debuted on March 3, 2006,[2] 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.
An upcoming revival series Wonder Pets: In The City will be released on Apple TV+ on December 13, 2024. The series will center on a new team of Wonder Pets and will take place in New York City. Selig and Little Airplane will not be involved in the revival due to the latter being shut down by parent company Studio 100 in 2023.[8]
- ^ Crump, William D. (2019). Happy Holidays—Animated! A Worldwide Encyclopedia of Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and New Year's Cartoons on Television and Film. McFarland & Co. pp. 343–344. ISBN 9781476672939.
- ^ a b "The Wonder Pets!". TVGuide.com. Archived from the original on April 7, 2023. Retrieved April 7, 2023.
- ^ "Shows A-Z - wonder pets on nick jr | TheFutonCritic.com". www.thefutoncritic.com. Archived from the original on October 25, 2023. Retrieved April 7, 2023.
- ^ Wyatt, Edward (March 28, 2006). "Nickelodeon's 'Oobi Wonder Pets' Offers Operetta for Preschoolers". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 23, 2018. Retrieved September 16, 2019.
- ^ a b "Post Magazine - ANIMATION: 'OOBI THE WONDER PETS!'". www.postmagazine.com. Archived from the original on August 2, 2023. Retrieved August 4, 2023.
- ^ "Little Airplane Soars with 'Oobi The Wonder Pets!'". Animation World Network. Archived from the original on March 5, 2017. Retrieved September 16, 2019.
- ^ "Linny the Guinea Pig "Space and Ocean" | 2005 Tribeca Festival". Archived from the original on September 29, 2019. Retrieved April 7, 2023.
- ^ Milligan, Mercedes (October 15, 2024). "Apple TV+ Announces New 'Wonder Pets: In The City' Animated Pre-K Series for December". Animation Magazine. Retrieved October 15, 2024.