‘Wowsabout’ PBS special seeks to inspire awe in preschoolers

Wowsabout, a live-action PBS Kids special from the Jim Henson Company set to premiere this spring, aims to cultivate a passion for the natural environment in preschoolers.

The special follows puppets Roxy the hedgehog and her best friend Ronald the pig as they embark on a quest to experience nature’s awe in Sequoia National Park in what they dub their first “Wowsabout.”

The special draws on research into the science behind awe by professor and psychologist Dacher Keltner, who serves as a co-EP and advisor. Dorien Davies, a co-creator and EP of the special, said Dacher’s curriculum and the special address “a lot of anxiety and mental health issues that are happening with our kids today.” 

“It speaks to the moment in the sense that awe is collaborative and causes people to see each other’s opinions a little bit more openly, which is obviously something we are very much in need of in this climate in the United States,” Davies said. “It also helps soothe your nervous system and connect to one another, the planet, yourself, your own emotions, and it releases anxiety.”

The special will air May 1 as PBS Kids kicks off its “PBS Kids Across America” initiative, which introduces a selection of fresh programming curated to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary. After the special airs, PBS Kids will determine whether to extend it into a series. 

PBS Kids VP of Content Adriano Schmid said the special exemplifies the broadcaster’s mission and fits perfectly into its lineup of children’s programming. 

“We think that every time a kid lends their attention to us, to a show, a game or a podcast, we need to treat and value that attention with respect and then do it meaningfully,” Schmid said. “The special does that, and not only for kids. … This is something that young kids, older kids, parents, grandparents will be able to watch together and get something out of.”

‘More than just the natural sciences’

Halle Stanford, the special’s other co-creator and EP, said that during the period following the COVID-19 pandemic, she thought a lot about how children “were having a hard time connecting.” She also reflected on her time creating Sid the Science Kid and working as an EP on shows like Dinosaur Train and The Doozers, all STEM-centered shows. 

“I was just like, ‘We just need something more than just the natural sciences,’” Stanford said.  “It’s not quite motivating a movement towards this caretaking of one another and the planet.”

Having filmed on location in Calgary, Canada, while working on Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock in early 2021, Stanford said she realized how beautiful puppets could look outdoors. 

“That was just in the back of my head — ‘Gosh, we’ve got to create something that just looks and feels different,’” she said. 

Following the 2022 holiday season, Stanford, then president of television for the Jim Henson Co., embarked on a weeklong creative writing retreat where she brainstormed an idea for a hedgehog character. 

The same day, Stanford said, she encountered a New York Times article about the science of awe featuring research by Keltner, with whom she’d previously worked on Teeny Tiny Dogs, a TV series. 

“I was like, ‘This is it. The research on awe is there,’” Stanford said. “It is scientifically vetted that it’s the emotion that can foster within you a connection to the planet. … It was like it all clicked in: the character, concept and the ‘why.’”

By the time she returned to work, Stanford had a vision for a puppet-based children’s series based around a small hedgehog with a backpack who “explored the real world in all its vastness and its beauty and awe,” said Lisa Henson, CEO of the Jim Henson Co.

Stanford needed someone to play her hedgehog character, and one person came to mind: Davies, an actress and puppeteer she had worked with on the shows Julie’s Greenroom and Word Party. 

“She could create a little girl like no other, and she would make me laugh,” Stanford said. “I was like, ‘Wait a second, maybe … we could work on this together.’ So I brought her over, I pitched the idea to her, she loved it, and I’m like, ‘Let’s build this show.’”

The duo determined Roxy, the hedgehog character, needed a friend. So they conceived a pig named Ronald and recruited puppeteer and actor John Tartaglia to play the character, direct and serve as co-EP. From there, the team created a script and a series bible. They also filmed an early concept film exhibiting the puppet characters in the redwoods to showcase to distributors. 

“I had to demonstrate to the broadcasters, ‘This is how beautiful it can look, but it also can be this funny. It can have that old school, Jim Henson Muppet Movie, on the road, buddy comedy [feel], but also you could step back and see these little teeny puppet characters in this beautiful big wide world,’” Stanford said. 

Davies said the “number one priority” was pitching the series to PBS Kids. 

“We didn’t even take it anywhere else,” Davies said. “I’m a PBS kid, I grew up a PBS kid, so there was no question.”

PBS Kids “fell in love with the characters,” Schmid said. Though it was pitched as a series, Schmid said PBS Kids decided to pick up and test a pilot. As development began, the pilot was converted into a special to be showcased as part of the PBS Kids Across America initiative. 

‘Different from regular Hollywood’

The 22-minute Wowsabout special follows Roxy and Ronald as they take a musical walk through Sequoia National Park. The special exposes preschool-aged children to the “beauty, accessibility and awe of a national park” as the puppet characters traverse the natural environment, giving parents a formative viewing option for their children, Henson said. 

“Children of the age that are watching this show might not themselves be aware of the choice between playing a game on their parents’ phone versus seeing incredible trees and nature at the park, but parents definitely are aware of those choices,” Henson said.

Schmid said the “accessibility to that idea of wonder and awe” conveyed by the special made the product a perfect fit for PBS Kids. 

“We are noncommercial, so there’s never a goal of underlying products behind the content or the idea that we want kids to be relentlessly glued to the screen,” Schmid said. “This is a nicely paced story with a really good curriculum related to the real world. … And that’s very true to many of our projects, shows and content.”

Keltner, who was brought on as a co-EP, introduced the team to contacts at the National Park Service, which led to the agency and its official nonprofit partner, the National Park Foundation, becoming official partners for the special. The agency permitted the team to film within the Sequoia National Park and took on an advisory role. 

“They have been really integral in helping us navigate this bureaucracy that we’re not familiar with,” Davies said. “It’s very different from regular Hollywood.”

Other partners include the National Gallery of Art and sponsors The Gambrell Foundation and Christina and Evan Sharp, the latter of whom is a co-founder of Pinterest. 

Schmid said PBS Kids is excited to see how the special fares with audiences upon its debut. He said the broadcaster will determine whether to greenlight a full-fledged series based on the characters and concept after evaluating the special’s performance. 

“Our hope is that kids and families will enjoy the special,” Schmid said. “We are also going to be able to test the special and then learn what children’s expectations are about the characters, the places they will go, and all of that. … The learning will be so valuable when we talk about a potential series based on Wowsabout.”

He added that the future of a potential series will also “be part of the ongoing conversation related to how public media can co-finance projects in the near future” due to the rescission of federal funding. 

“The special itself wasn’t directly affected by the loss in funding, but any potential new specials, sequels, series, podcasts, you name it, we’ll have to evaluate that in the same way that we’re evaluating everything else in our pipeline, considering the fact that we have fewer resources than we did,” Schmid said. 

Stanford’s production company, 7 Crow Stories, is raising funds for 20 episodes for a first season. Henson said the goal is to raise over $7 million. Davies said each episode will cost around $500,000 to produce. 

Davies and Stanford have big ideas that could be realized if they get the go-ahead for a full series. 

“We have this remarkable relationship with our National Park Service, and we want to get into a lot of the amazing awe and wonder that exists in the United States in our national parks,” Davies said. “We definitely want to do some episodes in cities, definitely some episodes in a soccer stadium … so we’re hoping to bring on wonder of all different kinds in the show.”

In the meantime, Stanford said she is excited to share the characters, concept and story with PBS stations and their communities.

Schmid said the response from PBS member stations that have previewed the special has been “amazing” and that they have a “genuine connection with what we are presenting.” 

“If the stations or the station representatives are feeling that, then that means that there’s a need for it, and then our audiences will also embrace it,” Schmid said

Stanford added that stations “see all the possibilities in the future, like, ‘Wow, maybe Wowsabout will come to my city and to our local station to visit and be part of this bigger, wider collective effervescence that is PBS.’”

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to Dorien Davies and Halle Stanford as co-EPs. They are EPs.