Nick Jr. Greenlights Second Season Of The Wonder Pets!

From Animation World Network's Headline News:

Nick Jr. Greenlights Second Season Of The Wonder Pets!

Nick Jr. has greenlit a second season of the hit animated series, THE WONDER PETS! The groundbreaking series, which premiered March 3, 2006, has consistently ranked among the top three preschool programs on all of commercial television.

Created and exec produced by Josh Selig of Little Airplane Prods. Inc., THE WONDER PETS! stars three courageous classroom pets who sing opera and travel the world as they take preschoolers on musical world adventures. THE WONDER PETS! airs regularly on Nick Jr. weekdays at 11:00 am.

“A singing guinea pig, turtle and duck, tales of teamwork and far away places, combined with a fresh photoreal animated style make THE WONDER PETS! practically irresistible for kids and parents,” said Brown Johnson, exec creative director, Nickelodeon Preschool Television.

The series has been sold to 67 countries around the globe, including 49 countries in South America and the Caribbean, three countries in Europe and 15 countries in Asia and Asia Pacific.

THE WONDER PETS! chronicles the adventures of three funny, singing classroom pets: Linny the Guinea Pig, Ming-Ming Duckling and Turtle Tuck, who travel the world and use teamwork to save baby animals in distress.

Every episode of THE WONDER PETS! is an original mini-operetta filled with world music influences suited to the locale of the day’s adventure. The music is written and developed by top Tony and Grammy Award-winning talent, including Jeffrey Lesser, a producer and recording engineer for artists including Barbra Streisand, Sting and Linda Ronstadt. Award-winning composers and orchestrators from Broadway’s AVENUE Q, MONTY PYTHON’S SPAMALOT and FIDDLER ON THE ROOF have also worked on the series. The music on THE WONDER PETS! is recorded with a live orchestra; and much of the dialogue is sung in operetta style.

At the end of each school day when the teachers and students have all gone home, the fearless trio become THE WONDER PETS! In every story, The Wonder Pets! receive a call on a tin-can phone in their classroom from a baby animal who needs their help. The trio quickly assembles their Flyboat, made from a collection of classroom toys and travel together across oceans, into space, and even back in time to save animals in distress. While they don’t have any actual superpowers, but they work together as a team to overcome adversity.

THE WONDER PETS! is done in a new, original style of animation, called photo-puppetry animation, in which the animators manipulate photographs of real animals, creating a comical, realistic look that is unique to Nick Jr.

Little Airplane Prods. (www.littleairplane.com) specializes in film & television programming for young children. Founded by Josh Selig in 1999, Little Airplane Prods. created and produced Piper O'Possum for Nick Jr. and Oobi for NOGGIN (winner of a 2001 Gold Parents’ Choice Award). Little Airplane also created and produced GO, BABY! for Playhouse Disney. Additionally, Selig was the head writer for LITTLE BILL on Nick Jr.

Nick Jr. is a specially designed programming block airing on Nickelodeon weekdays from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm and weekends on CBS (check local listings). Completely dedicated to preschoolers, 2-5, Nick Jr.’s Emmy, Peabody and Parents’ Choice Award-winning programs are curriculum based, fun and commercial free. At Nick Jr., kids play to learn with innovative, original shows created just for them.

Nickelodeon (www.nick.com), in its 27th year, is the number-one entertainment brand for kids. It has built a diverse, global business by putting kids first in everything it does. The company includes television programming and production in the U.S. and around the world, plus consumer products, online, recreation, books, magazines and feature films. Nickelodeon's U.S. television network is seen in 90 million households and has been the top-rated basic cable network for more than 10 consecutive years. Nickelodeon and all related titles, characters and logos are trademarks of Viacom International Inc.