Where to find it: Apple TV+
Length: Twenty 10-minute episodes
Synopsis: Toddler TV
Recommendation rating: 3/5
What I like about it: puppets, focus on emotional learning
What I don’t like about it: weird mix of animation styles
Review:
The latest product of Apple’s partnership with the Jim Henson company finds a welcome return to their adorable puppet work in this adaptation of the popular childrens books. Each episode features at least one of the main cast (Bigfoot, Fox, Sloth, Unicorn and Yak) as they explore and play with their friends and families. As is inevitable at every stage of life, their social interactions bring them hurt feelings before they demonstrate a helpful ritual of taking a moment to examine their feelings, decide on a course of action and repeat a reassuring, rhyming mantra. The emotional lessons seem very valuable and generally applicable and the project is, overall, a worthy effort.
Unfortunately the show, combining green-screen muppets with flat animation and occasional full-body puppets for long shots, is disconcerting for adult eyes. Individually, the puppetry and the backgrounds are bright and pretty but they don’t so much combine as clash.
Content notes (may contain spoilers): one episode is about asking to use the toilet – they say poop a lot