WordGirl
| WordGirl | |
|---|---|
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| Also known as |
'The Amazing Colossal Adventures of WordGirl ' |
| Created by | Dorothea Gillim |
| Developed by |
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| Directed by | David SanAngelo Steve Young |
| Voices of |
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| Narrated by |
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| Theme music composer |
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| Opening theme | Word Up, It's WordGirl! |
| Ending theme | Word Up, It's WordGirl! (Instrumental) |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 8 |
| No. of episodes | 130 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) |
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| Producer(s) |
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| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Production company(s) |
Soup2Nuts Scholastic |
| Distributor | PBS |
| Release | |
| Original network |
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| Picture format |
4:3 Fullscreen (SDTV) (Season 1) 16:9 Widescreen (HDTV) (Season 2–8) |
| First shown in | 2006 |
| Original release |
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| Chronology | |
| Related shows | Maya & Miguel |
| External links | |
| Website | |
| Production website | |
'The Amazing Colossal Adventures of WordGirl
WordGirl is an American children’s animated television series produced by the Soup2Nuts animation unit of Scholastic Entertainment for PBS Kids. The show began as a series of shorts entitled The Amazing Colossal Adventures of WordGirl that premiered on PBS Kids Go! on November 10, 2006, usually shown at the end of Maya & Miguel; the segment was then spun off into a new thirty-minute episodic series that premiered on September 3, 2007 on most PBS member stations. All four full-episode seasons each have twenty-six episodes, while the preceding series of shorts had thirty.
By late 2014, most PBS stations from coast to coast had stopped airing WordGirl on TV. New episodes appear only on the PBS Kids website or PBS Kids video app on the computer, laptop, tablet or smartphone. The series ended with the two-part episode "Rhyme and Reason", which was released online on August 7, 2015.
The show was created for children ages 4 to 9.
WordGirl began in 2006 as a series of shorts airing within Maya & Miguel, becoming an independent show in September 2007.
The show's creator, Dorothea Gillim, believes that children's shows often underestimate children's intelligence:
Part of my mission is to make kids' television smart and funny. I feel as though we’ve lost some ground there, in an effort to make it more accessible. WordGirl's focus is on great stories, characters, and animation. If all those elements are working, then you can hook a child who may come looking for laughs but leave a little smarter.
Gillim says she created the show, in part, with the idea that parents would watch the show with their children to support their learning.
Each eleven-minute segment in each episode (except for the first three episodes) begins with verbal instructions to listen for two words that will be used throughout the plot of that episode. The words (examples include “diversion,” “cumbersome,” and “idolize”) are chosen according to academic guidelines. The reasoning is that children can understand words like “cumbersome” when told that it means “big and heavy and awkward.”
PBS NewsHour anchor Jim Lehrer agreed to do a mock interview with WordGirl. Jack D. Ferraiolo, who developed the series with Gillim and served as the series' head writer in Season One, received an Emmy for his work on WordGirl.
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