Oobi (TV series) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Oobi |
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| Genre | |
| Created by | Josh Selig |
| Written by |
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| Directed by |
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| Starring |
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| Theme music composer | Jared Faber |
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| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 3 |
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| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Josh Selig |
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| Production location(s) | |
| Cinematography | Randy Drummond |
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| Camera setup | Videotape; Multi-camera |
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| Production company(s) | Little Airplane Productions Noggin LLC |
| Distributor | MTV Networks |
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| Picture format | NTSC (480i) |
| Audio format | Stereo |
| Original release | 2000 – February 11, 2005 |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows | Oobi: Dasdasi |
Oobi is an American children's television series created by Josh Selig. It aired on Nickelodeon and its sister channel Noggin. The show's idea came from a special way puppeteers train. They use their bare hands and glass eyes instead of a full puppet.
The main character is a bare hand puppet named Oobi. The first season of the show had short episodes, only one to two minutes long. For its second and third seasons, episodes became longer, lasting 13 minutes each. Oobi first aired in 2000. The last new episode was shown on February 11, 2005.
Josh Selig, the creator, used to write for Sesame Street. He got the idea for Oobi by watching puppeteers audition for Sesame Street using only their hands. The show was filmed at Kaufman Astoria Studios, the same place where Sesame Street is made. All the puppeteers on Oobi were experienced Muppet performers. The main characters were played by Tim Lagasse, Stephanie D'Abruzzo, Noel MacNeal, and Tyler Bunch.
The puppets in Oobi have glass eyes and sometimes wear hats or hairpieces. The puppeteers use their thumbs to show mouth movements. Their fingers move to show feelings. The characters speak in simple sentences, often using only two or three words. At the end of each show, you can see families making their own hand puppets like Oobi.
Oobi was very popular for Noggin. Critics liked it, praising the puppeteers, the look of the show, and how it appealed to different ages. Some older viewers even became big fans. The show won several awards, including from the Television Academy and Parents' Choice. By 2004, Oobi was the highest-rated show on Noggin. It was shown in over 23 countries by 2005. An adaptation called Oobi: Dasdasi was made in 2012 for the Middle East and Asia.
Contents
What Happens in Oobi?
The show takes place in a charming, old-fashioned neighborhood. It is seen through the eyes of a four-year-old hand puppet named Oobi. The puppets often talk directly to the audience. They encourage viewers to join in the fun.
The characters use simple words and short sentences. This is like how a young child learns to speak. For example, they might say "Uma, school, first day" instead of "It's my first day of school." The show helps kids learn social skills, early reading, and logical thinking.
Oobi lives in a small house with his younger sister, Uma, and their grandfather, Grampu. Oobi's best friend, Kako, lives nearby and often visits. Most episodes are about Oobi learning something new. This could be a sport, a place, or a holiday. Uma and Kako often make jokes. They might misunderstand Oobi's discoveries or comment on the topic. The show aims to show how amazing the world is when you are very young. It helps kids feel confident as they learn new things.
In the second season, episodes became longer and had three parts.
- The first part was a story about the puppets going on an adventure.
- The second part had short interviews with human families about the story's topic.
- The last part was an interactive game. Viewers could play along with the characters. These games often involved rhyming, guessing, or memory.
When Oobi got a third season in 2004, the game parts were removed. This made room for longer stories. Interviews were still important. They were shortened and used as transitions between scenes.
Meet the Oobi Characters
Main Characters
- Oobi (Tim Lagasse) is a 4-year-old boy. He is very curious and loves to learn. Unlike other characters, he is a bare hand puppet with only eyes. He wears no accessories. His eyes are brown in short episodes and hazel in longer ones. Oobi wants to be a piano player. He takes lessons from Inka. He loves his red model car. Oobi is a role model for his sister, Uma.
- Uma (Stephanie D'Abruzzo) is Oobi's 3-year-old sister. She is shorter than Oobi. She usually wears a barrette on her pinky finger. Uma loves to sing, dance, and pretend. Chickens are her favorite animal. She often talks about them and imitates them, which sometimes bothers Grampu. She tends to overreact to small changes. Her favorite sayings are "Nice!" and "Pretty." Because she is so young, she has trouble saying long words.
- Kako (Noel MacNeal) is Oobi's best friend. He is excited, confident, and a bit proud. Kako is usually playful and tells jokes. But he can be thoughtful and helpful when Oobi needs advice. He has green eyes and wears a red knit hat. His favorite saying is "Perfecto," which means "perfect" in Spanish. Unlike Oobi and Uma, Kako lives with both his parents, Mamu and Papu.
- Grampu (Tyler Bunch) is Oobi and Uma's wise grandfather. He sometimes has bad luck. He takes care of them and teaches them. His hand shape is different from the kids. Four of his fingers are curled, making him look taller. He loves cooking and gardening. He starts a romantic relationship with Inka, Oobi's piano teacher. His favorite saying is "Lovely!"
Other Characters
- Inka (Stephanie D'Abruzzo) is Oobi's piano teacher. She is also Grampu's girlfriend. She often goes on dates with Grampu. She has visited Paris and likes trying foreign foods. She speaks with an accent.
- Angus (Matt Vogel) is Oobi's friend. He is often worried. His eyes are below his fingers, not on top. He speaks with a nasal voice. He worries about how he looks to others. He is a great actor and singer but gets stage fright when performing.
- Mrs. Johnson (Jennifer Barnhart) is Oobi's elderly neighbor. She is one of the few left-handed characters. She wears a white wig and round glasses. She has a pet cat named Kitty.
- Mamu and Papu (Frankie Cordero) are Kako's parents. They appear when Oobi visits Kako's house. Papu works from home. Mamu works at an office but still spends time with her family.
- Maestru (James Godwin) is Oobi and Kako's singing teacher. He works at the community center. He also organizes town events. He wears a bow tie and a gray wig. His index finger is always extended. He uses it like a conducting baton.
- Frieda the Foot (Cheryl Blaylock) is a five-year-old girl. She is shown as a talking foot puppet. She has blue eyes and a flower pin on her toe. Oobi and Frieda often play at the park. They teach each other new games. She represents someone from a different background. Episodes with her teach about social integration and diversity.
- Moppie (Heather Asch) is Uma's best friend from preschool. She has curly red hair. Her fingers are curled into a fist. She is lively and energetic. But she is also afraid to try new things. She loves drawing pictures of her classmates.
- Bella (Lisa Buckley) is a greengrocer and Grampu's friend. She owns the local grocery store. She speaks with an Italian accent. She always brings fruit with her.
How Oobi Was Made
Show Idea and Beginning
Josh Selig got the idea for Oobi after seeing puppeteers in Poland. They were performing with their bare hands for a Sesame Street show. Each puppeteer used their hand and two ping pong balls instead of a full puppet. This is a common way for puppeteers to learn how to move a puppet's mouth and eyes. Selig noticed how much feeling the skilled actors could show with just their hands. This gave him the idea for a show that focused on the "raw emotion" of bare-handed puppetry.
In 1999, Nickelodeon and Sesame Workshop started a new channel called Noggin. At first, Noggin mostly showed old programs from Sesame Workshop. So, both companies looked for new show ideas. Selig had just left Sesame Street when he got the chance to suggest his own show to Noggin. He called his idea Pipo at first. He wanted to name the main character Pipo. But he found out that "Pipo" was already a brand name for jeans. So, he changed the show's name to Oobi. The two "O"s in "Oobi" were meant to look like the characters' eyeballs.
Noggin liked Selig's idea, and Oobi began production with money from Nickelodeon. For the first season, Noggin ordered about 50 short videos. These were 1 to 2 minutes long and played during commercial breaks. This first season was an experiment. It helped Selig decide if he wanted to continue his own production studio, Little Airplane Productions. Selig said that after the first year, they loved having their own company. The first season of shorts was filmed in 1999. It started airing in mid-2000 on both Noggin and Nickelodeon.
Building the Team
Tim Lagasse was chosen to play Oobi. He had done bare-handed puppetry before in his own short films. Many of his techniques for showing feelings with hand movements were used in Oobi. The rest of the cast had all worked on Sesame Street. Kevin Clash, famous for playing Elmo, was a puppeteer on Oobi. He also appeared as Randy in the "Babysitter!" episode. Matt Vogel, who now performs Kermit the Frog and Big Bird, played Angus.
Martin P. Robinson, who performs Mr. Snuffleupagus and Telly Monster on Sesame Street, designed the puppets' costumes and accessories for Oobi. Ken Reynolds and John Tierney, who edited Sesame Street, also edited Oobi. Josh Selig and the show's educational helper, Natascha Crandall, had worked together on Middle Eastern versions of Sesame Street. Lisa Simon, who won many awards for directing Sesame Street, was the supervising producer.
Sacred Noise, a music company, made the show's background music. Composers in New York wrote original songs for the characters. Christopher North Renquist, who wrote songs for Disney Channel, wrote most of the songs. Jeffrey Lesser also helped write music. Mike Barrett was the sound mixer for the series.
Filming the Show
Oobi was filmed at Kaufman Astoria Studios in New York. The show's sets were built on tall wooden poles. This made them level with the puppeteers' hands when they raised their arms. This way, the actors' heads were out of the camera's view. It also let them walk normally while performing. This made the puppets' movements look very smooth. TV screens were placed below the sets. This allowed puppeteers to watch their movements and position their characters.
The actors wore headsets that recorded their voices. This meant they could perform and speak their lines at the same time. Sometimes, they recorded their lines again later. This was especially for song parts, like in the "Theater!" episode.
Many of the sets looked like old-fashioned homes. To make it seem like natural sunlight was coming through windows, the crew used shades with leaf patterns over the studio lights. This made it look like sunlight was passing through trees. Green screens were used for the sky in outdoor scenes and for the windows in Oobi's house.
Every week, the puppeteers visited a manicurist to get their fingernails done. Most male puppeteers, like Tim Lagasse, had to shave their arms often. This was so younger characters like Oobi would not look "hairy." Tyler Bunch was told not to shave. His natural arm hair made Grampu look like an older, hairy grandfather.
When Cheryl Blaylock was asked to play Frieda the Foot, she had to learn how to use her foot as a puppet. She said she had to train her foot to move its "mouth" like a puppet. For episodes with Frieda, the crew built a special set. It was a ramp-like stage with a chair on its side. Blaylock could lie down in the chair and rest her leg on the ramp. This made her foot appear to be standing at the same height as Oobi.
Iranian Version of Oobi
In May 2012, an Iranian TV channel called IRIB TV2 made its own version of the show. It was called Oobi: Dasdasi. None of the original crew worked on this version. Amir Soltan Ahmadi and , two famous Iranian puppeteers, directed and starred in it. They said they watched the English Oobi episodes and wanted to make a version for their audience. The puppet costumes were almost the same as in the original show.
Like the original, it had brother and sister hand puppets living with their grandfather. But this version also added two parents. The three adult characters wore traditional Arab clothes. 78 episodes, each eight minutes long, were made. They aired from September to December 2012. In July 2013, Oobi: Dasdasi was sold to TV stations in five other countries: Kuwait, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka.
Where Oobi Was Shown
Episodes and Airing
48 short episodes and 52 longer episodes were made. Each short was 1–2 minutes long. The longer episodes were 13 minutes each. The longer episodes were often shown in pairs to fill a half-hour time slot. The shorts were shown during commercial breaks on Noggin and Nickelodeon. From 2000 to 2003, Noggin showed the shorts during every commercial break from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM. Nickelodeon showed them less often during its Nick Jr. block.
List of Oobi episodes
Show Popularity
Oobi helped Noggin become much more popular. In 2004, Noggin said that Oobi and two other shows increased the channel's daily viewers by 55 percent. The number of people watching Oobi alone grew by 43 percent. Oobi's popularity grew each quarter of 2004. This steady increase led Noggin to order a third season. The "Uma Preschool!" episode premiere on September 6, 2004, was the highest-rated premiere for a Noggin show at that time.
Awards and Recognitions
In spring 2001, Oobi won a Parents' Choice Gold Award. Later that year, it won a Kids First Endorsement Award. It was also nominated for Best Children's Film or Video. In 2004, the show received another Parents' Choice Award. In 2007, Common Sense Media listed Oobi as a "Best Bet for Young Kids 2-4." In 2009, Josh Selig received an Innovation Award for his work on the show. In 2014, Prix Jeunesse named Oobi one of the "Greatest Impact Programmes of the Last 50 Years."
| Year | Presenter | Award/Category | Nominee | Status | Ref. |
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| 2001 | Parents' Choice Foundation | Television Gold Award | Little Airplane Productions | Won | |
| Coalition for Quality Children's Media | Kids First Endorsement Award | Won | |||
| Best Children's Film or Video | Nominated | ||||
| 2004 | Parents' Choice Foundation | Television Silver Honor | Won | ||
| Up to 6 Fiction | Nominated | ||||
| 2007 | Common Sense Media | Best Bet for Young Kids 2-4 | Won | ||
| 2009 | Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation | Innovation Award | Josh Selig | Won | |
| 2014 | Greatest Impact Programme of the Last 50 Years: 2004 | Little Airplane Productions | Won |
Oobi Related Media
Videos and Books
Clips from Oobi were put on many Nick Jr. DVDs in 2003 and 2004. The first was Blue's Clues: Shapes and Colors!. The last was Oswald: On-the-Go Oswald. Some of these DVDs were sold again in new packs as late as 2015.
Oobi was also featured in many TV magazines. Nick Jr. Magazine often had information about the show. The August 2004 issue included a craft section. It showed how to make costumes for Oobi hand puppets. TV Guide published interviews with Stephanie D'Abruzzo and Josh Selig in 2004 and 2005. The show was mentioned in Big Apple Parent magazine in September 2004. Playthings magazine had another interview with Josh Selig in October 2004. It also included photos from behind the scenes of Oobi. Kidscreen regularly shared news about the series.
Online Fun
Noggin's website had Oobi games from 2001 to 2009. Kenny Miller of Viacom announced the games. He said the Oobi webpage was a place "where kids can match shapes with bubbles, colors with snacks, compose music, and draw and dance with Oobi." Many games were made to go along with the short episodes. From 2004 to 2006, printable activities with the characters were also available.
Time magazine named Noggin.com one of the 50 best websites of 2004. The website also won a Webby Award in 2005. Most of the games received good reviews. In 2006, AACE said the "Oobi's Letters" game helped kids learn important skills.
Promotional Events
The 2001 North American Trade Show Tour had a copy of the Oobi set. Noggin's other displays were about Sesame Street. The Oobi display was part of the Sesame tour. The display was designed by Matthew Allar. Oobi was also a theme for "Club Noggin." This was a monthly event held at malls across the United States. Episodes of the show were screened. Visitors received Oobi puppet eyes and activities.
Fifteen minutes of Oobi shorts were played at the 2001 Kids First Film and Video Festival. This festival was held across the country. Oobi shorts were also shown regularly at Jillian's restaurants from 2002 to 2004. This was part of a "Noggin Play Day" promotion. At these events, people could watch Noggin live. They also had themed activities and meals.
"Oobi Arts and Crafts" sessions were held in November 2007. These took place at the Nickelodeon Suites Resort in Orlando, Florida. Plastic Oobi puppet eyes were given to hotel guests. These were the same as those given out at Club Noggin events.
See also
In Spanish: Oobi para niños
