Growing up, Al Roker loved animation. His Saturday mornings dedicated themselves to Bugs Bunny and Road Runner, and spent hours studying Preston Blair's book on how to draw cartoon. He dreamed of becoming Walt Disney animator. But when he grew up and became the meteorologist “Today”, he had the idea of combining his love for the climate with his love for animation in a children's television series.
“Weather Hunters”, which will be released on Monday in PBS Kids, follows Lily Hunter (Tandi Fomukong) of 8 years while she, her younger brother, Benny (Lorenzo Ross) and her older sister, Corky (Kapri Ladd), investigates the climate with the help of her parents, Dot (Holly Robinson Pete) and Al (Roker). The children in the series are based on three children of Roker: Courtney, Leila and Nick. And in an art case imitating with love, the Hunter de Roker is a local meteorologist with a inclination for dad's jokes.
“This is really one of those cases in which everything you love in your life joins,” says Roker. “The program reflects what my childhood was. My parents supported their children a lot and what their dreams were.”
Roker has been developing the program since his children now adult were the ages that the Hunter Kids are in the series. “Good things come to those who wait,” he says with a smile.
“This is a real passion project for him,” says Sara Dewitt, senior vice president and general manager of PBS Kids. “We love having a creator who is so excited to interest children in the world.”
For PBS Kids, a series rooted in weather exploration was a natural extension of its current programming list. “The weather plays such an important role in children's life,” says Dewitt. “What should I use today? What happens if it rains and I can't do what I was planning to do? Where does that thunder come from? It simply opened so many ideas and possibilities about the ways in which we could really connect with families and excite them more with the scientific issue.”
“Weather Hunters” focuses on Lily Hunter and her family, which includes her father, Al, who, like Roker, is a meteorologist.
(Weather Hunters Inc.)
In the course of the first 10 episodes, all of whom will premiere digitally in the children of PBS in the launch, Lily and his family will investigate things like fog, clouds, changing colored leaves, thunderstorms, snow and the moving rocks of the desert. Sara Sweetman, an associated professor at Rhode Island University, is the educational advisor of the series. “The weather is such a fantastic content because it is very relevant to the life of children,” she says. “They understand why it is important and how it affects them.”
But climate science, like all science, can become complex quite fast. “I felt very inflexible that there would be a message to carry [in each episode]”Sweetman says.” What we really want is [for] Children to see the program and then run to the kitchen to find his father or his mother and say: 'Guess what?' and be able to indicate that idea really clearly. “
Sweetman was involved in each 22 -minute episode from the first launch. “The ideal situation for educational media is that we arrive at the moment of learning at the same time as the emotional arch of history,” she says. “We know for research when we can do that, that children take away that meaning and cling to it.”
Peete, Dot's voice, has been a friend of Roker for years. He starred in the “Morning Myteries” of Hallmark, which Roker produced and was based on Roker's novels. For Peete, whose father, Matthew Robinson Jr., was the original Gordon in “Sesame Street”, starring the series is a “full moment.” “PBS only meant a lot to me,” she says. “One thing is that your dad is on television. Another thing that your father knows like the best television children's television program. I would like my father to see that I was actually in PBS doing this type of program with Al. I would be very, very proud to continue with this legacy of entertainment and childhood education.”
The executive producer and Showrunner stops MESSERVA that the animation allows the series, which is aimed at children aged 5 to 8 years, has fantasy flights such as the flying mobile meteorological station known as the vansformer that the family explores combined with “scientific explanations based on reality for what is happening.” The episode of the clouds explains how although Benny can no longer see the sun behind the clouds, the sun is still there.
All children are scientists, says MESSERVE, and it is particularly pleasant that the character of the center of this series is a girl interested in science. “There is an investigation that shows that if you can see it, it can be,” says Melerve. “And Lily is surrounded by her brothers who have the same interest, but the way they interact with her is different. Corky wants to film and document it. And then you have Benny, which is more the artistic part. He wants to draw.”
The program also seeks to make some climatic phenomena such as hurricanes or less scary storms in helping the young audience to understand the science behind what is happening. “We are explaining what it is and how it works,” says Roker. “Children can feel some sense of empowerment. In the program we talk, how do we prepare ourselves, as a family? How do we protect ourselves? How do we stay safe?”
Throughout the series, Lily will form hypothesis and try them to see if the facts fit what she originally thought. “Those are all the things in which I think the program stands out, helping to create those skills for critical thinking that children can carry out as they age,” says Roker.
He also expects children to leave with a feeling of the true beauty of the weather. “There really is this magic that happens around us,” he says. “And it is based on science.”
