When Zoboomafoo premiered on PBS on January 25, 1999, families immediately fell in love with the super-powered Kratt brothers and the live animal show they interacted with in each 30-minute episode. Combining puppets with real wild animals, their design was not as unusual as other critics who walked, flew, and swung their set, and that is what drew more attention to the show.
You and your children can see their hosts in them Wild Krattsthe popular PBS series is now in its seventh season. This is where the animated versions of the bros showcase the abilities of various animals, living a day in the life of that species while preventing the bad guys from polluting the world. But the story of these zoologists doesn’t start with flashy pictures and costumes of super-powered animals, but with the animation of a lemur and his love of snacks.
Me, You, and Zooboomafoo
Plays the theme to “Zoboomafoo”
After graduating from college, Martin Kratt and his younger brother Chris traveled the world making low-budget documentaries about children’s animals. Hand-held footage from these events became the basis for their first PBS show, Creatures of Kratts. Aimed at preschoolers, the brothers support the mysterious abilities of animals in a way that speaks to a younger demographic.
The kids loved it Creatures of Krattsand its success led the two to a spin-off titled Zoboomafoo. Instead of traveling around the world, this studio show took place in a fictional location called “Animal Junction.” The brothers enthusiastically taught the viewers about different animals with the help of their colleague who is in charge of the show, the lemur which was the name of the show. Whenever Zoboomafoo (Zoboo for short) had a snack, he would grunt and transform into a talking doll that interacted with the Kratts and the episode’s special creature guests. A children’s nature show like this was an untested and ambitious undertaking, few believed it would be popular, let alone possible.
“A couple of production managers … during the planning phase quit because they didn’t think it could be done,” Chris said in an interview with Variety in 2021. “We had this puppet lemur that was going to be a real lemur and we were going to go back and forth between them … It scared a lot of seasoned television professionals.”
Undeterred, the Kratts fulfill their dangerous vision, introducing home audiences to exotic creatures such as the binturong or Kinkajous, reptiles such as tarantulas, beautiful birds such as the kookaburra, and predators such as wolves and tigers, aided by a clever and curious lemur. There was even an episode about humans and what made them special among animals. Whatever they did, it worked, as the ratings were amazing. It proved to be very popular with children and adults alike, as statistics revealed high co-viewing numbers with families watching together.
The constant flow of animals on set means that production schedules are seen by critics, not people who take pictures. The staff let the wild guests do their thing and kept the cameras rolling. It helped that the animals were often children, which made it easier to keep them from getting into more serious trouble – even if that wasn’t always the case.
Is the real Zoboo please stand up?
Chris and Martin Kratt chill with their favorite lemur, Zooboomafoo
PBS/Earth Creatures Co.
Chris and Martin have been watching wildlife shows for over two decades, but if you ask them who was the real star Zoboomofoothey answered saying it was a lemur. Two lemurs will be exact – one real and one artificial – but both are essential to the success of the show.
Gord Robertson was the voice and entertainer of Zoboo, an experienced artist who worked on Jim Henson productions that led to his time on the PBS Kids show. Robertson called it fun but “challenging,” often doing flats on his back on a concrete floor covered in mulch instead of the usual raised set he used to do. One thing that needed to be fixed was the unpredictability of wildlife. Robertson was lured by baby skunks, mauled by an elephant, and almost mauled by a cougar (similar to the one seen earlier), but the worst tragedy nearly jeopardized the safety of more than just the set crew.
“They had this bear that was probably a retired circus bear but it was skittish, and a bear is a bear or not,” Robertson recalled in an interview from 2021. “I’m standing behind the stage. [after they cleared the set of bystanders] and the lighting director is lying on the couch looking at the monitor to watch the scene. We see the bear come into the shot, get up, drop, turn, then run, then pass out. All we hear is his claws running on the pavement!”
After being warned by a zookeeper not to move, the bear ran past Robertson to freedom with the air conditioner. “He punches the air vent and leaves the building, as he does so, the coach comes around the corner and says, ‘Where’s the bear?’ I looked at him and said ‘Outside.’ He says ‘Outside there? I say ‘Outside!’”
This would have been a disaster, as the studio was in the middle of a densely populated area of Toronto, Canada. Luckily, the bear didn’t wander off and was soon found back in its trailer. As production continued, there were probably very few private rest areas needed by the workers.
Caitlin O’Reilly, who helped build and wrangle the Zoboo doll, recalled the odd jobs she did to keep the faux lemur safe at the wildlife exhibit, including “washing the camel’s saliva, making sure the ostrich doesn’t poke the doll’s shiny eyes, and making sure the intrepid spider doesn’t fall out of its skin and out of its armpit hole.”
Who was Zoboomafoo the animal?
The real Zooomafoo was just as adorable as his puppet counterpart
Duke Lemur Center
While he wasn’t a doll, Zoboo was a real animal who enjoyed his time in the spotlight. Jovian, a five-year-old Coquerel sifaka lemur, loved jumping all over the set and hanging out with the Kratts. He grew up at the Duke Lemur Center in North Carolina, a sanctuary for these rare and endangered species where Martin volunteered while attending Duke University as a zoology student.
From his soft creamy white fur to his clear face and bright eyes, it was impossible not to like Jovian. The young lemur was amazing to watch, whether it was jumping gracefully across the room, climbing the ladder with its long tail trailing behind, or munching on a banana noisily. “He would come in through the window and we would feed him mangoes or garbanzo beans,” Martin recalled in a 2014 interview. “Sometimes he would hold their noses with those soft sifaka hands.”
A second set similar to “Animal Junction” was built in North Carolina to film lemur scenes without moving them far from their habitat. Jovian, along with parents Nigel and Flavia, went crazy and jumped on this set, using that Zoboo video throughout the series. Nigel and Flavia appeared together with their offspring during the episode “Happy Lemur Day,” an episode about lemurs celebrating Zoboo’s birthday, whose parents appear alongside their famous ring-tailed son.
Jovian sadly passed away in 2004 at the age of 20, but his legacy lives on with his beloved family members, including his children.
While Zoboomafoo lasted just 65 episodes over two seasons, its presence helped elevate the Kratt brothers to the top hosts of children’s nature shows. Today, Wild Kratts is one of the most popular cartoons on PBS, and has plenty of cash and toys, books, and other products that help the show maintain its boa-constrictor hold on children’s entertainment.
A Zoboomafoo a reboot was announced in early 2020, but there have been zero updates four years later. Although it has been two decades since then Zoboomafoo has left the airwaves, there are still ways to watch it online or on physical media. It’s worth introducing it to your wildlife, especially if it makes them jump like a lemur to learn more about nature’s wonders.
Zoboomafoo is streaming on Amazon Prime.
This article was originally published
