18 replies to this topic

[Procrastination]

Well, I did a search and couldn't find a thread for this.

I've found a new favorite superhero: WordGirl! Hailing from Planet Lexicon, she now resides on Earth as a 5th-grader with super-strength, super-speed and a super-vocabulary. Awesome as it sounds? You betcha. (Her sidekick Captain Huggy Face has the best name ever, as well.) After she saves the day and flies away, she calls out, "Word up!" Word up.

I recently found a bunch of clips of this show on YouTube and I thought it was the funniest, cutest cartoon ever. There are also tons of clips on the official site. I think my favorite clip is the interview with PBS News Hour anchor Jim Lehrer. "Yeah, the villainy is tough but I have to say the poor word choices bug me more." Heh, I feel your pain, WordGirl!

As I understand it, the show was originally just a mini-series of 2-minute clips that would be featured during commercial breaks on PBS Kids Go! But apparently the show earned its own series and debuted Sept. 7. I don't get PBS Kids Go! How long were the episodes? Was it just as good at the shorts on the official website? I need to know more! Word up!

[Sairis]

I love this show. Yet another kids show that this adult enjoys. It has almost a Kim Possible-like sense of humor about it.
I mean, how can you not love a show that has a villain called The Butcher who gets defeated by tofu? Freaking awesome!

[lawgiver]

On our PBS station, Word Girl airs on friday mornings only. But my 2 and a half year old loves watching clips and playing the games (with mom and dad) on pbskids.org.

I also love this show because Chris Parnell is the announcer/narrator. Paging Dr. Spaceman!

[Trini Girl]

This has got to be one of the funniest educational shows since Histeria! (yet slightly more educational).

Word up!

[socialchild]

It's a great show, but it ain't called Grammar Girl. Chuck the Evil Sandwich-Making Guy should be either Evil Chuck the Sandwich-Making Guy or Chuck the Sandwich-Making Evil Guy. He doesn't make evil sandwiches. Or does he?

[Batman Beatles]

I love this show.

It's kind of like the Tick in a sense that it lampoons superhero cliche's. You have villains with goofy themes like, The Butcher, Granny May, Dr. Two Brains...etc.

Chuck The Evil sandwich-making Guy reminds me of the Condiment King in Batman=The Animated Series.

[firelova]

I swear I was gonna make this thread...but I see it already exist.

I love this show as well. I think it's hilarious that her brother has a crush on word girl but they can't blatantly say it because it would cross over into territory not suitable for PBS LOL. I hope they do a team up with The butcher and Chuck the Evil Sandwich guy, it seems like a pairing dying to happen. I think the Announcer's sense of humor really ads to this show, on the episode when Chuck needed people to help him move and the announcer said "I'm just a voice" I laughed so hard at the cleverness of that whole exchange.

Edited by firelova, Jan 12, 2009 @ 9:37 PM.

[Batman Beatles]

I think the Announcer's sense of humor really ads to this show,

He is so cool. A couple of parts made me laugh. One where he says, "Will Becky reveal her secret identity...and is that corn bread really that good?" and another where Word Girl interrupts him and he sighs and says, "You know, I have only one job on this show."

I love this show as well. I think it's hilarious that her brother has a crush on word girl but they can't blatantly say it because it would cross over into territory not suitable for PBS LOL.

In one episode where Dr. Two Brains reveals her secret identity to her family, her brother freaks out and throws away all his fan club stuff.

Edited by Batman Beatles, Jan 12, 2009 @ 10:15 PM.

[firelova]

I was bored and decided to do some searching about word girl on goggle to see if I could find anything interesting and I came across an interview with the creator Dorthea Gillim.

Q.You have the best villains. I mean, Chuck the Evil Sandwich-Making Guy who has a sandwich-shaped head, shoots mustard at people, lives in his mom's basement and plots to crush City Hall with a Panini press? How do you guys come up with this stuff?

A.Smoke crack.

BWAHAHAHAHA!!!! You've got to read the entire interview she gives a lot of great insight to character development and etc.

Edited by firelova, Jan 13, 2009 @ 6:25 PM.

[Batman Beatles]

I also love how well-rounded the characters are. I love the fact that Becky can kick major robot ass and has an awesome vocabulary but gets all girly over ponies and sucks at art. It seems like so many cartoon characters — especially girls — wind up being flat and one-dimensional, the girly princess or the jock girl or the snob.

This is what I love about Word Girl.

I like Toby the evil boy genius who has a crush on Word Girl.

[GatorGirl13]

firelova TYVM for the article......DD is 6 and loves Word Girl and Ms. Gillim is right, me, my DH and DD have all watched and loved it.

[GatorGirl13]

New episode tomorrow! At least I can count on DD being entertained for 30 minutes.........

[McKay]

I only recently started watching this show, for lack of anything good on at 4:30 (yeah, I'm 25. No, I don't have kids.) PBS seems to be getting its groove back with genuinely good, clever shows that are also educational. WordGirl is the most badass little superhero since Buttercup.

I love the narrator too - he seems to be inspired by Jay Ward's narrator from Rocky and Bullwinkle. Very similar sort of humor, and hilariously funny.

[Sairis]

The narrator is great. I find this show to be one of the funniest on TV. This article in the New York Times gives some cool info as to why. It's a little old, but worth the read. And how much did I love finding out about Jeffrey Tambor being a part of this?!

http://www.nytimes.c...xprod=permalink

[GatorGirl13]

Wendy's is apparently going to be giving away Word Girl toys with their kids meals sometime in the near future. Go to the Wendy's web site, click on Food, then Kids Meals (at the bottom of the list) and then click on the Petz toys logo. That will open up a another list, click on the coming soon tab and six different Word Girl toys pop up. I am definitely going to have to get the audio book for DD, we love listening to audiobooks in the car.

Anyway I just happened across it looking for nutritional info on their kids meals and thought I would share. It doesn't give a start date for when they will be available (not that I could find anyway) in the stores.

Edited by GatorGirl13, Apr 5, 2009 @ 10:10 AM.

[ella ventic]

Just saw my first episode of this today and instantly fell in love; it reminded me so much of the Powerpuff Girls! Great villains, great superhero, and the vocabulary lesson wasn't distractingly shoehorned in (it was shoehorned in, of course, but not *distractingly*).

I particularly liked the breaking-of-the-fourth-wall moments, with WordGirl's interaction with the narrator or WordGirl's hiding in order to hear the villain's lengthy monologue which is then followed by, "Wow, I just love explaining my evil plan out loud to myself when nobody is around."

[GatorGirl13]

I really hope they have some new episodes soon. We had to ditch cable because DH was laid off so all DD has is PBS to watch right and we are tired of the reruns!

[emdroberts]

This is the best PBS show ever. My 5 year old has learned so many words from it. And I love the show as much as she does. It is so funny.

[Zahdii]

We love Wordgirl, and even though my youngest is 18, we watch it anyway. Didn't like the special episode with Jane Lynch, though.