Tot TV Watch

Yesterday I watched the Zula Patrol premiere as part of the qubo block on ION. Besides the kind of annoying theme song at the beginning I found this to be a pretty good educational cartoon for kids. The show remains entertaining while it slips in some facts related to space science.

The main characters are Bula the Zula Patrol’s captain, Zeeter the pilot, Multo the walking encyclopedia, Gorga the Patrol’s dog-like pet, Wizzy and Wigg the twins with a knack for exploration, Deleria the villian, Cloid the Deleria’s servant robot, and Dark Truder another villain with a robotic wig (or maybe its a space creature) called Traxie.

The shows feature different missions the Zula Patrol end up on as they work to keep their plant (called Zula by the way) safe. Within the episodes plot there is a specific science topic that is touched on. Most of these topics are space science specific. Each episode contains two different half-episodes each with their own science topic covered. For example, in yesterday’s episode the first part taught a little about comets and the second part taught a little about asteroids/meteors. There is some things taught as part of the half-episodes, but most of the information is taught at the end of each half-episode in a segment that Multo talks about the half-episodes topic.

Overall the show is not too overtly education, but it does still teach some basic space science info. It seems like it could be a great show to inspire kids to learn more about science as well as be a fun show to use as part of a space science curriculum.

qubo begins its Space Age Summer tomorrow on ION. The qubo block of shows air on ION on Fridays, NBC on Saturdays, and Telemundo on the weekends. The current line-up includes My Friend Rabbit, 3, 2, 1 Penguins, VeggieTales, and Jane and the Dragon. On July 4th (5th and 6th for Telemundo and 12th officially for NBC) two shows will be added to the line-up. The two shows are Babar and Zula Patrol. Neither show is entirely new, but they are good editions to the qubo line up.

Babar is an animated show based on the classic children’s book series by Laurent de Brunhoff. The show is about Babar, who is king of the elephants, and his family. The episodes are usually about Babar teaching those around him, especially his kids, lessons of life based on his own life experience. In turn the show also teaches the viewers the same lessons of life, which includes topics like jealousy and false accusations.

The other new to the qubo line up show is The Zula Patrol. This outerspace set show teams up with 3, 2, 1 Penguins to make an hour long space age block, which is what makes the Space Age Summer thing make sense. The Zula Patrol is originally a PBS show and as you can expect from that it is quite educational. The main educational category for the show is science with the obvious emphasis being astronomy. The show is a space adventure show with the Zula Patrol going on missions to save their planet called Planet Zula and the universe in general.