Totally Freaking Out About Peg + Cat
September 24, 2014 6:45 PM   Subscribe

Peg + Cat is an Emmy award-winning cartoon from PBS, featuring the adventures of a young girl and her feline friend, using the power of math to solve Really Big Problems. The show, created by kid TV and Broadway veterans Jen Oxley & Billy Aronson, not only gives preschoolers an introduction to practical mathematics, it's also surprisingly entertaining for adults.
posted by murphy slaw (38 comments total) 43 users marked this as a favorite
 
I concur.
posted by bq at 6:51 PM on September 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


Barbie told me math is hard so pbs must be wrong.
posted by clvrmnky at 6:56 PM on September 24, 2014 [2 favorites]


Yeah, this show is OK. It's one of those shows where everyone is super excited about everything! Toddlers love this, and loud jaunty music, and sparkles. Adults would sometimes prefer the sweet, illusory oblivion of silence, but it appears the child shouting can only be replaced by another, perhaps more terrible pretend TV child shouting.

But I suppose it's all for the best. In the words of Blaise Pascal, "The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread."

My daughter likes this show, but she LOVES Super Why. I'm not sure why that is.
posted by selfnoise at 6:59 PM on September 24, 2014 [3 favorites]


I am TOTALLY FREAKING OUT that you made this post.

The chickens crack me up every episode they're on, I do not even know why. And I love the bickering pirates. And the teens. And the overbearing neighbor ladies. Actually I cannot think of anything about this show I do not love.

I like the Halloween episode.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:59 PM on September 24, 2014 [13 favorites]


Super Why makes me want to cut someone. At least on Peg + Cat, Cat and Ramone are less perky than Peg and tell her to chill out from time to time.
posted by murphy slaw at 7:02 PM on September 24, 2014 [4 favorites]


Peg + Cat was a Big Deal for PBS-- promoted very heavily internally. They knew they were making something worth seeing. The voice talent is amazing, the lessons aren't so obviously shoehorned, and the narrative respects children's intelligence.

It reminds me of a toned-down version of the BBC's wonderfully surrealist Sarah and Duck with math lessons.
posted by Mayor Curley at 7:05 PM on September 24, 2014 [5 favorites]


My little girl loves, loves, loves pre-schooler math shows, and will binge-watch Team Umi Zoomi, Monster Math Squad, and Peg + Cat, over and over and over. I'm surprised at how entertaining these shows are - the producers are people brought up on Schoolhouse Rock, Sesame Street and the Electric Company. Even Mr. Rogers is present, with comfortable repetition in the form of characters and phrases and situations that repeat every episode, but serve to build a foundation for the new.

Will it make her a smarter adult? Hell if I know. It's making her a happy 4 year old (5 this saturday!), and she'll be reading this thread when she's 20 and bored in her Calc 401 class, or on her shift at the diner, nod-nodding at the accolades, quirking a frown at the haters.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:06 PM on September 24, 2014 [4 favorites]


I like the premise of Super Why, but they're running low on "super big problems".
posted by dr_dank at 7:07 PM on September 24, 2014 [2 favorites]


Also, Word Girl is worth making your kids watch, so you can see Patton Oswalt destroy cities with giant robots, and find out what George Oscar Bluth Sr. would be like with mind control powers.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:09 PM on September 24, 2014 [8 favorites]


Super Why makes me want to cut someone.

Super Why is paint-by-numbers educational programming, which is by definition grating-- "books are wonderful and technology is cool" could describe any number of forgotten shows over the last 30 years.
posted by Mayor Curley at 7:12 PM on September 24, 2014 [2 favorites]


Peg + Cat is my 3 year old daughter's current favorite program (with Martha Speaks as a very close second). I especially enjoy Cat's love of the pun, as well as the the show's opening credits having different things happening every episode (reminds me a little of "It's Garry Shandling's Show").
posted by 1367 at 7:16 PM on September 24, 2014




Really missed an opportunity there for the headline "Super Why Your Children's Program Sucks".
posted by selfnoise at 7:38 PM on September 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


My wife and I love this show & urge our son to watch it (along with Martha Speaks & Word Girl), though right now he's on more of a Dinosaur Train kick, with some Mighty Machines and Oscar's Oasis thrown in (the latter is a neat modern day take on Looney Toon type animals).

My favorite Peg + Cat line: We're all basically geniuses here...except for Pig.
posted by audi alteram partem at 7:47 PM on September 24, 2014


Look, the first season of Super Why was ok. Season 2 was when things started to slide.
posted by bq at 7:49 PM on September 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


Peg + Cat was a breath of fresh air for everybody. The songs are catchy and memorable. I only wish there were more episodes so the repeats have more variety.

Super Why? It's pretty bad. I'm convinced that the writing staff will eventually get fed up and end the series with a Super Story Answer of "STOP BEING A JERK".
posted by delicious-luncheon at 7:54 PM on September 24, 2014 [4 favorites]


La la la la la!
posted by Nanukthedog at 7:57 PM on September 24, 2014 [2 favorites]


Oscar's Oasis

We've had to turn her away from that, as well as Garfield and some show or other similar to Oscar with a shark. Older kids know for sure about slapstick comedy, but toddlers, well, sometimes they mimick too well. She had a small spate where she thought preschool classmates getting hurt was funny.

(Garfield we had to turn off after she wandered into the kitchen, and said, in Frank Welker's exact intonation, based on Lorenzo Music's stint on the character: "I notice my tuna sandwich with celery isn't being made. Thanks." On the one hand, I am seriously impressed you got the nuances of a great voice performance correct. On the other hand, 4 minutes Time Out!)
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:02 PM on September 24, 2014 [4 favorites]


Oh god I adore this show. I can count on one hand the number of shows my kids discovered that I do more than tolerate, but this is a straight-up love. I've watched it without them. Cat's Ray Romano voice cracks me up.
posted by middleclasstool at 8:18 PM on September 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


The real secret weapon of Peg + Cat is J. Walter Hawkes, the composer that also worked with Jennifer Oxley on The Wonder Pets.

If you're not familiar with The Wonder Pets, get on that pronto.
posted by JoeZydeco at 8:24 PM on September 24, 2014 [4 favorites]


Cat's Ray Romano voice cracks me up.

Henchman 24
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:29 PM on September 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


My kid loves that show, cartoon today are so boring, when i was a kid, i had thundercats, gijoe and he-man to name a few. Real cartoon, not the stuff thats on today
posted by tspaz78 at 8:36 PM on September 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


The Peg and Cat music is so great.
posted by k8t at 8:42 PM on September 24, 2014


I LOVE THIS SHOW and have been forcing it down Twitter's throat since it first started airing in an attempt to not feel completely crazy about obsessing over a preschool show. Thankfully, I also have a 2 year old that shares my enthusiasm, and aside from the great animation/chickens/maths/chickens/songs it has somehow created a love in him for Beethoven's 5th that I could never have achieved myself.

Not to mention, all the kids? They're voiced by age appropriate children of the corresponding race (this is a big deal!). The kid that plays Ramone? Super cute AND multi-talented. Aki the Ninja, I am pretty sure is voiced by a Japanese American girl (for some reason, this is really hard to find a link on, had to check the credits of the show like a heathen). Oh, and the Pig is a legit opera singer.

It feels authentic all the way through. Love it love it love it.
posted by saturnine at 8:44 PM on September 24, 2014 [3 favorites]


Huge fan! I've taken to smoothly saying "I do what I can", but nobody ever catches it. Well, other than my daughter.
posted by hypersloth at 9:04 PM on September 24, 2014


Along that vein, I tend to drop "I am rather an expert at these things" (to quote another adult-bearable cartoon).
posted by coriolisdave at 9:07 PM on September 24, 2014 [3 favorites]


Having watched many episodes of Peg+Cat at this point, the thing that warms my heart is the good-natured goofiness of everything in its world. The characters are offbeat without being bizarre, the songs are legitimately well-crafted (no surprise, given the quality of the music in Wonder Pets, and every episode has at least one authentic laugh-out-loud moment. That's my grown-up analysis. My kid, who is getting more discerning with age, is transported when he watches it. We guffaw together and smile at each other when we sit down to watch it together. When we're out and about doing errands, we'll crack each other up recounting favorite scenes. In a media landscape where genuine family programming is hard to find, Peg+Cat is totally refreshing.
posted by vverse23 at 9:26 PM on September 24, 2014


Son: Why are there squares everywhere?
Me: It's graph paper.
Son: What's graph paper?
Me: /shows him
Son: This. Is. Awesome.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 10:38 PM on September 24, 2014 [15 favorites]


The only TV that I want my kid to watch (besides hockey, cricket and baseball) is PBS Kids. I love Peg+Cat, Wordgirl, Martha Speaks, and (especially) Wild Kratts. I can't stand Caillou or Ribert & Robert's Wonderworld, so of course, those are my kid's favorites. Though, I will say this about Ribert & Robert, the kid has picked up on the drawing techniques quite well. Thankfully, she learns quite a bit from Wild Kratts as well. A year after watching the episode about butterflies, she heard the word "Mexico" somewhere and she piped right up and said, "Hey! Mexico! That's where the butterflies go!"
posted by NoMich at 5:08 AM on September 25, 2014


Ditto on the massive love for this show as it is my daughter's current favourite. The graph paper is such a great touch for a show about mathematics.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 6:14 AM on September 25, 2014


Stupid Wild Kratts taught my kids about being nocturnal. They promptly announced that's what they were going to be from now on.

It was a rough week.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:47 AM on September 25, 2014 [7 favorites]


Problem solved
(The problem is solved)
We solved the problem
(So everything is awesome)
problem solved!
posted by that's candlepin at 8:16 AM on September 25, 2014 [3 favorites]


Thanks, now I have the Wild Kratts theme song stuck in my head.

Gonna go wild, Wild Kratts/Gonna go wild, wild, Wild Kratts
posted by Elementary Penguin at 8:18 AM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


Speaking of stuck in my head, I basically did this post because I've had Peg's Baby Fox Song stuck in my head for the last month.
posted by murphy slaw at 8:25 AM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


The Peg and Cat music is so great.

Didn't mention this in my previous comment but the album is available. The cover art is cracking me up.
posted by JoeZydeco at 9:38 AM on September 25, 2014


Peg + Cat is pretty awesome.

(The fact that it is just about the only show on PBS with a female protagonist is a bonus.)
posted by madajb at 10:54 AM on September 25, 2014


Poppy Cat > Peg + Cat
#IAmNotEgbert
posted by w0mbat at 11:20 AM on September 25, 2014


(The fact that it is just about the only show on PBS with a female protagonist is a bonus.)

What about Word Girl and Martha Speaks?
posted by JoeZydeco at 11:23 AM on September 25, 2014


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