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Gumboot Kids offer great reminder that educational entertainment is just outside

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Gumboot Kids offer great reminder that educational entertainment is just outside

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A decade or so ago, Tara Hungerford and Eric Hogan were watching their kids watch TV. They noticed their son Wilfred’s viewing diet seemed a little unsatisfying.

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“We saw all these different shows and we thought there was a gap in the market and what would be the ultimate show we would want our kid to watch,” said Hogan recently over the phone. “What would be the most nutritious thing he can consume? We can’t avoid it. We live in a media rich world and our kids are going to consume media so what would be the ultimate show?”

The couple that made documentaries for the Knowledge Network took a beat and thought about their kid and what would make him happy and healthy. They realized the answer was right in front of them in a tiny-person package.

“(Wilfred) found most shows really overwhelming and he was a fact collector from a young age,” said Hungerford. “So Eric and I together said let’s make something that he’d actually be able to learn facts from but also something we’d have fun making.”

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So here we are 10 years or so later and 160 episodes in for the Gumboot Kids TV franchise created by Hungerford and Hogan. The brand today includes three TV titles: Scout and The Gumboot Kids, Daisy and The Gumboot Kids, and Jessie and The Gumboot Kids. There is also music, live shows, school curriculum, merchandise and a very popular book series that will have two more editions coming out this month.

Airing in 160 countries, the CBC show stars a couple of felt mice named Scout and Daisy that unravel nature mysteries in two-to-five-minute episodes. A combination stop-motion and live action with real kids — including Hungerford’s and Hogan’s kids Wilfred, now 12, and Paris, 10 — the show inspires other kids to leave the family room and head for a field or a forest.

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Scout and Daisy are examining a fossil that Daisy found. The photo is from the book The Case of the Story Rock. It’s one of the books in the Gumboot Kids Nature Mystery series by Eric Hogan and Tara Hungerford.
Scout and Daisy are examining a fossil that Daisy found. The photo is from the book The Case of the Story Rock. It’s one of the books in the Gumboot Kids Nature Mystery series by Eric Hogan and Tara Hungerford. Photo by Sean Cox /PNG

“Scout and the Gumboot Kids embodies the joyful mindfulness that kids can experience when they spend time outdoors in the natural world,” said Marie McCann, senior director, Children’s Content, CBC Kids via email. “Our audiences connect with Scout and Daisy, and love the gentle break they offer kids from the noisy melee of kids media today.”

Hungerford said they get plenty of feedback from parents and it almost always points to families rediscovering a simpler way to be together.

“Parents were really emotional. They said they go outside more,” said Hungerford. “They said: ‘When I do laundry I’m finding rocks in pockets, we got acorns. We’re actually slowing down and hanging out outside.’ ”

They also haven’t been driven nuts by the content. Anyone who has had a Frozen fan in the house knows that can be an issue.

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The Gumboot Kids are different. It’s more of a hipster art project compared with the usual shiny confection of cartoon brainwashing with jingles disguised as songs.

“We all live in smaller spaces now and we do co-view. You can’t avoid it,” said Hungerford. “Parents intimately watch it and they repeat it, and they are OK with doing that.”

It’s no wonder this series has come to mean so much to so many. Scout and Daisy are so easy to like. They’re good friends who are curious and find joy in the simplest of things. Nature mysteries are on-hand, mindful moments are encouraged and fun crafts that are thoughtful and compostable — no dollar store, ocean and landfill-clogging junk found here — are all part of each episode.

“Scout and Daisy are sort of an idealized version of ourselves in a way because it represents what would be a really great life when you had time on your hands and you could immerse yourself in your hobbies and your interests and your crafts and nature walks,” said Hungerford.

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We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

The series is filmed all around B.C. and produced out of the Imagine Create Media offices in a church on Vancouver’s westside.

“Quiet as a church mouse,” says Hogan, when explaining the place is really quiet except for Sundays.

Kristen Bellamy, author and blogger at discoverkidactivities.com says her three- and five-year-old kids love Gumboot Kids. They even have taken it upon themselves to do their own mindful moments separate of the ones in the shows and the books.

“They love that they can follow along easily with the storyline and then actually take part in the activities on their own at home,” said Bellamy, who grew up loving Mr. Dressup, Sharon, Lois & Bram, Polka Dot Door and Under the Umbrella Tree. “I love that each episode has something to teach the kids without them even realizing they’re learning.”

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Tara Hungerford’s and Eric Hogan’s kids Wilfred, 12, and Paris, 10, are regulars on the various Gumboot Kids TV series.
Tara Hungerford’s and Eric Hogan’s kids Wilfred, 12, and Paris, 10, are regulars on the various Gumboot Kids TV series. Photo by Arlen Redekop /PNG

Aside from the absolutely adorable felt friends, the kids connect with the music on the show that is created by Hungerford’s younger sister, the Juno-winning singer/songwriter Jessie Farrell. To date, there are six albums under the Gumboot Kids’ banner.

“The music becomes part of their family folklore,” said Hungerford.

For Farrell, who lives near Victoria with her family, not dumbing it down is key when it comes to composing for the shows.

“Kids are not basic,” said Farrell over the phone. “Why are we trying to simplify them, because they are not simple?”

Singer/songwriter Jessie Farrell writes and performs songs for the The Gumboot Kids TV series and does music videos under the same banner. Farrell is the sister of Gumboot Kids co-creator Tara Hungerford. Farrell’s two kids are regulars on the TV series.
Singer/songwriter Jessie Farrell writes and performs songs for the The Gumboot Kids TV series and does music videos under the same banner. Farrell is the sister of Gumboot Kids co-creator Tara Hungerford. Farrell’s two kids are regulars on the TV series. Photo by Imagine Create Media /PNG

Farrell began working on the show when she dropped in to visit her sister at work.

“Tara said to me: ‘Any chance you could write a song about the wind?’ ” said Farrell. “I went into their little office in the back and I wrote a song about the wind, and I came back and sang it for them.”

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Since joining the team, Farrell, whose two kids (ages six and nine) are also series regulars, has delivered some 80-odd songs.

“It is a perfect fit as I was already finding great refuge going to the beach with the kids, going into the forest. Just putting on our rain jackets and going out,” said Farrell, who is currently working on an adult album. “I was already kind of in that mode where I figured out nature makes parenting waaaaaayyyy better and way easier. Nature speaks to you while you’re parenting and teaches you so much. It teaches you patience. Teaches you to be mindful. Teaches you all these things.”

Right now that approach to parenting seems to be a welcomed route in these COVID-19 and climate-change times.

“I think the timing for what we have done is perfect. It’s going back to the basics,” said Hungerford, who along with Hogan is working on two new kids series. “It’s not about wiring the kids up. It’s about trying to help them calm down. And help the adults relearn how to be comfortable with just being outside.”

dgee@postmedia.com

twitter.com/dana_gee

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