When “Yo Gabba Gabba!” premiered on Nickelodeon in 2007, the series looked and sounded like nothing else on children’s TV. It starred five toys that have come to life, including Brobee; a half-broccoli, half-bee hybrid with a bushy black unibrow; and Muno, a giant Cyclops with bumps all over his cherry-red body. Preschool viewers, typically treated to less challenging musical fare, heard performances from acts like Bootsy Collins, the Roots, My Chemical Romance and Weezer.
Like Disney theme parks, the music and dance-centric show sought to entertain children while also appealing to their parents, a particularly tough task for shows aimed at the preschool set. In many ways it succeeded, garnering a loyal fan base that spanned generations.
The show eventually became a kind of cultural phenomenon, spawning a live touring show and a line of toys, and showing up at places as dissimilar as the Marvel series “WandaVision” and Coachella. At the concerts, fans could sing along to lyrics about, say, worms and centipedes hanging out underground (“Follow the Oskie Bugs”) or carrots and green beans that get sad if you don’t eat them (“Party in My Tummy”).
“I do think that’s part of the beauty of the show,” said Scott Schultz, who created the show with Christian Jacobs. “It’s confusing, but in a fun way.”
“Yo Gabba Gabba!” was canceled in 2015, but the creators continued to dream of ways to revive the characters and the show. “We kept thinking, let’s make it bigger, let’s make the world of Gabba an actual place, almost like a destination,” Jacobs said. They eventually found a willing partner in Apple TV+, and production began in 2022.
Now the gang is back in a new series, “Yo Gabba GabbaLand!,” which premieres on Aug. 9. The original host, DJ Lance Rock, has been replaced by Kammy Kam, played by Kamryn Smith, a 13-year-old dancer from Phoenix. The show’s “Beat of the Day” duties have transferred from the late rapper Biz Markie to Reggie Watts, Big Daddy Kane and others.
Like the original, the new show has celebrity guest stars (Gillian Jacobs, Chelsea Peretti, Diplo) and an eclectic mix of musical acts (Thundercat, Kurt Vile, Paul Williams). The overarching mission has remained largely the same: to teach valuable life lessons, including the power of sharing (“Sharing is awesome!”), how to chill out when you’re feeling mad, why it’s OK to cry (even if you’re a ghost) and the importance of exercise.
In a joint video interview, Schultz, who is also lead singer of the indie-pop group Majestic, and Jacobs, the lead singer of the ska band the Aquabats, talked about the joys and challenges of creating a musical show for those under 5. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Disney kids shows, going back to “The Mickey Mouse Club,” tend to have very polished child performers who can sing, dance, act. Most of the children you have on your show aren’t like that.
CHRISTIAN JACOBS On the old show, a lot of them were friends that our kids played soccer with, or had a dance class with. Part of the energy of the show is to be super inclusive, and so we don’t just go to a casting director and say, “Hey, find us kids.”
SCOTT SCHULTZ We’re not trying to cast by who’s the best dancer. We’re just bringing on kids to be themselves, as long as they’re old enough to not be traumatized by being on a set.
Do some of them get traumatized?
SCHULTZ They’re all excited to be there. But 2-year-olds do get freaked out. They see the characters and they’re like [screams]. They’re giant!
“Yo Gabba Gabba!” always booked good bands and that continues in the new one. How do you decide who is going to be on the show?
JACOBS It doesn’t matter how big your star power is, or how many followers you have on Instagram. It’s more about the music, because those preschool kids don’t know about any of that other stuff.
The Linda Lindas were one of the first guests we booked [in the reboot]. They’re so fun and amazing and such great musicians and had grown up watching “Yo Gabba Gabba!” as kids. We already knew that they were fans of the show. When Brobie and the characters showed up to dance with them, they were looking at each other like, oh, my gosh, I can’t believe we’re here.
For their sequence, you had them dress like little shrimps, feelers and all.
JACOBS That was for the “Little” episode, where the gang was going to Shrimp Town. So we brought that idea to them and said, “Would you guys be into this?” If they were like, “Nah, we don’t want to be shrimps,” we would have had them do something else. But they were really into it.
SCHULTZ It’s highly collaborative with the bands, but the idea isn’t to promote the bands. It’s about finding the music that moves me and Christian and the people around us, and finding the bands who can participate in that best kind of preschool version of yourself.
Is there a trick to writing an ear-wormy song for a 3-year-old?
JACOBS I don’t think the songs are that different [from a typical pop tune] outside of themes. We’re not singing about love, or my boyfriend broke up with me, or like, I’m going to the club this weekend. We’re singing about things that are milestones for kids, or things that you would learn about, or something that’s thematic to the episode.
You have a song on the show about remembering to chew your food. That’s not something you’re likely to hear on the radio.
JACOBS It’s similar to “Party in My Tummy” from the old show, where they’re things that you deal with as a parent or a caregiver but that we overlook as adults. It’s like, yeah, of course, I’m going to chew my food. But sometimes, as a kid, you take a big bite and just swallow it, and you get it stuck in your throat. One of our writers, Noah Jones, he did the show “Pickle and Peanut” a few years back, he came up with that. It’s not something you would think of right off the bat for a song, but it made a lot of sense.
What do people get wrong when they’re doing shows for children?
SCHULTZ I think sometimes adults get trapped in the experience of what we’re supposed to do as adults, and we lose touch with that authentic child that really experiences life without all the past and all the future. We lose sight of the experience of being a preschool kid. So we’re constantly trying to recapture that, and reframe our adult minds to really get into that preschool experience.
JACOBS Are we up in the tower casting down our wisdom and knowledge to these beings that don’t understand what we know? Or are we down there in the sand with them, pushing the cars and digging the holes and having fun? Scott and I want to be in the sandbox, creating and learning with the kids.
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