Zoboomafoo: Play Day at Animal Junction (NR, 1999)

Baby animals play in different ways, ways that prepare them for their lives as adults. This is the Kratt brothers' focus as Animal Junction is overrun with one type of exotic creature after another. Children learn a bit about the different animal species and what makes them unique, and their knowledge and creative skills are tested with such games as Find the Sheep and animated segments in which an undefined blob gradually takes on the characteristics of a specific animal, prompting kids to guess what it is. Viewers are treated to close-up views of serval kittens (long-legged African wildcats), an elephant whose back gets scratched with a giant novelty toothbrush, ducklings, several monkey species, and lion cubs batting around a soccer ball. Facts about them are dropped in casually here and there without overwhelming, the way kids learn best. There's also a trip to a petting zoo, where llamas show what good kissers they are and where a blindfolded Martin has to identify a sheep from two other animals by feel alone.

The Kratt brothers, Chris and Martin, are something of an acquired taste. They tell corny jokes, they mug and grin at the camera, they fall down in the mud, and their simple, kindly faces make perfect targets for pie-throwing monkeys. And yet you have to hand it to them: They pack an awful lot of stuff into a 50-minute program. And this isn't just any stuff. ZOBOOMAFOO: PLAY DAY AT ANIMAL JUNCTION is educational, environmentally conscious, ecologically friendly stuff. And they make it fun.

The show is hyperactive, unstructured, a mishmash of live-action, claymation, puppetry, and cartoon, but those goofy Kratt brothers pull it off with the help of their chatty lemur pal, Zoboomafoo.

Studio: PBS Home Videos
Director: Jacques Laberge, Pierre Roy
Cast: Chris Kratt, Martin Kratt
Genre: Family and Kids
Run time: 50 minutes
Theatrical release: January 1, 1999
DVD release: September 19, 2000
MPAA Rating: NR