Talk:The Backyardigans

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[edit] Episode list

Is the episode list really necessary? For now, with the small number of episodes, it doesn't look like a problem. But in the future, it will probably have to be reduced dramatically or just removed completely. I'd say there are other sites who are likely to keep a better track of the episodes.

Correct... that's why TV.com exists. --Beau99 08:21, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
If it'll be any good, I might be able to keep a list maintained here. Even if it might be dealt with better elsewhere there's no specific reason why a list can't be maintained in a seperate article if it'll clog this one up. -Treelo 17:34, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
This is much better than what is currently available on tv.com. It's woefully incomplete. I agree with Treelo that it could be moved to another article if/when necessary. Dharris 16:47, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone know why the episode list has been stripped from the page? If not, is there any reason why it can't be put back in? DAAdshead 09:45, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
It got taken out during one of the recent vandalism episodes. But nothing is ever really gone on Wikipedia--you just have to look at the History. It's back now. Nareek 10:01, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I knew it could be brought back - just not sure how!!!DAAdshead 12:52, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Version differences

Because the UK version has a different set of voice actors and many alterations to "Anglicise" it, would that type of data be suitable for addition to the bottom of the entry or simply put into the right place in the entry and noted to be the UK version?

- Treelo 05:11, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I have attempted to show where the Anglicisation of the episodes exists, only when it detracts from the information shown on the page. It seems quite pointless to dictate every variation, otherwise we may as well create seperate pages for the UK and US versions! There are more variations now that someone has - in their wisdom - decided to add the snacks to the bottom of every page. If these edits are deemed unnecessary, I will be happy to see them removed.

Will there be a Backyardigans game?

[edit] Technical Information

One of the things I think is so wonderful about this show is the quality of the music and choreography. The music is actually true to the genre(s) and the characters actually dance.

Indeed, the production values are high. Heck! I get a kick out of some tunes! The stories are well thought out as well. I wish i had my daughter's age... :)

If you watch as the credits flash by, the list of musicians, choreographers and dancers is quite long. It would be nice if this article discussed a little about this. I will do a little research on this when I have the chance, but I invite anybody else to take a first stab at this. Dharris 17:03, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A philosophical question

Is Austin playing that he's the Ming Emperor, or is he actually being the Ming Emperor? I would argue the latter, since the conceit of the show is that the backyard actually transforms into the setting of whatever adventure they're having that day. When the characters become ghosts, they can actually float through walls--they're not "playing" ghosts in the context of the show, although presumably on some level not depicted on the show, the "real" penguin, hippo etc. are "actually" playing an imaginary game in an ordinary backyard.

I'd say that the stories and settings happen inside the characters' minds, as well as inside the viewers' minds. The show doesn't depend at all on fantasy; instead, it's all imagination and make-believe. If I were to give a more certain answer, I'd say that Austin is being the Ming Emperor without knowing it. :)

SirMustapha 20:33, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Musical genres

Is there an "official" source for the description of the musical genres? My question is related to the genre for Monster Detectives. At the risk of being pedantic, I believe that Rock and roll is far too broad a category to really describe it, and that Punk would be both more descriptive of the musical style and also recognize the "in-joke for the grownups" of the presence of a Soccer Monster - ie a punk-rock-listening football hooligan. -- Clark, 23 April 2006

In the Backyardigans Episode guide of the Big Cartoon Database (link), there are synopses for each episode, and they include the description for the musical style. That's personally where I took the genres from, as they seem to be the most accurate. As for Mosnter Detectives, in particular, it's not Punk rock. It's 60's rock, more similar to the Beach Boys, Rolling Stones, etc.. It only sounds A BIT like Punk on the faster songs (still far from the Ramones), but tunes like 'The Rules' and 'Get The Job Done' have Blues in them, which definitely takes it back to the 60's. SirMustapha 20:06, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I would have liked to see an episode with 1980s pop music.Chris 17:32, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Uniqua

We have Uniqua identified now as a ladybug--earlier she was called an alien--is there anything definitive on what she's supposed to be? Nareek 13:13, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Is anyone willing to merge the Uniqua page into this page, or is the intention to develop character pages for all five characters? Perhaps there should be a sub-section for the characters? DAAdshead 14:42, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
On the latest edit, I wrote in-depth descriptions for the characters, and I'd like to know if those are enough to be considered as a "merge" of Uniqua's article.
Also, while I'm at it, I agree with the previous edit and think the "catchprase" of each episode is exactly what's said at the very end, before the final credits. I decided to add other memorable phrases repeated in some episodes, whenever it's convenient. And finally, and hopefully for the last time, Monster Detectives DOES NOT FEATURE PUNK ROCK. The music in that episode is heavily inspired by the likes of the Beach Boys and Blues Rock acts of the 60's. The soccer monster theme can't be called Punk just because it's fast. SirMustapha 19:44, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
I gather that Uniqua's "a pink insectoid girl." Chris 17:31, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
It should be merged, I can't see why any character would need a seperate page although one would be practical if each character could actually merit one without it being a stub for a long time. --Treelo 17:31, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Duly merged, you can counter it if you wish although the information contained on Uniqua's page is fairly redundant amd shouldn't have really been created. --Treelo 17:42, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Uniqua does NOT belong to any known species. All official sources describe her as "one-of-a-kind", "Uniqua by name and species", etc.. I thought her name was descriptive enough. SirMustapha 15:14, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

This is it! For the record, Uniqua is a type of insect. Not necessarily a ladybug or ant, but an insect. If you all read her official description from Nick Jr. & Nelvana carefully, you'll read that it describes her as "one-of-a-kind," meaning a unique character & personality, NOT species. She is a unique individual. It also says that Uniqua and her antenae only LOOK alien-like, therefore she is not an alien herself. The description says Uniqua is her personal & species name. Go ahead and Google Uniqua, the hits that don't retain to the show are about a baiting insect with the species name Uniqua. I couldn't find a picture though. Not an alien, not a mutant, a Uniqua insect. Case closed. The Backyardigans Rule.--Wikiphilia 04:41, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, for goodness' sakes, it should be everyone's knowledge at this point that Uniqua's supposed to be devoid of any labels, categories or anything of that kind. Uniqua isn't supposed to be "something", just to remind us that people don't need to be predetermined "things" to be acceptable. That's the point of her character. Finally, I don't think Janice Burgess would have created a character belonging to some ultra-obscure species just to make people research hard to find out what exactly she was. THAT would be an attempt to boggle the minds of the young ones, which doesn't sound too nice.
If Uniqua was any actual known species, she wouldn't be called that. As for being an "unique individual", all five characters are. Also, the article doesn't say she actually looks like an alien. It just says that people have speculated over that possibility, as well as "ant" and "ladybug". I'm not attacking anyone here; I just also think this case should be put to rest, but the answer is what most collaborators here agree with: she's one-of-a-kind in all aspects, and that's exactly what makes her so charming. 200.203.86.95 23:36, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Uh, guys? Uniqua doesn't really have to BE anything. She can be whatever you imagine her to be. Maybe she doesn't even exist! Maybe she is one of the other Backyardigan's imaginary friends! That makes sense. The show IS about imagination.-- Maximus 19:29, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, but Wikipedia isn't about imagination. We should go with what the source says. Nareek 19:33, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
This is also the name for the "Great Spirit" of the Cherokee Tribe. The name literally means "Great Being" in Tsalagi.

[edit] Austin

Where did this come from?

"Austin will become a guest character like Sherman the worman rather than a main character during season two and possibly in following seasons, due to his unpopularity with fans of the show and his voice actor being a character in The Fox and the Hound 2.[1]"

The citation leads nowhere significant. Sounds like vandalism to me. SirMustapha 21:30, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree that it is vandalism. The user popped up on 4 July only to make a number of POV edits to Austin's description and then undid subsequent reverts. The citation you mention is unrelated and predates the vandalism; it refers to all the characters.
One good thing that came out of dealing with the vandalism was that I double-checked Nick Jr. and Corus Entertainment (the parent company of Nelvana, the animators) for a press release by Burgess. Season 2 was ordered, and Austin will be in it. I rephrased the intro paragraph to include reference to the new season and linked to the real press release. --Hriped 16:18, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

That citation never says that he won't be in it as a guest character. I'm telling the truth, if only I could remember where I found the info. Maybe the site I got the info from was vandalized too, but my goal is not to mess stuff up or give fake info, honest. >_> --anonymous peep

That would be more convincing if your first edits weren't "RAWR!" and "My cat is purring!" Nareek 10:58, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
What are you talking about? I never wrote that.
Don't kid yourself, man. Wikipedia keeps record of EVERYTHING users do to the articles, as well as the user's identity (account name or IP). Check it out for yourself, if you wish. If someone else has been using your computer to edit the article, you'll have to figure it out for yourself. As for providing info, try do doublecheck your sources, and if you're not sure, ask here first, so we can check. SirMustapha 18:24, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree dayle14

Yes, I checked the log and see that it was written by my IP address. However,I didn't write this. Probably my sister or something.

Unpopularity with the fans?!?!?! You can't get away from the Austin fans abound. Unpopularity indeed! Where the heck did you get this info??? --Maximus

From the IMDb, perhaps. ;-) 143.54.34.61 15:31, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tyrone

Is anyone besides me slightly worried that he appears to have pockets, considering he isn't wearing anything from the waist down?

Silly question, I know, but I've been having a strange day and it just struck me: he often has his hands in his pockets, but he isn't wearing pants...

I believe that's simply a visual joke, similar to the knight helmets getting right through Tyrone's antlers and Uniqua's antennae on Knights Are Brave And Strong, Pablo removing huge items from the saddlebags, and such other obvious inconsistencies. I always found it particularly delightful, as walking around with his hands in his pockets is such a big mark of Tyrone's reserved personality that the fact that he often doesn't wear anything from the waist down doesn't matter. SirMustapha 16:21, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Since this is a cartoon, the pockets are in hammerspace. Hriped 00:52, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Is it me, or does Tyrone have some really strange ideas about snacks? Celery with Hummus? Cereal bars (Grenola Bars in the US)? OK, I accept that Waffles are OK (not that we know much about them in the UK) but they didn't change that one!) but I'm just wondering whether kids really enjoy Celery with Hummus in the States? In the UK if you tried that on your freinds you'd be ostracised for life!!!

Oh no, hummus and celery is nasty... pretty much worldwide.--Maximus I

[edit] Article Cleanup

I think that it's a bit cluttered and lengthy with the episode list only due to get longer so maybe it could be put into tabled to save on space or split off. There's also stuff which seems to read as unneccesary. treelo talk 18:41, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

It's not actually a particularly long article. If it does start to get overly long, the episodes could be split off, but given that the bulk of the episode list is plot summary and song lists, it's doubtful that a table would save much space. As for the stuff that seems unnecessary--don't keep us in suspense! Nareek 08:04, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I feel the table would save space and it'd help with readability as right now, most episode lists for other shows are put into tables rather than bulleted lists. As for unneccesary things, some wording seems a bit suspect and extraneous. I'd go over and clean it up myself but as it seems most of my paring would be reverted it'd end up useless. Put it down to basic grammatical errors if it helps out, it does need some form of cleanup even just a minimal one. Should anything I propose seem completely pointless you can give me the infobox at least! --treelo talk 17:16, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I believe the page could benefit from some clean-up, though I'm sure I'm not the best person for that kind of service. I don't feel comfortable snipping bits and pieces from the page, even those that I *think* should be snipped off. I'm also not an expert on Wikipedia formatting, but I'll try to help when I can. I'd also be very, very, very glad to know why some people just KEEP CHANGING THE SONG TITLES. I must have done that about three times now, hoping people would get the hint. I take the song titles from the Nick Jr. radio, from the official albums and from lyric sheets from that Treehouse website. That is - official sources. So, if the song from The Heart Of The Jungle is called "Where In The World", that one from The Yeti is called "No Such Thing" and the songs from Viking Voyage are titled simply "Viking Song" and "Mermaid Song", I wished that people would leave them like that. I'm not angry, but I hope we can at least settle *that* affair. SirMustapha 16:19, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
I think it would be great if anyone who sees things that could be cut would cut them, and sees things that could be improved would improve them. If someone wants to put in an infobox, that's fine with me. I'm still not convinced of the helpfulness of the tags, which seem to suggest that the problems are so glaringly obvious that they don't need to be enumerated. I honestly have seen no signs of a Backyardigans cabal on this page, ready to revert any changes no matter how beneficial. Nareek 16:59, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Just because the cabal isn't noticeable doesn't mean it doesn't exist! Is a table still out of the question? I'm experimenting with layouts for it so I'll update you later if anyone takes interest. --treelo talk 19:37, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I dunno, maybe a table would be an improvement--if you could have a big cell for the plot summary and then stacked smaller cells for the song titles.... It might work. Nareek 21:34, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Still with the episode list, I'm figuring that if it ends up getting too long with or without use of tables that it could be split off into it's own article. I figure it'll happen eventually when the list becomes the largest part of the article but I'm not flagging it to be split unless someone concurs and doesn't feel it amounts to fancruft. Given those things, I'll split it off and be a happy camper. --treelo talk 16:53, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
I have made a minor change to the layout of certain aspects of the page, especially moving certain parts of the Story section into a newly created Trivia Section, to improve the readability. I originally intended to add another part to the Story section, but realised that it was perhaps not important enough, but still vaguely interesting. As this was also true of several otehr parts in this section, I decided to move these and put them in the Trivia section of the article. I was also going to add that Austin never seemed to offer snacks, only to read that in the new Series, this is no longer the case.DAAdshead 11:19, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
That worked surprisingly well. The page has benefited a great deal from your tinkering, I believe. Most appreciated. SirMustapha 20:24, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stop-motion animation

Really? Isn't it overwhelmingly computer generated? Nareek 06:03, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed - according to all external websites the show is "Computer Generated". I have not read or heard of any Stop-Motion Animation being involved in the making of the show.DAAdshead 15:31, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
To me it's odd anyone even pushed the idea of it being stop-motion, almost like a cheeky sideswipe at the animation quality which can at times seem very rigid and point to point. --treelo talk 19:34, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Troll?

User has been quite busy, these days, changing the music genre of Monster Detectives to "Punk Rock". It sounds pretty obvious to me already that he's doing this deliberately to drive us up the walls, since we already provided a source for the episode's musical style. He must have done that about half a dozen times already. At first, it seemed like he actually thought it was wrong, but now, I don't believe that. Is there anything that can be done about it? SirMustapha 20:19, 11 October 2006 (UTC)


She never thought it was wrong. She wanted to drive you up the walls. Uhh, but she will stop if you take her IP off this page. --Maximus I

Interesting how the IP address suddenly changed, and was responsible for both the deletion of the message directly above and the continuation of the Punk Rock saga. What's going on, anyway? Is someone really that intent on changing completely the history of rock music in the past few decades?SirMustapha 20:44, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

You seriously think i like punk rock? aww man, no! imma trolless, not some rock head little boy!

I didn't say you liked it. I merely intended to say you know little or nothing about it. :) Let's get on with more important things. SirMustapha 19:36, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Sheesh, why won't you just blow up!?!? Forget it, i'm leaving --Maximus I

[edit] Splitting episode list

The episode list is now the biggest part of the article and it's only going to get bigger. Are there any objections to spitting it off into a separate article? Nareek 21:06, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I have no objections, I only wish to ask how it's going to be done, as it will only be the same size but on a seperate article, is that not a bit of a waste of time and effort? Perhaps, to reduce the size a bit, it might be better to use two new articles, one for each season, which would make the pages smaller and easier to read. Just a suggestion. DAAdshead 10:31, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
I think a list is different from an article; people have different expectations of them. It's not really the total length of the current article that is the problem, but the fact that it starts off as one kind of page and then spends the bulk of its time as another. Nareek 19:11, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Only now are you mentioning my split-off idea? Nareek, you disappoint me... Well, if we're splitting off, lists can be an arbitary length and you can always just use some clever Wikicode to make it easier to move about using the TOC. If anything I avocate the split! --treelo talk 23:05, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


[edit] VANDALISM!!!

Sorry to shout, here - but is there any way to stop this? The whole article has had to be replaced on numerous occasions and it's getting out of hand now. Does anyone have any suggestions on how we can stop this from happening? Is there a way of blocking edits from non-registered Users. I'm sure I've seen that in other articles. DAAdshead 13:03, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about it--it's all being reverted promptly. Nareek 14:11, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
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