Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks
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Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks is a Children's television series, animated using Computer-generated imagery, and broadcast in the United States on PBS Kids, in Ireland on RTÉ Two, as part of The Den, in Australia on ABC, in Ontario on TVOKids and in the UK on BBC Two. It has been translated into Scottish Gaelic for viewers watching BBC Two Scotland, German, Spanish and Portuguese.
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[edit] The Show
One of the main differences between Jakers! and most other children's shows is that it takes place in two different settings, in two different time periods. In the present time, Piggley Winks lives in the USA and tells stories of his childhood in rural Ireland to his three grandchildren. As such, the viewers have the opportunity to see him as a child, playing with his friends and going to school a half-century ago, and as a grandfather. Also, the show transports the viewers from the modern times to the rural zone in the mid 50's. All characters are anthropomorphic animals (Piggley and all his family, for example, are pigs), although there are normal, non-anthropomorphic animals in the show as well.
[edit] The Past
Piggley Winks (here voiced by actress Maile Flanagan), aged 8, lived with his parents Padrig (Charlie Adler) and Elly (Russi Taylor) and his younger sister Molly (Tara Strong) in Raloo Farm in Ireland during the 50's. His best friends are Dannan O'Mallard (Entje in the German version), a duck (also voiced by Tara Strong) who lives in a hut by a pond with her rarely-seen grandmother, and Fernando Toro (also voiced by Russi Taylor), known as Ferny, a young bull who lives with his father, the Spanish blacksmith Don Toro (Fernando Escandon) in the village of Tara. Piggley lives his everyday life in the farm as a normal kid, going to school, helping his parents, taking care of his sister, and having all sorts of adventures, almost always followed by his friends. He has always had interest in stories and legends, and his fertile mind and mischievous spirit put him in many unpredictable situations, like believing fairies turned Ferny into a bug, trying to hatch a supposed dragon's egg, using the Salmon of Knowledge to pass the school exam, and even trying to capture the legendary Fir Darrig.
Each story also features a "subplot" featuring Wiley, the sheep (Mel Brooks). Being the only sheep in the flock who can talk, he believes he is their "natural leader", and tries to get the other sheep to do all kinds of things (singing, racing, playing sports, acting, etc.), with varying degrees of success. He is later assisted by his mate, a female sheep named Shirley (Joan Rivers). (In earlier seasons, Shirley could not talk, and in the episode "Growing Pains" gave birth to a lamb, later named Little Baa.)
[edit] The Present
In the present time, Piggley (here voiced by Peadar Lamb) lives in the US with his three grandchildren, the twins Sean and Seamus (Nika Futterman) and their older sister Meg (Melissa Disney), and their mother (Piggly's daughter Ciara) (Russi Taylor). Whenever the kids have a problem, Piggley tells them one of his childhood stories as a moral lesson. The grand-children are able to identify exagerations in his stories.
The originally American accents of the children have been dubbed with English accents for broadcast in the United Kingdom.
[edit] External links
- PBS Kids: Official Site
- Official UK website for Jakers!
- Entara: Owners of the Jakers! License
- IMDb: Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks
