Little Einsteins

Little Einsteins is an American animated children's television series on Playhouse Disney (later Disney Junior). The educational preschool series was developed for television by Douglas Wood who created the concept and characters, and a subsequent team headed by Emmy Award-winning director Olexa Hewryk and JoJo's Circus co-creator Eric Weiner, and produced by Curious Pictures and The Baby Einstein Company. The first episode of the Little Einsteins TV series premiered in Japan on TV Tokyo on October 5, 2005 and in the United States on the Disney Channel on October 9, 2005. In Europe, the second season of the show premiered on the Disney Channel around Christmas time, and in Japan, it aired on October 8, 2007, on Playhouse Disney Japan.

Little Einsteins was designed to teach the target demographic art and music appreciation by integrating famous or culturally significant art works (usually, but not exclusively, paintings) and classical music (most typically from the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods) into the scenery, plot and soundtrack of each episode. The show is also designed to encourage viewer interaction (such as patting their knees, gesturing or singing along to help the characters succeed on their "mission"); at the end of the mission, Leo says "Mission Completion!" and the Little Einsteins then do the Curtain Call. At the end of the Curtain Call, Leo says, "See you on the next mission!", then the curtains close and in season 2 a "That's Silly" segment is shown.

The series was based on the direct-to-video film of the same name, subtitled Our Huge Adventure.

Like other Baby Einstein productions, the production company pays a royalty to Corbis, which acts on behalf of the estate of physicist Albert Einstein, for the use of the Einstein name ("Einstein" being a licensed trademark of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem). Despite the usage of Einstein's name, there is no discussion of anything physics-related in the series.

A video game based on the show was released for the Game Boy Advance in North America on September 12th, 2006. ^[1]

Main characters

(From Top to Bottom) Leo, June, Quincy, Annie, Rocket

• Leo is the leader of the Little Einsteins, and the one who pilots Rocket. He is Annie's big brother. His main talent is conducting and his most precious object is his conductor's baton. Leo has red hair and green eyes and eyeglasses. He is voiced by Jesse Schwartz, Trenton Rogers, and singing voice by Harrison Chad.^[2]
• Annie is a girl who loves to sing. She is Leo's little sister and the only character who has piloted Rocket alone. She loves animals including dolphins and horses, but is afraid of spiders. She owns a silver microphone with orange music notes that she won in a song contest. When she wishes to urgently point something out to the team, her usual phrase is "Look-look-look!" She has blonde pigtails and blue eyes. She wears a green shirt and a blue jean dress in Season 1, and a light blue shirt and a pink jean dress for Season 2. She is voiced by Natalia Wojcik.
• June is a young ballerina who loves to dance. She also enjoys looking at the stars at night with her telescope. She is voiced by Erica Huang.
• Quincy is a boy musician who plays a variety of musical instruments, including the violin, guitar and trumpet. He has brown hair and brown eyes. He is voiced by Aiden Pompey.
• Rocket is Little Einsteins' main mode of transportation, as well as their friend. Rocket has an array of tools and accessories that help the team complete their missions. Rocket also has the ability to transform into any other form of transportation, like a submarine or a train. Rocket communicates by singing.

Recurring minor characters

• Big Jet is a blue fighter plane, who is the nemesis of Rocket and the Little Einsteins. Big Jet has been known to ruin parties, and steal things to keep for himself. Big Jet hates springtime, owing to his being allergic to flowers, as seen in the episode "Oh Yes, Oh Yes, it's Springtime". He also hates losing, as seen in "The Great Sky Race Rematch". In episode 64, "Show and Tell", Big Jet became friends with Rocket and the Little Einsteins. Big Jet is depicted with yellow horizontal stripes on his vertical stabilizers.
• Little Mouse, The Good Knight and Joey the Kangaroo appeared individually in their own episodes, "The Mouse and the Moon", "The Good Knight and The Bad Knight" and "Jump For Joey", respectively, and collectively in "Rocket Soup".
• The Three Little Pigs appeared in three episodes: "Farmer Annie", "Super Fast" and "Build It Rocket".
• Melody the Music Pet is a musical pet that Leo helped find her ticket for the pet train in "Melody the Music Pet". After boarding the train, Melody is brought to live with Leo. She reappears in "Melody and Me", where it's up to Leo to save her after her hot-air balloon flies away.
• The Bad Knight is the knight that imprisoned the good knight.
• The Little Red Train is a good friend of Annie, and although he's very small, is very determined and very strong. He appeared on the episodes "Go West, Young Train" and "Annie, Get Your Microphone".

Episode guide

UK version

In the UK, the Little Einsteins are voiced by these actors and actresses: Poppy Lee Friar (June), Piers Stubbs (Leo), Kirsty Hickey (Annie), and Mitchell Zhangazha (Quincy). In the UK version, many American terms are converted to the British vernacular: for example, changing 'Candy Canes' to 'Sweetie Sticks'. Also 'Yeah' is changed to 'Yes' and 'Mission Completion' is changed to 'Mission Completed'.

Reception

The series was given a 5-star rating by Common Sense Media.^[3]

References

External links

• Official website
• Little Einsteins at the Internet Movie Database
• Little Einsteins at TV.com