Go Jetters
Season 2 SABC2 (*192) 15:00 Animation
Need a 15-minute break from your busy-body toddler so that you can grab a cup of coffee? Plonk them down for kiddies musical series Go Jetters (2015current). There are bright colours, fun songs and cute round characters that CBeebies controlling supervisor Kay Benbow says is “a fresh and dynamic new series aimed at entertaining children aged four and under. Children are fascinated by the world around them and we’re putting disco in discovery”.
It was never planned as a series and started out as an interactive feature on the CBeebies website. “We saw the response through analytics – parents were using it for their kids and a TV show made sense,” says Kay. If the team’s mentor Ubercorn sounds familiar, he is voiced by Tommie Earl Jenkins who has been on How To Get Away With Murder (2014- current) and plays Dean Paulson in US soap General Hospital (1963- current). Since the show is geography oriented, the production team have a full-time geographer who makes sure that the facts being taught are correct, as well as making them simple enough to animate and teach. While two seasons have been produced, the BBC has made plans to create 11 seasons of 52 episode each. The show has downloadable content on its website cbeebies.com including colouring-in print- outs, arts and crafts, as well as recipes. Thanks to computer software, it takes less than a week to create the 11-minute episodes. The voiceovers are added after being recorded at the BBC offices in London.