PBS KIDS Sprout Celebrates Second Birthday

PHILADELPHIA, September
24: The 24-hour preschool network PBS KIDS Sprout celebrates its second
birthday with the roll out of two new original morning blocks and a new season
of its hit program The Good Night Show on September 26.

The new morning blocks
include Musical Mornings,
airing every weekday from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. The block will be hosted by Coo, an
animated cuckoo bird that lives in the Sprout clock, and will star long-time
Jim Henson puppeteer Julianne Buescher and feature songs written and produced
by Mike Himelstein.

The new short-form series Bounce, hosted by a certified music therapist, Elizabeth
Balzano, will debut within the Musical Mornings block. The series is designed to encourage
children to connect with their emotions, thoughts and words through music.
Ballou, Balzano’s 3-D animated friend, will help to facilitate audience
interaction.

The Sunny Side Up Show will pick up where Musical Mornings leaves off, in the 9 a.m. to noon slot. This
innovative program is the only live show on television for preschoolers. The
series takes place in a whimsical barn in the hills of Sprout, where two hosts,
Kevin Yamada, host for Sprout’s The Birthday Show, and Philadelphia-based actress Kelly Vrooman,
will rotate weekly. Each day, the host will be joined by Chica, a playful
chicken puppet, who will supply surprise eggs that can be cracked open for
clues, games or even a joke-of-the-day. Each week, The Sunny Side Up Show will explore a new theme ranging from colors,
numbers and letters, to manners, gardening and pets, also including holiday
themes as well.

Premiering within The
Sunny Side Up is the interactive
series Play With Me Sesame,
which invites children on a playdate with Sesame Street favorites Bert, Ernie, Grover and Prairie Dawn to
complete learning-based activities. Each episode helps to develop children’s
creative expressions and prepares them for school with themes including social
and emotional skills such as listening, sharing, taking turn and cooperation. A
live link, featuring The Sunny Side Up Show’s Kevin or Kelly, shares viewer-submitted arts and
crafts and will air between two back-to-back segments of Play With Me Sesame.

Also debuting September 26
is the new season of Sprout’s hit nighttime block, The Good Night Show, airing every night from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. The
series is designed as a tool to help parents wind down their kids after a busy
day, including crafts and games. The new season will feature a nightly animated
guessing game titled Lucy, Light the Way!, preschoolers in their pajamas joining in on Sprout stretches,
improvised stories using the arts and crafts they’ve made, and preschoolers
demonstrating sign language.

"Sprout is the only
24-hour preschool channel that follows the day of a preschooler from breakfast
to bedtime by combining trusted, gold-standard favorites like Barney &
Friends, Sesame Street and Teletubbies with new and original programs to match a child's
morning, noon and night,” said Andrew Beecham, Sprout's senior VP of
programming. "Whether viewers tune in during the morning to catch one of
our new original morning blocks, discover music and science in the afternoon
with The Let's Go Show or wind
down for bed each night with The Good Night Show, Sprout is always there to match the daily
schedule that parents share with their preschoolers.”