{"id":28777,"date":"2024-12-06T08:50:20","date_gmt":"2024-12-06T13:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/worldscreen.com\/"},"modified":"2024-12-09T10:12:37","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T15:12:37","slug":"carl-the-collector-shines-a-light-on-autism-authentic-representation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/carl-the-collector-shines-a-light-on-autism-authentic-representation\/","title":{"rendered":"Carl the Collector\u00a0Shines a Light on Autism & Authentic Representation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carl the Collector<\/em>\u00a0marks the first time a PBS KIDS show has been fronted by an autistic character. It follows as Carl the raccoon\u2014who, as the title suggests, loves collecting things\u2014interacts with the world and people around him, showcasing the ways in which those with autism may present.<\/p>\n

Zachariah OHora had been writing and illustrating picture books for kids of all ages for a while and already had a character named The Collector who wore an Argyle sweater vest and enjoyed collecting trinkets when PBS came calling. The public broadcaster went looking for show creator possibilities outside its usual pool, and The Collector fit what it was seeking, OHora says.<\/p>\n

As for the storyline itself, the seed of the idea was planted when OHora\u2019s kids started to attend school and interact with different children. \u201cWe have a really good school system around here, and they have an inclusion system,\u201d he explains. \u201cThat means that no matter what your needs are, you get the same amount of teacher time and socialization time with the other kids. [Even] if a kid needs to have an aide with them or whatever [else] they need, they get to be in the classroom; they\u2019re not somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a lightbulb moment for me when my oldest son, Oscar, just considered everybody a friend no matter what needs they had,\u201d OHora continues. \u201cIt made me realize this is what the world needs. We need more normalization of the full spectrum of humanity. Take the stigma out of it and the mystery, and everyone will benefit from it. Obviously, neurodiverse kids are going to benefit from just being in a classroom, being a kid and making friends, and neurotypical kids are going to benefit from experiencing people who think differently. It\u2019s a win-win for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yowza! Animation\u2019s Lisa Whittick, director of the series, came on board when the show, produced by Fuzzytown Productions and Spiffy Pictures, was brought to the company for its animation services and she learned about the premise, which \u201cmeans a lot to me personally,\u201d she says. \u201cMy middle son is autistic, and a show like this when he was growing up would have changed a lot for him and it would have meant a lot to our family, would have relieved a lot of stress for us when he got diagnosed. We\u2019ve all just been pouring our souls into this one. It\u2019s a really, really special show.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the series had the full go-ahead, \u201cright away, knowing that we wanted authentic representation\u2014and that\u2019s one of PBS\u2019s focuses, too\u2014we got autism advisers to draw up what these characters would look like and what their likes and dislikes might be,\u201d OHora says. \u201cThen we just tried to get as many neurodiverse people in all parts of the production.\u201d<\/p>\n

At its core, \u201cit\u2019s a show about self-identity,\u201d he states. \u201cThese kids are just going to school. There\u2019s a lot of stuff that is the same struggle for everybody: regulating your emotions, figuring out what your feelings are and learning who you are if you have a certain obstacle. That stuff is so universal.\u201d It\u2019s just that an autistic person may have a couple of extra steps trying to manage a given situation, he explains.<\/p>\n

For Carl specifically, \u201cone of the really charming things we do is we make sure he uses his collections a lot to interact with his friends and help solve problems,\u201d Whittick says. \u201cOne thing that I can say from watching my own son grow up is he always had a special interest of his own. A lot of autistic people do have special interests, and he was always so excited to share whatever his special interest was. A lot of the time, my parents, for example, had no idea what he was talking about, but he was super thrilled to share. So, Carl is the same, where he has all of these special collections and no matter what the situation, he can somehow relate it back to one of his collections and help move the story along.\u201d<\/p>\n

She continues, \u201cIt is one of the few shows out there\u2014if not the only one\u2014that explicitly talks about autism and actually doesn\u2019t shy away from any of the autistic traits that characters might have. We show stimming; we show meltdowns. We actually use the words \u2018autistic\u2019 and \u2018meltdown\u2019 in some episodes. We\u2019re teaching kids the vocabulary around autism and what they mean.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Yowza! team came together to figure out a way to visually represent the way Carl and his friend Lotta, who also has autism, experience the world differently from neurotypical children. \u201cWe might go into [Carl\u2019s] eyes and see what he\u2019s seeing, and our compositing team and effects team will add distortions or blurs to the visuals around him,\u201d Whittick explains. \u201cAnd it\u2019s not until he goes through some of the strategies that we teach in the show that he finally calms himself down and things go back to normal around him.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Lotta, who has completely different autistic traits than Carl, the visualizations differ. Lotta has synesthesia\u2014a condition in which sensory information is processed through unrelated sensory pathways, such as seeing colors when hearing music. \u201cSometimes, the synesthesia is very enjoyable for her because she actually uses it to learn to play instruments,\u201d Whittick says. \u201cBut other times, it can be overwhelming and can actually hurt her physically, like her ears. We did the exact same thing [we did with Carl], and we show the world from her point of view, what synesthesia may look like.\u201d<\/p>\n

The crew spoke with someone who experiences synesthesia the way Lotta does to accurately portray the way she sees the world. \u201cWe\u2019ve definitely dug deep to try to figure out all the different ways we can tell the stories,\u201d Whittick notes.<\/p>\n

Each of the characters in the show is just as meticulously crafted as the rest and serves a purpose in furthering its message about diversity, inclusion and acceptance. \u201cThere\u2019s all different things we can explore with the different characters,\u201d OHora explains, pointing to Forest the Squirrel as an example. That character has ADHD and a nut allergy\u2014something that is extra tough to navigate when you\u2019re a squirrel and nuts are all your family eats.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother overarching theme is self-identity,\u201d he adds. To address that theme, there are bunny twins that live near Carl who look identical. Other characters often confuse them for each other, which can be upsetting sometimes and funny other times. \u201cEverybody is just trying to figure out at that age, Who am I? That\u2019s a universal thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Authentic representation on-screen could only be achieved by real representation behind the scenes. \u201cAny character on-screen who is autistic is voiced by a person in real life who\u2019s autistic, like Kai [Barham] and Maddy [McIlwain] as Carl and Lotta,\u201d respectively, OHora says. \u201cWe talked to a couple of different groups to find people like Ava Rigelhaupt, one of the writers, who is amazing. She\u2019s autistic, and she actually goes around and talks to people about inclusivity in entertainment, particularly about autism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whittick notes that Yowza! didn\u2019t need to make any changes or add any elements to its team to ensure this behind-the-scenes diversity. \u201cI don\u2019t think that the public is aware of how many neurodivergent people there are around us all the time,\u201d she says. \u201cI think that\u2019s going to be something that the show will help people realize. People are different everywhere. We\u2019re all different, and that\u2019s OK, and that can be celebrated. We have [neurodivergent] crew members, artists and animators, and, of course, people like myself who have family who are autistic. We all work together to use our voices and figure out how best to portray that on-screen.\u201d<\/p>\n

The show appeals not just to children but to adults as well, making for a cross-generational co-viewing experience. \u201cThere are different levels of humor and references that are going on in the show,\u201d says OHora, who has watched plenty of cartoons as a parent himself. \u201cCarl\u2019s parents, their names are Harold and Maude, which is like\u00a0Harold and Maude<\/em>, the Hal Ashby movie. There are a lot of things, little Easter eggs and stuff, that are for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it stands out because \u201cthere\u2019s stimming and there\u2019s pacing, and there are things that will differentiate these characters from your typical cartoon characters that you see on many other shows,\u201d Whittick adds. \u201cThat part of it will be refreshing for the audience, and it will resonate across the world because neurodivergent people are everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, though,\u00a0Carl the Collector<\/em>\u00a0is made up of \u201cuniversal stories that are funny and fuzzy and a little weird,\u201d OHora says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The show\u2019s creator and director talk about the authentic representation of autism in the new PBS series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1412,"featured_media":28778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,21],"tags":[8702,10309,681,8707],"class_list":["post-28777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-features","category-top-stories","tag-carl-the-collector","tag-lisa-whittick","tag-pbs","tag-zachariah-ohora","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nCarl the Collector\u00a0Shines a Light on Autism & Authentic Representation - TVKIDS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/carl-the-collector-shines-a-light-on-autism-authentic-representation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Carl the Collector\u00a0Shines a Light on Autism & Authentic Representation - TVKIDS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The show\u2019s creator and director talk about the authentic representation of autism in the new PBS series.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/carl-the-collector-shines-a-light-on-autism-authentic-representation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVKIDS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-12-06T13:50:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-12-09T15:12:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2024\/12\/PBSKIDS-CarltheCollector-1224.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"394\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jamie Stalcup\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jamie Stalcup\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/carl-the-collector-shines-a-light-on-autism-authentic-representation\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/carl-the-collector-shines-a-light-on-autism-authentic-representation\/\",\"name\":\"Carl the Collector\u00a0Shines a Light on Autism & Authentic Representation - TVKIDS\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2024-12-06T13:50:20+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-12-09T15:12:37+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#\/schema\/person\/0da12602224807cc7b179b8405018deb\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/carl-the-collector-shines-a-light-on-autism-authentic-representation\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/carl-the-collector-shines-a-light-on-autism-authentic-representation\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/carl-the-collector-shines-a-light-on-autism-authentic-representation\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Carl the Collector\u00a0Shines a Light on Autism & Authentic Representation\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/\",\"name\":\"TVKIDS\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#\/schema\/person\/0da12602224807cc7b179b8405018deb\",\"name\":\"Jamie Stalcup\",\"description\":\"Jamie Stalcup is the executive editor of World Screen. 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