{"id":29100,"date":"2025-02-06T12:19:06","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T17:19:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/zachariah-ohora-talks-carl-the-collector\/"},"modified":"2025-02-06T13:07:47","modified_gmt":"2025-02-06T18:07:47","slug":"zachariah-ohora-talks-carl-the-collector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/zachariah-ohora-talks-carl-the-collector\/","title":{"rendered":"Zachariah OHora Talks Carl the Collector"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zachariah OHora delivered the final keynote of the fifth edition of the TV Kids Festival today, taking viewers behind the creation of PBS KIDS\u2019 Carl the Collector<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The series is PBS KIDS\u2019 first production centered on a neurodiverse character. OHora talked to TV Kids<\/em>\u2019 Kristin Brzoznowski about the show in a keynote conversation you can view here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The seed of the idea emerged a decade ago when OHora, an author and illustrator, was taking his kids to their inclusive school. \u201cI noticed that my kids were friends with everybody, no matter what their needs were. It struck me that this is the way that it should be. I realized that more exposure to the full range of humanity at a younger age is going to benefit everybody. That was the first light bulb moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the show came together, OHora knew he wanted \u201cauthentic representation\u201d behind the scenes. \u201cThat meant finding as many people on the spectrum and autistic people that we could put in all parts of the production, including the writers\u2019 room. Why try to tell someone else\u2019s story? We always encourage people to pull from their own childhood and their own experiences and come up with story premises, and then we build them out from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

PBS KIDS was the \u201cperfect home\u201d for the series, OHora said. \u201cThey came to me; they were exploring finding producers or show creators outside of their usual pool. The ideas that I had percolating for book-related stuff fit well with the PBS worldview.\u201d<\/p>\n

The theme of representation behind the scenes extended to the voice cast, OHora added. \u201cIf the character is autistic, the actor is also autistic. Kai [Barham] and Maddy [McIlwain], who voice Carl and Lotta, are both autistic. They were not professional voice actors before; they are professional now. It was important to get as many neurodiverse voices in all levels of the production. Our director, Lisa Whittick, has a grown son who is autistic. We have autistic people on the production, and we also have people who have close family members who are autistic or neurodiverse. That was a really important thing that we knew from the beginning that we needed to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

On deciding on the animation style, look, tone and feel, OHora noted, \u201cI had a clear vision from the beginning of what I wanted the characters to be, what I wanted the palette to look like. The world is based on my own neighborhood in Pennsylvania. It\u2019s a bit of a love letter to this town I live in, Narberth. But I really didn\u2019t know anything about animation. I\u2019ve been doing books for 15 years, so my style is very left to right. It\u2019s cinematic in its own way; I think of it cinematically, but it has strong black lines and patterns. Laying things over and having things move over those bold lines presents its own issues. Yowza! Animation did an amazing job of schooling me. They wanted to make it look just like if my books came to life, and they did an amazing job.\u201d<\/p>\n

While centered on a neurodivergent character, the preschool series is ultimately about self-identity, OHora said. \u201cIt happens to be that the main character is autistic, and there are other neurodiverse characters. That\u2019s just one aspect of their personality. Any autistic person will tell you that having autism is part of who they are, but it\u2019s just part of who they are; they\u2019re full people. We wanted to represent that in the show as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given his background as an illustrator, Brzoznowski asked OHora if there are plans to bring Carl the Collector<\/em> to the publishing world. \u201cWe\u2019re talking to publishers about a book series,\u201d he said, along with other partners about possible extensions. \u201cWe have four games that we have almost finished. One game is out, called Carl\u2019s Collections<\/em>, and you can play it on the PBS website. There will be more games and activities coming down the pike.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the session wrapped, OHora shared his hopes for what audiences will take from the series. \u201cI hope that the show spreads empathy for the struggles that everybody has, but specifically, the struggles that neurodiverse people have in navigating the world as it is. That will make micro changes in the world as people realize we\u2019re all the same, even with our differences, and we can all benefit from understanding each other\u2019s differences. We hope it will help take away the stigma of autism and neurodiversity and help people understand it better. We stick a lot of Easter eggs and a lot of humor in for parents and adults, too. I hope that it\u2019s a show that parents and caretakers will enjoy watching with their kid and laughing and learning along with it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zachariah OHora delivered the final keynote of the fifth edition of the TV Kids Festival today, taking viewers behind the creation of PBS KIDS\u2019 Carl the Collector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":29101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[8702,146,10494,8707],"class_list":["post-29100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-top-stories","tag-carl-the-collector","tag-pbs-kids","tag-tv-kids-festival-2025","tag-zachariah-ohora","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nZachariah OHora Talks Carl the Collector - 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\/zachariah-ohora-talks-carl-the-collector\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Zachariah OHora Talks Carl the Collector - TVKIDS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Zachariah OHora delivered the final keynote of the fifth edition of the TV Kids Festival today, taking viewers behind the creation of PBS KIDS\u2019 Carl the Collector.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/zachariah-ohora-talks-carl-the-collector\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVKIDS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-02-06T17:19:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-02-06T18:07:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/02\/2024-02-06-OHora.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=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/zachariah-ohora-talks-carl-the-collector\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/zachariah-ohora-talks-carl-the-collector\/\",\"name\":\"Zachariah OHora Talks Carl the Collector - TVKIDS\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2025-02-06T17:19:06+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-02-06T18:07:47+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/zachariah-ohora-talks-carl-the-collector\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/zachariah-ohora-talks-carl-the-collector\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/zachariah-ohora-talks-carl-the-collector\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Zachariah OHora Talks Carl the Collector\"}]},{\"@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\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\",\"name\":\"Mansha Daswani\",\"description\":\"Mansha Daswani is the editor-in-chief and associate publisher of World Screen. She can be reached on mdaswani@worldscreen.com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/author\/mdaswaniworldscreen-com\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Zachariah OHora Talks Carl the Collector - TVKIDS","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/zachariah-ohora-talks-carl-the-collector\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Zachariah OHora Talks Carl the Collector - TVKIDS","og_description":"Zachariah OHora delivered the final keynote of the fifth edition of the TV Kids Festival today, taking viewers behind the creation of PBS KIDS\u2019 Carl the Collector.","og_url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/zachariah-ohora-talks-carl-the-collector\/","og_site_name":"TVKIDS","article_published_time":"2025-02-06T17:19:06+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-02-06T18:07:47+00:00","og_image":[{"width":640,"height":394,"url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/02\/2024-02-06-OHora.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Mansha Daswani","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Mansha Daswani","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/zachariah-ohora-talks-carl-the-collector\/","url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/zachariah-ohora-talks-carl-the-collector\/","name":"Zachariah OHora Talks Carl the Collector - TVKIDS","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#website"},"datePublished":"2025-02-06T17:19:06+00:00","dateModified":"2025-02-06T18:07:47+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/zachariah-ohora-talks-carl-the-collector\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/zachariah-ohora-talks-carl-the-collector\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/zachariah-ohora-talks-carl-the-collector\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Zachariah OHora Talks Carl the Collector"}]},{"@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\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad","name":"Mansha Daswani","description":"Mansha Daswani is the editor-in-chief and associate publisher of World Screen. She can be reached on mdaswani@worldscreen.com.","url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/author\/mdaswaniworldscreen-com\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}