TVKIDS
Zachariah OHora delivered the final keynote of the fifth edition of the TV Kids Festival today, taking viewers behind the creation of PBS KIDS’ Carl the Collector.
The series is PBS KIDS’ first production centered on a neurodiverse character. OHora talked to TV Kids’ Kristin Brzoznowski about the show in a keynote conversation you can view here.
The seed of the idea emerged a decade ago when OHora, an author and illustrator, was taking his kids to their inclusive school. “I 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.”
As the show came together, OHora knew he wanted “authentic representation” behind the scenes. “That meant finding as many people on the spectrum and autistic people that we could put in all parts of the production, including the writers’ room. Why try to tell someone else’s 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.”
PBS KIDS was the “perfect home” for the series, OHora said. “They 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.”
The theme of representation behind the scenes extended to the voice cast, OHora added. “If 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.”
On deciding on the animation style, look, tone and feel, OHora noted, “I 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’s a bit of a love letter to this town I live in, Narberth. But I really didn’t know anything about animation. I’ve been doing books for 15 years, so my style is very left to right. It’s 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.”
While centered on a neurodivergent character, the preschool series is ultimately about self-identity, OHora said. “It happens to be that the main character is autistic, and there are other neurodiverse characters. That’s just one aspect of their personality. Any autistic person will tell you that having autism is part of who they are, but it’s just part of who they are; they’re full people. We wanted to represent that in the show as well.”
Given his background as an illustrator, Brzoznowski asked OHora if there are plans to bring Carl the Collector to the publishing world. “We’re talking to publishers about a book series,” he said, along with other partners about possible extensions. “We have four games that we have almost finished. One game is out, called Carl’s Collections, and you can play it on the PBS website. There will be more games and activities coming down the pike.”
As the session wrapped, OHora shared his hopes for what audiences will take from the series. “I 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’re all the same, even with our differences, and we can all benefit from understanding each other’s 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’s a show that parents and caretakers will enjoy watching with their kid and laughing and learning along with it.”
