Halle Stanford has spent almost 30 years at the Jim Henson Company — executive producing Fraggle Rock, creating Sid the Science Kid — and has just launched Wowsabout, a new puppet preschool special on PBS Kids about a guitar-playing hedgehog and a tree-loving pig out to see the wows of the world. It's the first preschool show built around the emotion of awe, and it's already outperforming existing PBS Kids IP on YouTube within two weeks of release.

The conversation covers how Wowsabout got made — and it wasn't through a conventional commissioning deal. Halle built a coalition of mission-aligned partners, leaned into the science behind awe in a way that opened unexpected doors, and had to be, as the Jim Henson Company calls her, the queen of pivot at every turn. There's also a robust defence of puppetry as a medium — Halle has thoughts on the "puppets don't travel" orthodoxy, and they're worth hearing.

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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Kids Media Club Podcast.

I am Andy Williams.

I'm Jo Redfern.

And who have we got joining us today?

Emily.

Hey guys.

I am very excited today because we're going to be talking to Halle Stanford.

Hallie, you're very welcome to the show.

Would you mind introducing yourself?

Hello, I'm Hallie Stanford.

Been working in children's media for almost three years.

Thirty years.

I've had the privilege of most of my career working as a producer and creator for the Jim Henson Company for about 27 years.

I still am, but I branched off to start my own company, 7 Crow stories and doing everything from preschool to primetime content and celebrating awe and human connection and magic and imagination.

So that is a quick summary summary of me and I live in Los Angeles and Woodland Hills.

I have two boys, three dogs, two cats and an amazing husband.

The end.

Hey, where do I get that last one?

No, no, no, he's joking.

Let's not go there.

This is not a self help.

It's not one of those self help podcasts.

No.

Great.

We connected recently about what it was about your new show on PBS and also I've been following your substack as well, the producer on the on the Prairie.

So we can get into that in a little bit.

But why is it's a new special on pbs.

It's kind of one of the first times we're seeing something new like this from Henson in a while, right?

Yes, definitely.

To be able to do a new preschool puppet show in the marketplace was really thrilling and exciting and we kind of went og we went back to some hard puppet comedy.

So it's been a lot of fun.

And so it's a one off special that is running at the moment on pbs, right?

Yeah, it's running on PBS Kids.

The special is about a guitar playing hedgehog, a tree loving pig, Roxy and Ronald out to see the wows of the world.

And in this particular special it is Roxy and Ronald meeting at Sequoia national park when they're both out to go have a great outdoor adventure.

Ronald wants to earn his Junior Ranger badge.

Roxy wants to write a song and honor her grandma, who had visited before and loved it.

And then they meet each other.

It's kind of their meet.

Cute, but a big celebration of the national parks and particularly the heart of it all, awe.

It's really the first preschool series that celebrates the emotion of awe.

So it's very exciting.

Yes.

It's exceeded all expectations on PBS Kids as a special, and then the hope is to continue it as a franchise and a series.

Love that.

I love the idea that awe can be at the very core.

This emotional state can be at the very core of.

Of a story.

But tell us a little bit about that.

How do you.

How do you evolve it from a theme into a story in a narrative?

And, I mean, puppets is genius because there's no better way to inspire awe in little ones than puppets.

But, you know, talk us through the research and then how you evolve that creatively into the content.

I'm excited to.

I first want to ask you guys a question, though, because awe is so amazing.

Like, what inspired you when you were a kid?

What kind of awe inspired you?

Can you think of something?

I can think that, like, I thought bridges on the freeway were.

I thought they were magical and I would make wishes under them.

So was there something that you can remember?

It was watching gymnasts at the Olympics.

For me as a girl, the things that they could do on the bars when they were flipping and doing somersaults and recatching on the bars, that's what got me into gymnastics as a girl.

Yeah, that was awe inspiring.

I didn't know you did gymnastics as a girl, Joe.

Yeah, we still do an old.

An old cartwheel.

Yeah, I suppose maybe similar.

Like, I was.

I was.

I was a pony girl, right.

Like, I was into.

Into horses and their majesty and their beauty and their personalities as well.

But I also find that like.

Like, I live.

I live in Dublin, right.

And, you know, we've got the mountains, we've got the.

We've got the sea.

Maybe it's not quite LA standard, but it's.

It is really beautiful.

And that is something I loved when I was a kid.

It's something.

When I returned to Dublin from London is something that, yeah, just gives me sp.

Gives me space in my mind.

Yeah.

I think.

I think for me, it was probably.

I. I was kind of raised in Brazil at a very young age, and then we ended up flying back to the uk and I think the idea of just being Able to get on a plane and go somewhere completely different was quite awe inspiring.

Yeah.

We swap Brazil for Ben Fleet, which if you know Ben Fleet, I'm not sure.

I'm not sure if what the trade off was, like, really may not have.

Been awe when you got there.

No, I'm sure.

Yeah.

No, that could be fair.

No.

Thanks to Beverly.

I love hearing.

So you can see that awe is, like, so varied, Right.

In all of your experiences and how it inspired all of you and continues to, like, kind of, you know, as Emily said, like, goes to her safe space when she's still.

Still accessing it.

And so, you know, the thing about awe is that it has so many benefits, but it is that feeling that makes you feel small, but a part of something bigger, which is wonderful, but it does all these scientific things.

And I'll tell you more about it, you know, because I know you want to talk about the process and how I arrived there, but, you know, I just love that it makes you want to be more generous, more connected to the world.

It makes you feel less polarized.

So conflict becomes sort of, like, dissipates.

And kids recognize awe all the time.

They can name it.

They're in that awe state, and it's just wonderful.

So I'll tell you how I came up with it.

It really came from.

So it's not just a theme.

It's like the DNA of the show.

Right.

It's how I built up the whole show.

But one of the things that I do when I think about preschool programming is I think about what the modern child needs to thrive and their parents.

So I kind of start there, and I also start with first friends.

I think that preschoolers, you have to create the best characters of all to play with.

So I was really thinking during the pandemic, I was listening to a lot of panels, podcasts from scientists, parents, and I was listening to one on climate hope.

And it was apparent that what parents needed desperately was some climate hope and how to talk to their kids about it.

And so I was thinking, wow, how can we create a show that inspires kids to care for the planet, but also each other?

So that was kind of in the back of my mind just to put that out there to you.

And then I was inspired, driving through the Topanga Canyon.

It's so beautiful.

Hopefully one day you'll all get to drive through it.

And.

And I suddenly had the idea.

I'm like, I got it.

It's a little hedgehog in pink hiking boots with a guitar on her back.

I Think I was listening to Dolly Parton and she is out to see the wows of the world.

She's out there like little kids just exploring.

So that idea stuck around in my head and I was like, I've got the first friend.

But the most amazing thing happened.

I came home and there was an article in the New York Times about Dacher Keltner's new book, Awe, that was based on 15 years of research.

And basically when I was reading the article, it was all about how science confirmed that awe is the thing that will connect us to the planet and one another.

I was like, oh, my gosh, this is exactly what I'm looking for.

So it was there.

So bringing it together is what I knew would help build something that felt fresh and relevant and timely.

I mean, we were ahead of the game, you know, like awe.

Now you can see there's this big awe movement.

Like, awe is on the tips of, you know, all teachers tongues.

Jonathan Haidt cites it in his studies as the solution for the screen addicted generation.

But at that time, his book had just come out, so it was very unfamiliar to everyone.

But it just resonated so strongly.

And the deeper that I got into it, the more I knew that this was the curriculum, that we could build a bigger series from the characters, the story engine, the plot.

And I'll just stop right there because I could talk forever about this topic.

No, but it is interesting and I've read around it where, as I said, the antidote to anxiety, obviously my mental health issues are not that simple, but there have been studies to show that people with PTSD who regularly are, you know, are regularly outdoor, you know, in the outdoors, you know, because their experience is tied to all that that seems.

They seem to see an improvement in that.

So, yeah, it's 100%.

And they also studied Dacher, studied people coming out of prison being, you know, rehabilitating.

How AWE really transformed.

They.

They did an outdoor program with them, which I thought was wonderful.

And how it really, like, just had such a profound effect on their really re entry into the world and their relationship with the world and one another and inspired them.

So very exciting.

I think that once the book came out, it became a bestseller.

Yes, it is a bestseller now.

It's like been said, like, this is a must read by the Library Journal.

And now Dacher's been.

He's talked on npr, the BBC, New York Times, Washington Post.

We see all of this curriculum seeping into all these other areas.

Museums, you know, the National Gallery has this whole program that Dacher helped them organize, of course, the national parks, which we'll talk about a little more.

But he even presented to the Dalai Lama his research and findings.

So, you know, it's just like, I feel like, for us.

And I'll tell you what Dacher said about wows about to be able to take this research and put it into a series for children and their young families to, like, absorb and take and help be a building block, not only in their entertainment and storytelling experience, but just in their lives.

It's a real privilege.

It's been great.

Dacher actually said to me, he said, this is one of the greatest accomplishments of my career.

And I was like, what?

He's like, no, it's like we do all this research and.

And we want to put it out in the world.

And now we were sitting.

He said this to me when we were at the premiere.

We were in a premiere for whiles about there's like 1,800 kids and parents.

And he was like, here it is.

Look, they're cheering, they're happy, they're experiencing it.

So I think we've done right by him.

But there's still so much to learn about awe.

And hopefully this series, we'll see how PBS works with us with the research, but there's not been a lot of research done on children.

And so hopefully this will, you know, be the first that we can use as well.

And do you think there's a quality.

Do you think there's a quality to puppets that make them perfect for communicating or to kids?

Because I always think that there's just something very powerful about puppets that way, that it combines original characters with the spontaneity of live action.

Yeah, I think so.

I have to say that one of the reasons we chose puppets for WowZaboub was that I wanted to be out in the real world.

We wanted to experience awe in the real world.

By the way, I love animation, but just to imagine showing the awe of the world, animation just didn't feel like enough.

And I had worked on Fraggle.

I executive produced Fraggle Rock.

And I was doing the segment called Uncle Traveling.

Matt, he goes around the world.

And when we were in Mexico City and in Seoul, I was like, this is so beautiful.

We are out, like, in the most gorgeous places in the world.

Let's do this more.

Let's figure out a show that can take advantage of this.

So the puppets are perfect for that.

And I think to engage young children, could we have had hosts?

Like live action?

Human hosts?

Yeah.

But to have it done with these characters who are fantastical and hilarious and outrageous and seeing it from the animal's point of view.

Looking at the world from the wild way was really key.

But here's the thing I love about puppets.

I could talk about puppets forever.

The thing about puppets is that the audience that's watching gets to be part of the magic.

We kind of, I mean, children, like, they believe it's there, but we all get to say, oh, that's like, I'm going to say, yes, Kermit the frog is riding a bike.

I agree.

So we're part of that magic.

And so that's awe inspiring that you get to be part of this art form that's unfolding before your eyes.

But listen, Roxy and Ronald on wowzabout.

I've seen them talk to children where the puppeteers are right there.

There's children in the special.

Kids are eyes locked on the puppets.

They're locked on.

They're like, that's Roxy, that's Ronald.

And it brings them such joy.

It is.

And you know, we have great puppeteers.

Doreen Davies, who plays, she's my partner, she plays Roxy.

I call her the Amy Poehler of puppeteers.

And Johnny Tartaglia, who is, you know, legendary comedian.

They're the best.

So the improv they can do and they have such big hearts.

They love children.

I think it just makes it that much more special in the show.

They talk to kids about awe.

Those kids in our special, they're not actors.

They were actually in the Sequoia National Forest with us looking at these giant trees.

And everything we asked them was unprompted.

They were saying, oh, I have goosebumps.

Or they wanted to tell Roxy and Ronald, you know, all kinds of stories.

And one of the girls wanted to sing Les Miserables with Ronald.

It was great.

And we were like, we don't have.

The rights for that.

Adorable.

I know, but I have the footage and it's adorable.

So I just think that, like, it's the per.

They're so awe inspiring.

Anyway, it's the perfect, you know, medium to bring it to life.

But also, I love puppets.

You know, my first awe inspiring experience in the movie theater, I remember it, it was seeing Kermit the frog, like, playing the banjo, singing Rainbow Connection.

I was like, kermit's real, you know, like, that's what I remember thinking.

There is a unique, a new, unique ability that puppets have that just almost without trying force people to suspend their disbelief.

And I extend that to grownups too, because, like, You.

I've been up on set when we co produced a show with Sesame and we had kids and adults on set and the same thing happened.

They spoke to the puppet, not the puppeteer alongside.

They were almost invisible.

And also they are masters at blending into the background that is the puppet.

The puppet is the thing that you're interacting with.

And yeah, it definitely inspires awe.

Did you.

I mean, very often we've heard that puppets don't travel globally.

Not.

Not in the sense that uncle traveling.

Matt didn't, because he got around.

But puppets as a medium don't travel.

But I mean, really, it sounds to me like you went into this thinking about not necessarily it being us first or you were in Sequoia National Park.

This is just the world.

This is the world.

Inspiring.

Or did you think about global appeal and the tension between being, you know, kind of commissioned by PBS Kids?

Or did you just think about it as we're all citizens of this.

This planet here?

It started as that.

It started as a citizens of this planet.

Whenever created a show now or for the Jim Henson Company, always thought global.

You know, Jim Henson himself did as well.

Fraggle Rock was created.

He literally wanted to create it to create world peace.

So it was, I think it was one of the first real true, you know, global co productions.

Fraggle Rock.

So it's kind of in our DNA to think of it that way.

But Oz universal, right?

Just like love, it's an emotion everybody has.

When Dacher studied, he studied like, I think he studied 28 countries and all kinds of countries.

Very individualistic, very socialist, you know, like all kinds of countries.

Every.

That emotion is clear everywhere.

Also, he was able to identify eight wonders of awe that every country experiences.

Everything from music to life cycle to moral beauty, which is kindness, acts of goodness.

That was the number one in the world.

Number one in China.

But the thing I love the most is that in every country studied there was the same expression for the feeling of awe in every country.

And the word was whoa.

So we kind of adjusted to make it a little more fun and said wow.

But so it's not a woe's about, it's a wow's about.

But I thought that universality was extraordinary, but then it's in the specificity.

So we did imagine, like them going everywhere with wows about all around the world.

And we're still pursuing that model.

So that will be part of the future of it.

But so grateful to pbs, you always have to find that first buyer that first you're, you know, who Loves your baby as much as you and Audrey Honorschmidt at PBS Kids.

Actually, when I first had this idea, he liked to set a kind of a check in with me, like every few months.

And he's like, what are you thinking about?

What's going on in your brain?

And I told him about my idea for wowzabout and he was, he kind of teased it out.

He was like, I love that what if.

And I love the what if.

What if they went to the national parks.

He's like.

And they drove a little camper van.

He was obsessed with that camper van.

By the way, when anybody watches this special, the camper van is like the sleeper hit character.

But, uh, so once he really became engaged and because he told me to go to the national parks, it.

It just launched everything.

And I'll talk to you a little bit about that and how it propelled me being able to raise the funding for the special.

But I was a little worried at first.

Ooh, are the national parks too American?

Are the international broadcasters going to be interested?

And then I discovered 300 million visitors to the national parks every year from all around the globe.

A majority of them are from.

The visitors are from around the globe.

And then when I started to pitch it loosely, because there was never.

It was always kind of a, we'll bring it to you once it's made.

But even talking about Sequoia national park or where we wanted to go, I remember one UK broadcaster saying, oh, it's the Yosemite effect.

Like, she accessed her love of the places that we were going.

So that surprised me, to be honest, but I was thrilled.

So that's my answer to you about the global going, but then going us.

And then I will say we really, whenever you like, find your broadcaster, you lean into them, you lean into their brand, you lean into what they need.

And we were so lucky that PBS was going to do this big America 250 push.

And because of that, we were able to push wowzabout earlier to get out there.

And that was so exciting.

And, you know, like I said, it's exceeded expectations, this special for them.

But I think that the American 250 of it all really got us there and helped bring on board partners very, very quickly to get us out there.

I like that.

I like that deadline.

It really, like, it helped me clarify the focuses.

So talk to us about the funding then on this because, you know, obviously it was shot in the Sequoia National Parks, which is just, yeah, fab.

And I think, you know, Awe in nature is not culturally specific.

Right.

Like, everybody understands, whether it's Iguazu Falls or the Sequoia national park or, you know, you know, anywhere else, it's very universal.

So what kind of opportunities do that collaboration unlock in terms of getting the show made.

It?

Let me, let me.

Like, I'm going to roll it back to.

To Dacker Keltner.

He is a force of nature.

And one of the things I have learned, because I know you would like me to give some advice to producers out there.

Find your Dacher, you know, find that credibility and passion, that expert.

Because having Dacher on my team did more than any deck could.

I just want to say that, like, we had a very clean and clear mission.

And so to be able to bring him to funders to discuss what we were trying to do.

And he had the data, right?

We had the data.

This would have a profound effect on children and their families.

It really helped.

But it was not a traditional model, so, you know, it wasn't a traditional commission.

I feel like I had to make a coalition.

Like, I'm like, everybody got, you know, I was like Dorothy, like gathering my, you know, my dagger, my scarecrow, Dorian, my hedgehog.

You know, we were.

And then we got pbs.

PBS covers around a third of the budget.

Traditionally, as you know, CPB was defunded, so that we were never part of that.

We were already building it independently, so we weren't dependent on that.

So it gave us the ability in a wonderful way, PBS as well, to afford more creative control of who we were going to go out to.

I mean, it always has to be approved, who we bring on board, but it just gave us an opportunity to be more flexible and scrappy and letting us go out there.

So it was a journey.

I mean, met with lots of different people.

But I think the key was the national parks.

To begin with, the National Park Service, National park foundation, they did not fund the series, but having that stamp of approval was everything.

And thinking about it taking place, half of the series in the parks, and parks are so varied as well.

Everything from monuments to the ocean.

So I think having that partner in the National Park Service was key.

And so as we were going around discussing funding with different broadcasters, what we realized was, wow.

We brought on board the Gambrel foundation eventually.

Amazing group.

Their whole initiative is to just, you know, build community through on kindness in the world.

So we were very aligned with them.

But as we went around, we realized, oh, we, we have enough that we could actually shoot a special.

It was something unique.

That I, I mean I pitched it to PBS and our funder said yes.

So they were ready.

They were like, yes, we will, we will allocate it towards this again.

I just felt like just doing the traditional development and American 250 helped too.

So let me just keep that on the table.

But that traditional development model of script then, you know, pilot funding or concept.

We had already done a proof of concept.

That's how I, that's how I took it out to the marketplace.

I convinced Tencent to spend our yearly development budget to do this short film to show these puppets out in the world.

But it just felt we were able to convince PBS if we could fund a special which we had raised the money for, this would be the best way to introduce this franchise to the world as a proof of concept that we could research and see if it's worthy of a series.

And then it just kept snowballing.

So.

Oh, and I just want to say one more thing.

The other, the other person, the other thing about PBS is you can bring on foundations, you can bring on grants, but also private funding.

So we were able to bring on private funding with Evan Christina Sharp.

Evan is one of the co founders of Pinterest, but his parents were park rangers and he and his wife are young parents and they're like, let's do it.

Let's celebrate, you know, Dacher's work, the national parks.

So it just this PBS model for this particular project worked perfectly.

I was just going to ask quick question.

Is there an optimum number of those mission aligned partners to have, you know like the national parks and like Dhaka to unlock that funding?

Is it a question of the more the merrier or do you need to be strategic?

I think you need to be strategic and I think that, I mean I do like the more the merrier but want those partners to be partners that make sense mission wise, but also marketing wise.

Right.

So we're doing actually a whole live event with the National Gallery hopefully in October.

That's a big, you know, that's a big draw.

So I think that not going to necessarily like a local museum that may not have as much credibility.

So I think it needs to be partners that are impressive either from a marketing angle or definitely from a mission, what they are achieving in their mission.

But more the merrier with funders, honestly we'll take them all as you're, as you're raising 2/3.

I think about it right now like okay, gotta now raise, raise the financing first series.

Yeah, more the merrier for sure there because Any little bit in some ways can help.

So I'll give you an example.

The National park foundation did step up once we started the special and said we want to, we want to fund some short form content that's very specific to their, their mission.

So we did a, we did a PSA all for Parks.

It was actually really fun to do and we may do another music video with them.

So we'll take it, right?

We'll take to keep Roxy and Ronald and the Zy guys because by the time we raise money for a series, it's going to be, it's going to be, you know, like on the air a couple years from now.

So we want to keep up.

So it's interesting.

Like we're looking for the big mockers and then we're looking for, you know, sustainability with the franchise.

And do you think that's the new reality, really?

Rather than kind of the traditional model where the broadcaster or the distributor would come in and take kind of a bigger bet that really it's about finding partners that think alike and almost everyone taking a bit of a bet on their own IP rather than waiting for a broadcaster to come along with a checkbook.

And right now it feels like that world is kind of like that.

We're in a, we're in a different reality now.

I think we're in a different reality.

I think we're kind of in that gray zone, like figuring it out.

When you just said that, Andy, I thought, well, that's my reality at seven crow stories.

Like that's what I'm betting on with some of my new projects.

But again, you know, we're not quite there yet.

We're still out, you know, pitching to the broadcasters who may take all rights.

But I truly believe in my heart of hearts that this is the new reality and it's just going to take a little time to have proof of concept.

I'm excited, I'm excited about Wow's about.

I'm excited that like in two weeks we already have 250,000, you know, views on YouTube, like more in two weeks than some of their, you know, pre existing IPs that have been on the year, you know, been on for years.

I'm just like, yes, let's take a bet on it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's kind of empowering as well, isn't it, that you're taking that power into your own hands, really?

Because I think the problem previously is that you would kind of a lot of that power would then go to the broadcaster in terms of how it was marketed, how that show was discovered, and it feels like that power's being kind of distributed a bit.

There's kind of maybe more risk on the producer, but hopefully more reward as well.

Yeah, definitely more risk on the producer, for sure.

I'm so lucky to work with the Jim Henson company that they trust in me to, you know, sort of, you know, pursue this model.

They call me the queen of pivot.

They're like, you are the queen of pivot, Hallie, and that's what you have to be right.

Right now in this marketplace.

But it's still.

I'm still figuring it out.

I have no, like, definitive answers for your audience, except.

Except just like, having the passion, being responsible to your children audience, not to the algorithm.

I know it's what everyone's chasing, and believe me, yesterday I was pitching to a network who told me we need big ip, and I thought, how big?

How big?

How big is big?

You know, like, what does that mean?

So I just.

I think that, you know, it all I think was about is proof that it can happen.

And, of course, Strawberry Vampire, my favorite story of the year.

You know, you have these, you know, scrappy creators who I love, by the way.

She's not scrappy.

She's like a plus plus Amelo.

But I think that you're going to start.

No, I don't think I'd take her on in a fight.

You know,.

I would never fight.

But I think it's like, I know what you're saying, Holly, about, like, this is the reality of the industry, but I got to.

I'm not sure that's a good thing.

Right.

Like.

Like, it is.

It's tough, and it takes, like, a special bit of magic, whether it's, you know, the credibility and pedigree that you bring to this from.

From your years at Jim Henson, whether it's.

Yeah, like, Emily Brundage is, like, the way she thinks about business, the way she's able to act actually more similar to a creator than a traditional producer.

But, like, it's not a new.

Neither of those things is a model.

I would say that's like, the special reality that you.

You both.

You both live in and that you both deserve and you both earned.

And, like, it's not that it's some gift from God or anything like that, but it's something that you both have worked for.

But, like, I think broader for the industry, that neither of those things is a model.

You know, again with Emily, people like, you know, the amount of conversations we had after we did a Recent podcast with her where it was like, okay, so it's crowdfunding.

That's the, that's the lesson.

And it's like, no, that's not the lesson.

Everything she did started years and years before she ever did what she's doing now, which you notice, right?

So it's just, it is, it is tough when you know that special sauce is not replicatable or it's not, unless I said it's not a model.

But every, Yeah, I agree.

And every.

You have to think about it.

Like, every single project like that perhaps requires a different secret sauce, different ingredients, right?

Just like, where can I find the opportunity to get, you know, people behind it or networks behind it?

And it's a lot of courting, right?

So I even talked about, you know, talking to Adriana really early.

A lot of these funders who I'm mentioning, you know, casually, you know, Evan Sharp, you know, my pal, the billionaire.

No, this took like this required years and years of courting.

Evan had a long term relationship with Dakar Kellner.

Right.

So like you are bringing to the table, like, bring your relationship.

Start the courting now.

Start, start the conversations.

If there's something you really believe in it, you're right.

It just doesn't happen like that overnight with like the secret sauce.

But.

And I think that I believe it can happen.

I think that's something that I think is coming, becoming more clear in recent times.

Right?

So, like, we are, we.

You're not going to like being called this guys, but we are LinkedIn people.

We are LinkedInners.

You have to accept it.

I'm going to stop at linked influencers because that's an atrocity of a word.

But it's like, it's, it's the, like, it's the million different connections you make with people with no, with no transaction in mind.

Right?

Like, and we're grateful on this podcast to have a reason to reach out to somebody and just be curious with.

No, I'm not trying to sell you.

I'm not trying to ask for a job.

Like, I just want to know what you're up to.

But like, it's, that's how relationships start, right?

Like, it's like it's little check ins getting to know somebody, not trying to pitch them something, not being like.

And literally that not being the point.

The point is just, oh, you seem cool.

Let's talk.

Right.

And to your point, Halle, that's the way the industry is at the moment.

Every single way of funding, financing that patchwork is put together In a different way.

As you said, Emily Brundage's model will be different to yours.

It will be different to the next creators.

That's the way that it is at this moment in time.

Which means that, yeah, you need to be open, you need to work together, you need to collaborate, you need to negotiate, you need to, you know, sit down over a bottle of wine and decide who's doing what and how you're going to divide and conquer.

I mean, this is, this is the way that stuff gets made.

And there is no standard rule playbook, as they say, for, for doing it.

But each time, and this is one of the things that we, we do take very seriously in our role as the kids media club podcasters, is to shine a light on.

It might help someone else, give them a bit of a boost or a bit of confidence to go, oh, right, okay, so this is what other people have had to do, too.

It's not just me.

I'm going to keep.

Yeah, absolutely.

But it's also about that kind of move on from, like, what we've talked about with kids screen and stuff like that.

Like, you know, going to a massive conference like that and doing a speed pitch is not going to get your show made.

Do you mean going to, like, like, like going to a conference like that and like, happen to, like, standing next to the person next to you at the bar and just being genuinely interested in what they are for no other reason than you care about?

The industry is something that can, Is a way of starting relationship that can, that can lead to other things.

But if it's, if you go there, like the other way, they're called markets, right?

Like, that's actually the antithesis of getting business done is treating it like a market where you're selling something because you know it doesn't get you down the road.

How have you maintained your determination, Halle?

How have you kept up the.

The motivation, the momentum, the energy when things seem to be working against you?

Well, I'm.

I am a joyful human being, as you can tell.

I love what I do.

I love children's media.

I love it, love it with all of my heart and soul.

I always knew that's what I wanted to do when I was a little girl.

So, you know, I believe in what we're doing as storytellers.

I also tell people that I think of my projects like my kids.

And if you don't like my kids, I don't care.

I don't.

I love that.

Find somebody that does.

I love that.

Having said that, Sometimes you have to put your kids over here.

You're like, okay, this is just not your time, and that's fine.

But, like, everything I work on is.

Is my dream project.

Right?

So I, you know, I will not be deterred.

But sometimes I know when to stop.

I do.

I'm like, okay, we're just gonna.

We're just gonna put this.

I call it the.

You remember the island of Lost toys?

And Santa Claus is coming to.

It's my island of lost pitches.

They all live there, and one day they'll return.

But so that's.

I definitely, like.

I don't necessarily, you know, take no for an answer, but also, I really listen.

So if there's an opportunity or if they're like, hey, we're looking for this, or could you adjust this?

I created the show Sid the Science Kid, but when I was first working on it, it was all about, like, a kid comedian.

My preschooler used to walk around.

He's like a grown man now.

Walk around with microphone, telling jokes on the playground.

And then Linda Siminsky called and said, do you have a science show?

And I was like, yes, I can have a science show.

But was able to take Sid and really turn it into something, you know, the first.

The first stem on a preschool series.

So I listen, and I think that flexible in that way, and I think that that can keep your spirits up and keep you innovating constantly as opposed to feeling very rigid in your one idea.

So that's another way I just sort of keep.

Keep up the energy and the.

And I also, like, I just cared.

I care deeply about the audience.

So that's the other thing.

When.

When the networks are saying, you know, we're looking for Big ip, I'm think.

I'm not thinking about that.

I'm thinking, what do kids need?

What do mom.

What do moms need?

And that.

And they keep me energized.

Our audience keeps me really positive.

When I see little kids excited about wowzabout, I lose my mind.

Yeah.

And come here.

So what do you say to the folks who say that puppets don't travel?

What?

Do you agree or do you have, like.

I have a feeling you're gonna have a firm point of view on this.

I have a very firm point of view.

Of course, you guys know I do.

I call it the Great Puppet Prejudice that has no data behind it, meaning that based on a few shows that haven't landed, it becomes this generalization.

It reminds me of when a few years ago, broadcasters will say, Preschoolers don't like 2D animation, and then along comes Bluey.

So the problem with puppets is there's not as many puppet series as there is animation.

So you can point to the shows that didn't succeed.

Right.

Believe me, I've heard in France countless times how Sesame street did not work.

That doesn't mean that they couldn't create a puppet series that does for their audiences.

But the other thing is I just feel like a lot of the particularly international.

I think it's because a lot of the shows that are done with puppetry internationally, very local, the puppeteering and puppets are of a certain level that maybe aren't as premium as maybe some of the series that we've done at Henson or Fred Rogers or, you know, Sesame Workshop.

So I think maybe there's that too that they look at.

But my favorite, I have to tell you my secret.

My favorite is when a German broadcaster watched the proof of concept of wowzabout and said, well, these puppets, they look so handmade.

It was like, they are handmade.

People sewed them.

So I think it's the antidote to the whole AI.

Do you know what?

That's something I've heard recently.

Yeah.

Seeing the thumbprint on it is actually part of the selling point for sure.

I think it is.

Now, I saw a lot of comments from the parents like, hooray, the antidote to AI.

So anyway, maybe that German broadcaster will look at it a little bit different.

But, you know, they haven't taken the special.

I think they're just starting at Henson International to take it out.

So maybe I'll have more to report back.

Let's see.

Let's see what everybody's thinking.

I know ABC is really has bought on board, so I'm excited about that.

But in Australia, I feel like I call them Australia.

Yes, you.

Oh, my gosh.

There's definitely a photo of there.

So I wasn't surprised that they loved it.

But still, my poem.

I was gonna get the pun out,.

Putting the or in audience.

But yeah, use it for Australia.

I like it.

I love that.

I'm gonna use that.

Oh, gosh.

Okay, Use that now.

You're gonna hear me say things like that.

Listen, the puns are happening.

You guys, I'm calling time on this interview.

We're not.

We're not going to Puntan.

Puppets are puns.

It's.

It's a natural thing.

Oh, listen.

Yeah.

If you work in kids media, puns are your life.

We all know this.

But, Kabir, listen, thanks so much for talking to us, Helly and sharing your experience with us.

We really appreciated it.

Thank you.

Oh, thank you for having me.

Keep doing what you're doing.

It's so very important.

I am.

I am inspired myself.

So thank you.

That's awesome.

Okay, Andy, do you want it?

Do you want to do the sign off?

Andy?

Yeah, I'll do the sign off.

I was gonna say thank you for an awe inspiring conversation, but Joe beat me to that pun there.

You guys, we're cancelled.

Yes.

Okay, I'll sit with the Crypt.

So hope you guys enjoyed listening.

Please like and subscribe wherever you get your podcast and we will see you all next week.