Team Umizoomi
| Team Umizoomi | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Animated Live-action Preschool |
| Created by | Soo Kim Michael T. Smith Jennifer Twomey |
| Voices of | Sophia Fox (Season 1) Madeleine Rose Yen (Season 2) Ethan Kempner Donovan Patton |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 3 |
| No. of episodes | 40 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Soo Kim Michael T. Smith |
| Running time | 24 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Curious Pictures Nickelodeon Productions |
| Distributor | MTV Networks International[1] |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Nickelodeon |
| Picture format | 480i (SDTV) 1080i (HDTV) |
| First shown in | United States Canada |
| Original run | January 25, 2010 – present |
| External links | |
| Website | |
Team Umizoomi is a computer-animated educational, musical television series with an emphasis on preschool mathematical concepts, such as counting, sequences, shapes, patterns, measurements, and comparisons[2]. The "team" consists of a little girl named Milli, her brother Geo, a friendly robot named Bot, along with the child who is viewing the show. The others refer to the child viewer as their Umifriend, and encourage him or her to develop their "Mighty Math Powers!" The action generally takes place in and around Umi City, a colorful city where the streets are paved with origami.
In the United States Team Umizoomi is shown on both Nick Jr. and Nickelodeon. It first aired on January 25, 2010.
Contents |
[edit] General Characteristics
Each episode of Team Umizoomi features several or all of the following:
- A task or quest to be completed, usually to assist a child in need. Completing the main task requires completion of several sub-tasks, and there are often unforeseen difficulties that must be surmounted. Each sub-task generally involves mathematical reasoning about patterns, sequences, counting, geometric shapes, or other age-appropriate mathematical concepts.
- Breaking the fourth wall, where the characters on screen communicate directly to the child viewing the show and encourage him or her to participate with the show.
- A mixture of live-action and animation. The team and the surroundings are animated, but the person being helped is often a real child, or sometimes an adult. In the city, or in other crowd scenes, other real people are shown in the background. In comparison to the regular people, the animated characters on the team are less than a foot tall.
- Once the main task has been completed the team sings a song and performs a dance called the Umi Shake, which involves shaking and wiggling back and forth quickly. (The song itself refers to this as the "Crazy Shake".) The child viewing the show is encouraged to participate in the dance.
- "How does it work? " In some episodes a simple explanation is given of an everyday process, such as how milk gets from farm to market, or how packages are sorted at the post office.
[edit] Characters
[edit] Milli
A six year old girl[3] (voiced by Sophia Fox and later, Madeleine Rose Yen) who has abilities related to patterns and measuring. She can change her dress to any pattern and can then project that pattern by singing "Pattern Power". Milli is usually the one to interact with the child viewing the show when it is necessary to complete the next element in a pattern in order to accomplish something. Her ponytails can be used to measure things, which is initiated by singing "Milli-Measure".
[edit] Geo
Milli's brother (voiced by Ethan Kempner), who zooms everywhere on his Super Skates. He also has abilities related to geometric shapes. Geo wears a shape belt and can create anything by assembling shapes and then singing "Super Shapes". Often, when Team Umizoomi is stuck and needs some type of vehicle to assist them, Geo will figure out what they need, and present a blueprint for the thing that needs to be built, and then interact with the child viewing the show to figure out which shapes are needed to fill in the blue-print.
[edit] Bot
A loving robot friend (voiced by Donovan Patton) who likes to sing and dance and has a fun-loving, childlike personality. His abilities are more functional than math-related. His arms and legs can be extended to reach things, by saying "Arms Extendo" or "Legs Extendo". He has a small receiver (like a satellite dish) on his head to receive calls (called the Umi Alarm). He also has a screen on the front (called a "Belly Belly Belly Screen" stylized as "Belly Belly, Belly Screen!") that they can view videos/pictures on as well as have a video call with someone who needs their help. He also has a storage compartment on the back of his body, called a Bot-o-mat, which frequently is carrying whatever the team happens to need. In each episode, he is introduced, usually by Milli, as their "Best Robot Friend."
[edit] Umi Car
The team's beloved little orange car who drives the team wherever their help is needed.
[edit] DoorMouse
The security of Umi City and antagonist of Team Umizoomi. He always says that a key is needed. Voice by Joe Narciso
[edit] International release
| Country / Region | Series Premiere | Channel |
|---|---|---|
| USA | January 25, 2010 | Nickelodeon |
| January 31, 2010[4] | Nick Jr. | |
| Germany | March 12, 2010 | Nickelodeon |
| Netherlands | April 2010 | Nick Jr. |
| Russia | July 2010 | Nickelodeon (CIS) Nick Jr. (CIS) |
| Philippines | April 5, 2010 | Nickelodeon (Southeast Asia) (until April 2011) Nickelodeon (Philippines) (April 2011-present) |
| Canada | Treehouse TV |
|
| Coming Soon[citation needed] | CTV Two Alberta | |
| Coming Soon | Saskatchewan Communications Network | |
| September 2010 | Kids CBC |
|
| Fall 2011 | Yoopa (in French Language) | |
| Australia | July 2010 | Nick Jr. (Australia) |
| Korea | EBS |
[edit] References
- ^ Leffler, Rebecca (October 4, 2010). "MTVNI touting 5,000 hours of programming". The Hollywood Reporter. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/mtvni-touting-5000-hours-programming-28681. Retrieved November 18, 2010.
- ^ Team Umizoomi Curriculum from NickJr, accessed 30 December 2011
- ^ Team Umizoomi - Milli, Geo, Bot from NickJr. Accessed 30 December 2011
- ^ Bliss Tree, Rosina (January 12, 2010). "Team Umizoomi an animated/live action math-forced series premieres Monday, January 25, 2010 with two new episode premieres on Nickelodeon and encores repeat on Nick Jr. on Sunday, February 28, 2010". http://www.blisstree.com/playlibrary/new-nick-preschool-seriesteam-umizoomi. Retrieved February 12, 2010.
