GBH Kids, in collaboration with PBS KIDS and Cultural Whisperers, launched the Work It Out Wombats! Podcast on January 4, 2024. The podcast gives children the opportunity to have a playdate with beloved characters Malik, Zadie, and Zeke from the popular AVDF-funded series Work It Out Wombats!
“At GBH Kids, we’re committed to meeting our audiences where they are and finding new ways to engage directly with them,” said Terry Fitzpatrick, Vice President of Children’s Media and Education at GBH. The Work It Out Wombats! Podcast is another opportunity for us to share our characters and their stories through a growing platform among young audiences as they continue to find new ways to engage with media and our content.”
Geared for children ages 3-6 and their caregivers, the Work It Out Wombats! Podcast is the latest audio series from GBH Kids, which has a strong history of producing podcasts for kids, including The Arthur Podcast and The Molly of Denali Podcast. During the Work It Out Wombats! Podcast, listeners are encouraged to become official “Wombuddies ” and join Wombats Malik, Zadie, and Zeke, on a series of playdates around their Treeborhood community. Each episode is themed around a different playdate — from planning a surprise party, taking an imaginary rocket ship to the clouds, pretending to be pirates, or having a spooky campout – all while having fun, singing, dancing, and playing. The first podcast season will consist of eight 8-minute episodes.
Since its premiere in February 2023, Work It Out Wombats! has been streamed more than 160 million times on PBS KIDS, has nearly 7 million views on YouTube and is currently ranked number 1 in Kids 2-5 viewers for PBS KIDS Programming. The PBS KIDS series stars Malik, Zadie, and Zeke—three energetic and creative marsupial siblings who live with their grandmother in her treehouse apartment complex. The playful trio demonstrates computational thinking (CT) for preschoolers, a way of thinking that enables them to solve problems, express themselves, and accomplish tasks using the practices, processes, and ideas at the core of computer science.
Produced by GBH Kids and Pipeline Studios, Work It Out Wombats! takes place in the Treeborhood, the biggest treehouse in existence—with secret passageways, gondolas, and rope swings. The residents of the Treeborhood—wombats, snakes, moose, kangaroos, iguanas, fish, tarsiers, and eagles—bring varied skills and abilities, assorted ways of thinking, and different family structures and traditions to this diverse and vibrant community of neighbors, a place where even the adults join in the play.
“We have been overjoyed with the positive reception of the Work It Out Wombats! series and are excited to share this new way to engage with the characters Malik, Zadie and Zeke,” said Marcy Gunther and Marisa Wolsky, Executive Producers, GBH Kids. “Our hope is that the podcast will encourage kids and their families to join in the play and become official Wombuddies, all while igniting their imaginations on a playdate where there will be an abundance of fun and adventure.”
The Work It Out Wombats! Podcast is produced for PBS KIDS by GBH Kids and Cultural Whisperers and distributed by PBS KIDS and PRX. All episodes are available for free on pbskids.org, the PBS KIDS Video app, the PBS KIDS YouTube channel, the Work It Out Wombats! YouTube channel, and across all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Spotify.
For the full press release about the podcast premiere, click here. To watch episodes of the Work It Out Wombats! Podcast, click here.
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