| Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Kids | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Nadine Velde |
| Directed by | Mike Fallows Kevin McDonagh (timing director) |
| Voices of | Brooke Shields Rick Moranis Tony Jay Marc Donato Julie Lemieux Aaryn Doyle Alexander Lai Scott Beaudin Rebecca Brenner Mitchell Eisner |
| Music by | Jeff Danna |
| Country of origin | Canada United States |
| Original language | English |
| Production | |
| Executive producers |
|
| Running time | 49 minutes |
| Production companies | Nelvana Callaway Arts & Entertainment Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures |
| Original release | |
| Network | Treehouse TV |
| Release | May 11, 2003 |
Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Kids is a 2003 animated television special produced by Nelvana. It serves as the pilot for the show Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends . It aired on Treehouse TV in Canada on March 31, 2003, a year before the series began. [1] The special was based on David Kirk's book series of the same name, as well as the Sunny Patch brand of toys that Kirk designed. [2] The special features well-known celebrity voices including US actress Brooke Shields as the voice of Miss Spider, Rick Moranis as the voice of Holley, and Tony Jay as the voice of Spiderus.
Miss Flora Spider has been living happily with her new husband Holley, but becomes nervous when she lays five eggs. She worries about becoming a mother, since her own mother abandoned her before she hatched. But her adoptive mother, Betty Beetle, tells her that she has nothing to worry about. When the eggs hatch into five spiderlings, the family becomes overjoyed.
Years pass and as the spiderlings grow up, the family finds an giant egg and decorate it. Thinking its mother is looking for it, Squirt, one of the spiderlings, decides to return it. While going through the forest, he comes upon three orphans: Dragon the dragonfly, Shimmer the jewel beetle, and Bounce the bedbug who are living in the forest. When Squirt explains that he is looking for the egg's mother, Bounce reveals that they do not have parents themselves, although Dragon says that they are still looking for them. Shimmer decides that they should tag along and help Squirt.
Suddenly, Spiderus, a short-tempered white spider who became jealous after Miss Spider chose Holley over him, arrives and tries to take the egg. The spiderlings manage to scare him away. Meanwhile, Miss Spider has discovered that Squirt is missing and fears for the worst. She and Holley decide to search for him. With the help of Spiderus, who now agrees to help in the rescue mission.
Snow starts to fall, as the spiderlings find Stinky, a stinkbug, in his home. They take shelter there until morning. Spiderus falls in love with Spindella. The spiderlings arrive at a barn, where a chicken revealed to be the mother of the egg attacks Squirt, but Miss Spider and Holley arrive and save him.
The egg hatches and is reunited with the chicken. Squirt introduces his new friends to Miss Spider who decides to adopt them, since she herself understands how it feels to be orphaned, along with eight being a perfect number to her. They are all overjoyed and return home. As all the spiderlings sleep, Miss Spider understands that it does not matter what other bugs are, all that matters is that they are all family.
Squirt is eventually thought to be missing again, but he is soon found outside, flying on his web. The other spiderlings wake up and run outside and play.
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Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends, sometimes shortened to Miss Spider or Sunny Patch, is an animated television series produced by Nelvana in association with AbsoluteDigital Pictures and Callaway Arts & Entertainment as a follow-up to the television special Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Kids. Created by David Kirk and developed by Nadine van der Velde, it was based on Kirk's Sunny Patch brand and the accompanying Miss Spider book series. In Canada, the show aired on Teletoon before moving over to Treehouse TV. In the United States, it aired on Nick Jr. 40 episodes were produced.
Horton the Elephant is a fictional character from the 1940 book Horton Hatches the Egg and 1954 book Horton Hears a Who!, both by Dr. Seuss. He is also featured in the short story Horton and the Kwuggerbug, first published for Redbook in 1951 and later rediscovered by Charles D. Cohen and published in the 2014 anthology Horton and the Kwuggerbug and More Lost Stories. In all books and other media, Horton is characterized as a kind, sweet-natured, and naïve elephant who manages to overcome hardships.
Amaurobius ferox, sometimes known as the black lace-weaver, is a common nocturnal spider belonging to the family Amaurobiidae and genus Amaurobius. Its genus includes three subsocial species, A. fenestralis, A. similis and A. ferox, all three of which have highly developed subsocial organizations.
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Miss Spider Apps are children's apps for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch published by Callaway Digital Arts. They can be purchased in Apple's App Store and feature the beloved character Miss Spider, who also appears in the bestselling books by David Kirk and the Nick Jr. Channel program Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends.
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Philoponella oweni is a species of spider belonging to the family Uloboridae, the cribellate orb weavers. They are around 4.7–7.1 mm long in length and are primarily found in the arid southwestern parts of the United States. These spiders are most known for being semi-social, a rare trait within spiders. Semi-social, in the case of P. oweni, refers to the coexistence of facultatively communal and solitary females within the same habitat. These groups usually form in response to environmental factors, and often never involve true cooperation. This lack of true cooperation means these spiders do not share prey items, do not work together when spinning webs and do not care for one another's young. The coexistence of both solitary and communal species within the same habitat can be explained by both tactics have similar net reproductive success values. This was can be explained by comparing the number of eggs within egg cases to the number of surviving offspring for both tactics. The number of surviving offspring of communal and solitary beings does not vary significantly, which mostly due to the parasitism by pteromalid wasps. These wasp which prefer consume and parasitize communal P. oweni webs and eggs, counteracting the increase of eggs per egg case that communal spiders tend to produce over solitary.
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