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TerraTopia was a series of children's books produced by The Nature Company in the early 1990s and eventually spun off into other products, most notably an adventure game for computers.
Several TerraTopia books were released in the early 1990s, as well as a collection of the four stories together as one hardcover volume that was recognized by Parents' Choice Awards. The books took the format of short graphic novels, with comic-book-style panels and word balloons. The stories are about the wonders of nature and caring for the environment. The Elders of TerraTopia bestow upon five ordinary children an animal totem, giving them the ability to assume that animal's form.
TerraTopia, a computer game designed for boys and girls age 8 and up, was published by Virgin Sound and Vision in 1995 as a part of its Virgin Adventure Series. It was quite often a standard issue game on most computers that came equipped with Windows 95 in the mid to late 1990s.
The cast of TerraTopia, in order of on-screen appearance:
| Actor | Character |
|---|---|
| Neil Ross | Narrator, Snake Elder, Coyote Trickster |
| Mitzi McCall | Wolf Elder |
| Tasia Valenza | Foxfire |
| Bumper Robinson | Max |
| Lance Zitron | Bud, Sketch |
| Nancy Cartwright | Piper |
In 1993 TerraTopia was made into a board game, designed by Peter Olotka of Cosmic Encounter fame and his son, Greg Olotka. In the spirit of the books, the game was cooperative rather than competitive, with all players attempting to overcome various challenges using their Terratrooper abilities and ultimately recover their stones.
A Canal+ TerraTopia television show was announced in 1995, planned for release in 1996 as a 52-episode series. Planned to coincide with the television show was a Minolta TerraTopia camera, which would have been Minolta's first camera marketed primarily to kids and would have featured the character Sketch to get children interested in nature photography.
In 1998, The Discovery Channel purchased The Nature Company and converted all remaining Nature Company stores to the Discovery Channel brand. As of 2006, there have been no attempts to revive TerraTopia as a Discovery Channel property.
Vertigo Comics, also known as DC Vertigo or simply Vertigo, was an imprint of American comic book publisher DC Comics started by editor Karen Berger in 1993. Vertigo's purpose was to publish comics with adult content, such as nudity, drug use, profanity, and graphic violence, that did not fit the restrictions of DC's main line, thus allowing more creative freedom. Its titles consisted of company-owned comics set in the DC Universe, such as The Sandman and Hellblazer, and creator-owned works, such as Preacher and Fables. The Vertigo branding was retired in 2020, and most of its library transitioned to DC Black Label.
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The Past Doctor Adventures were a series of spin-off novels based on the long running BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who and published under the BBC Books imprint. For most of their existence, they were published side-by-side with the Eighth Doctor Adventures. The novels regularly featured the First through Seventh Doctors. The Infinity Doctors had an ambiguous place in continuity and featured an unidentified incarnation of the Doctor. The Eighth Doctor co-starred with the Fourth Doctor in one novel (Wolfsbane) and, after the Eighth Doctor Adventures had ceased publication, a novel featuring the Eighth Doctor and set between two earlier Eighth Doctor Adventures was published within the Past Doctor series.
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Curious Pictures was an American animation studio and multi-media company set in New York City and Los Angeles that created and produced television programs, commercials, animation and video games. Its flagship work was the preschool television series A Little Curious for HBO. Other well-known works include Sheep in the Big City and Codename: Kids Next Door for Cartoon Network, Little Einsteins for Disney Junior, and Team Umizoomi for Nick Jr.
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The Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Series is an Emmy award given to television programming aimed towards children. Children's television has been recognized at the Emmys since the inaugural year. In 1995, a separate award for pre-school children's television was created. The two categories have been recognized since then. Starting in 2018, a distinction between children's series and educational series was created, resulting in two separate categories.
The Arthur video games franchise was a series of learning and interactive story video games based on the American-Canadian children's TV show Arthur. The games were released in the 1990s and 2000s for PlayStation and Windows and Mac OS computers.
