Wishbone | |
---|---|
Genre | Children's fantasy comedy drama |
Created by | Rick Duffield |
Starring |
|
Voices of | Larry Brantley as Wishbone |
Theme music composer |
|
Opening theme | "What's the Story, Wishbone?" [1] |
Ending theme | "What's the Story, Wishbone?" (Instrumental version) |
Composer | Tom Merriman |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 2 |
No. of episodes | 50 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producer | Rick Duffield |
Production locations | |
Running time | 30 minutes |
Production company | Big Feats! Entertainment [1] |
Original release | |
Network | PBS |
Release | October 8, 1995 – December 7, 1997 |
Related | |
Wishbone's Dog Days of the West |
Wishbone is an American live-action children's television series which aired from 1995 to 1997 originally broadcast on PBS. It is about a Jack Russell Terrier dog named Wishbone who daydreams about being the lead character of stories from classic literature.
A standard episode of Wishbone consists of an opening scene, introducing Wishbone's and his family's current situation (for example, Arbor Day planting a tree, Wishbone finding new things or Joe catching a lunch lady attempting to donate food to a homeless shelter). When one of the main characters decides to get involved in the noble act, Wishbone flashes to a famous work of literature that it reminds him of, usually with him playing the lead role in costume. Wishbone may not play the lead role if the character is difficult to relate to (he plays Sancho Panza in Don Quixote ) or is female (in the show's "Joan of Arc" episode, he plays Louis de Conte). By the end of both stories, the real-life situation usually follows the work of literature closely, such as the King saving Robin Hood at the last minute and the Principal saving Joe at the last minute. The last two minutes of nearly every episode feature Wishbone narrating some background description of how the episode was produced, including how stunts were performed, how costumes were designed, or how the visual effects were created.
The series also featured a clip show episode called "Picks of the Litter".
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Wishbone was conceived by Rick Duffield, after brainstorming with his staff about "making a show for kids that was told from a dog's point of view", as "what if a little dog with a big imagination could take us into some of the greatest stories ever told? And, why not make him the hero?" [2]
Inspired, Duffield produced a seven-minute pilot for the show. In the summer of 1993, he spent three days casting for the dog star at a motel courtyard in Valencia, California, looking at between 100 and 150 dogs. [3] After filming the pilot which captured Wishbone's character and suggested the show's format he presented it to Alice Cahn at PBS.
Larry Brantley, the voice of Wishbone, said he got the job through:
"...the weirdest audition I think that's ever been or will ever be. [...] so I went to the first audition having no idea what to do. In the callback, I got to meet Soccer for the first time...It was a five-minute impromptu audition...I never really read from the script, I was supposed to, but I didn't. Rick Duffield, the executive producer, said, 'well, watch the dog and just follow along and see what he's doing right now.' Soccer was obsessing like over this tennis ball...and he wasn't interested in Rick Duffield or me or anybody else in the room; it was like a tennis ball. And he would stare at the tennis ball. I want the tennis ball...So it was like five minutes about a tennis ball, and I walked out of the audition saying, 'I can't believe I just did five minutes about a tennis ball.' And then I got the job. We may never understand." [4]
Ultimately, Duffield wanted Wishbone to be an:
"...entertaining way for kids to get their first taste of great books. We believe this show can cultivate a new appetite for reading by making kids think it's fun to get to know these books. And it's intended to be fun, action-packed, clever, and a way to get their first taste of great stories that can become a valuable educational stepping stone in their lives. The dog makes it all the more endearing and entertaining." [3]
Wishbone's exterior shots were filmed on the backlot of Lyrick Studios' teen division Big Feats! Entertainment [1] in Allen, Texas, and its interior shots were filmed on a sound stage in a 50,000-square-foot (4,600 m2) warehouse in Plano, Texas. Additional scenes were filmed in Grapevine, Texas.[ citation needed ]
Duffield told Entertainment Tonight :
"Keeping up with the variety in the series is the biggest challenge. Because Wishbone is the central figure of each show and plays an integral role in the contemporary story and the literary story, he's in almost every scene. So he has a lot to do and designing scenes that can work with a dog, with period actors and period sets, as well as kids in a contemporary world is a big challenge." [3]
Despite acclaim from critics and educators, only 50 episodes were produced. The first 40 episodes were shown as a single-season run in 1995, while the remaining ten episodes became the second season in 1997–1998. Duffield told author Michael Brody that PBS halted production because the show did not have "merchandising potential". [5]
The series aired on PBS and premiered in the United States on October 8, 1995. The final episode aired on December 7, 1997. After the series ended, reruns continued to air until August 31, 2001. The series returned in reruns on PBS Kids Go! on June 2, 2007. Wishbone clips came to the PBS Kids Go! website. The return to PBS lasted a short time, although some PBS stations continued to air Wishbone until October 7, 2013. [6]
The show also aired on Nickelodeon in the UK and Ireland and on Nine Network in Australia.
Only a handful of the Wishbone episodes have been released to VHS and DVD. In 2004, HIT Entertainment released 4 DVDs of the show: "Hot Diggety Dawg," "The Impawsible Dream," "The Hunchdog of Notre-Dame," and "Paw Prints of Thieves." They would be reissued together in 2011 in a compilation DVD titled Wishbone: The Little Dog With a Big Imagination.
This show garnered particular praise for refusing to bowdlerize many of the sadder or more unpleasant aspects of the source works, which usually enjoyed a fairly faithful retelling in the fantasy sequences. [ citation needed ]
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The TV movie Wishbone's Dog Days of the West was aired on PBS stations on March 13, 1998 and released to video on June 9, 1998.
The TV series inspired several book series including Wishbone Classics, Wishbone Mysteries, and The Adventures of Wishbone . Altogether, more than fifty books have featured Wishbone, which continued to be published even after the TV series ended production.
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There were also multiple video games based on the series in 1996 and 1997, such as Wishbone Activity Center, Wishbone Print Tricks, and Wishbone and the Amazing Odyssey .
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On July 15, 2020, it was announced that Universal Pictures and Mattel's film division are developing a film adaptation of the series. Peter Farrelly will produce the film while Roy Parker will write the screenplay and Robbie Brenner will executive produce. It will be the first theatrical collaboration between Universal and Mattel and the ninth Mattel Films project in development. [9] [10]
In 2021, Wishbone was spoofed in the stop-motion parody TV series Robot Chicken episode (S11E11) "May Cause Episode Title to Cut Off Due to Word Lim", where Wishbone plays the role of Anastasia Steele from the erotic romance novel Fifty Shades of Grey .
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