By MARK KENNEDY AP Entertainment Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — Before he was a star on TV, Al Roker was a huge fan of watching it, especially animated shows.
“I spent a lot of Saturday mornings in front of the TV,” he says. “I was one of those kids who waited with bated breath because going back to school in the fall meant that the fall preview edition of the TV Guide was coming out that had all the listings of all the new cartoons.”
This fall, everyone’s favorite weatherman is getting a kick out of launching his own educational cartoon TV show — “Weather Hunters,” which premieres Monday on PBS Kids.
“This project really is like — not to use a negative term — but almost like a perfect storm, a nexus of everything I love: My family, weather and animation,” Roker says.
What’s the show about?
Roker voices a younger version of himself named Al Hunter, a TV meteorologist who has plenty of dad jokes and wears violet-framed glasses. He’s teamed up with his producer wife, Dot, and their three inquisitive kids.
The first episode is all about wind — what weather vanes do, how an anemometer measures wind speed and how it makes kites, flags and paper airplanes fly. “What exactly is wind, anyway?” asks the middle child. “Well, air is all around us, right?” dad responds. “So when air moves, it becomes wind.”
In the second episode, the family uncovers a solar energy powered van created by Grandpa Wallace that’s a mobile weather station. To make it work, they first need to solve where various puzzle pieces go.
“What’s important is we give kids the tools to investigate and to explore what’s happening in the world around them when it comes to weather,” says Roker. “We’re not telling kids what to believe. We’re telling them what to look for and then come to your conclusions.”
The show comes at a time when The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is trying to shore up the National Weather Service after deep job cuts, and it arrives just as there are new terms to describe weather phenomenon, like bomb cyclone, atmospheric river and polar vortex.
‘Connect with your senses’
Executive producer and showrunner Dete Meserve says the show encourages children to use their senses and science to better understand their world, like knowing that lower temperatures and higher humidity might mean a storm is coming.
“That ability to sort of connect with your senses helps you connect to weather. And then you realize, ‘Hey, it’s something I can do, I’m not dependent on other people to make these observations for me,'” she says. “And that’s, I think, the beginning of any kid being scientifically thinking.”
The series will launch with interactive games on the free PBS Kids Games app, including one in which viewers can become a weather reporter, create an avatar and choose the right outfit for delivering the news outdoors.
In addition to Roker, the voice talent for the series includes Sheryl Lee Ralph, LeVar Burton, and more. Yvette Nicole Brown performs the main title song — which has a nod to Roker’s Senegal roots — and Holly Robinson Peete plays Hunter’s wife.
Roker jokes that he asked his real-life wife, Deborah Roberts, if she wanted to voice his cartoon wife and she politely declined. “She said, ‘It’s OK. I have enough dealing with you in real life. I don’t need to deal with you as a cartoon.'”
A relatable show
Sara DeWitt, senior vice president and general manager for PBS Kids, says the channel is excited to be able to show children something that’s so relatable. After all, who doesn’t interact with weather?
“For young kids, one of the very first conversations you have is, ‘What’s the weather today? Are you going to be able to go outside at recess? Is your soccer game still going to happen? Do you need to wear a coat today?'” she says.
Upcoming episodes will investigate rainbows — how do they form and are the colors always in the same order? — and the phenomenon of pink snow. It will look at how nature can be beautiful, like dew forming on a spider’s web or fog, using 2D and 3D computer art.
“I really wanted to bring to kids the awe — both awe and the awww — of weather, of the things that go on around us, and to be able to use their imagination, use their deductive reasoning, use their curiosity,” says Roker.
While the series targets children aged 5 to 8, Roker hopes older siblings or caregivers can also watch and learn things they didn’t know. “I’m proud of much of what I’ve done in my career, but I could not be prouder of this show.”
He and his team have finished 40 episodes, but Roker still gets a kick out of seeing his likeness on screen. “Al Roker is 71 years old, but Al Hunter will be perpetually in his 40s and that’s the beauty of an animated cartoon. I am forever young as this character.”