Retro Review: Wonder Pets

For this installment of Retro Review, I was forced to do some deep digging in order to find the classic kids show Wonder Pets! The terrific adventures of a guinea pig, turtle, and duckling are still just as entertaining today. 

Wonder Pets! is an animated children’s show that aired for a decade on Nick Jr from 2006 to 2016. There are three seasons with a total of 62 episodes, each one about 22 minutes long. 

In case you might be unfamiliar with the premise of the children’s classic, each episode follows a similar structure. A classroom of children leave for the day, saying goodbye to their class pets. Immediately after, a phone rings, each animal transforms into their alter ego and leaves in their “flyboat” to help save an animal in trouble somewhere.

Upon re-watching the series, the animation style impressed me. Often kids television shows use a simple animation style, like in The Magic School Bus, but Wonder Pets! uses an animation style called photo-puppetry, where the animators manipulate pictures of real animals. This differentiates the series from most other 2000’s children shows. 

I found the characters to be enjoyable; Linny the Guinea Pig provided order, Turtle Tuck played the role of the cowardly lion, and Ming-Ming the duckling provided the comedic relief. However, upon watching multiple episodes, the repetitive nature of the episodes’ plot bored me after only a few episodes. While they did mix it up in some episodes, overall, I would have appreciated more variation. 

However, this repetitive plot also led to many repeated phrases and scenes which I appreciated, like how Ming-ming always shouts “This is se-wious!” Overall, I highly recommend re-watching Wonder Pets!, both for its unique animation style and charming characters.