When we're not watching puffins, or counting numberblocks, another go to, Netflix available, show we watch is Octonauts. This show is well written and super educational. A rag tag group of oceanic anthropomorphic animal explorers (the eponymous Octonauts) explore the deep seas of the world while cataloguing their episodic encounters with different marine life. Each story ends with a Creature Report, which not only lets me know the episode has ended whilst I am completing tasks around the house, but more importantly summarizes some notable characteristics about the episode's featured animal, in delightful song and rhyme.
There are four seasons including 65 two part episodes of Octonauts available to watch, that's 1,495 minutes of marine biodiversity packaged in cute and consumable portions. Just this year, two new Octonaut features were released as well, Octonauts and the Caves of Sac Actun at 1 hour 12 minutes (which is honestly a little too long to keep tiny attention spans) and Octonauts and the Great Barrier Reef, an easier to consume 46 minutes, featuring delightful new songs and characters.
The team, led by Captain Barnacles, a polar bear, includes Kwazii, a pirate kitten, Peso, a medic penguin, Dashi, a techie dog who also serves as the team's photographer, Dr. Shellington, an otter marine biologist, Tweak, an engineer wunderkind rabbit and Professor Inkling, an octopus that seems to be have no trouble getting around out of water.
And then there are the Vegimals. Half vegetable, half fish, all cute. They, like Professor Inkling, seem to have no trouble transitioning from water to air and gravity doesn't stop them from hoping around on their tail fins like they're fishy feet. There are quite a few episodes where the Vegimals either have their own side story full of slapstick antics, or on occasion, they even save the day when the animal team get into trouble. Tunip, the turnip tuna, is the lead Vegimal and often included in the Octonaut team. Some of the other vegimals include Grouber the ginger grouper, Codish the radish coy, Barrot the carrot bass, and Tominnow, the tomato minnow, among others. The Vegimals even get an origin story reveal in one of the holiday specials.
In addition to the vast animated content, there are also some wonderful Octonauts books. Unlike Puffin Rock, the Octonauts books came first and actually feature stories that are not shown in the television series. The first book we came across was The Octonauts and the Frown Fish, which is absolutely delightful.
I'm glad we (the adults in our house) enjoy the Octonauts, because I do believe they will be living in our home for at least several years to come.
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