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Wild Kratts

@WildKratts

· YouTube

Wild Kratts is wild animal facts wrapped in a drawn rescue adventure.

Two brothers front Wild Kratts in filmed segments, and the rest of the show is mostly drawn. Each episode picks a creature and builds a rescue or a chase around what that animal can actually do, and the cast changes a lot from one episode to the next. Music runs under nearly all of the show, and the tone stays bright even when the story gets tense.

Analyzed by KidSight

WHAT IT MEANS AT EACH AGE

0–2

Too young

Speed rules Wild Kratts out at age two before anything else does. The talking never stops, and the story turns on a problem a two-year-old cannot hold. A two-year-old gets color, movement and animals, which is something, but is not the show.

3–5

A little young

A four-year-old can follow Wild Kratts, mostly. The animals carry the show at age four and the bright tone helps. The pace never lets up, and the tense stretches land harder at age four than they will later.

6–8

Good fit

Age seven is where Wild Kratts fits. The speed stops being a problem and starts being the point: a seven-year-old holds a creature, a problem and a rescue at once, and picks up the facts on the way through. The tense stretches read as exciting to a seven-year-old rather than scary.

9–10

A little old

Wild Kratts thins at age nine without falling away. The animal facts hold up, and the animal facts are the reason to keep Wild Kratts on. The rescue wears out, because the rescue arrives the same way every time, so a nine-year-old stays for the creature and skips the chase.

WHAT IT’S ABOUT

Wild animals

The ocean

Bugs and insects

WHAT IT TEACHES

Nature and animals

Cause and effect

How things work

WHAT TO KNOW

Quick and nonstop

SUMMARY

Wild Kratts is a chase with a real animal in the middle of the chase. At age seven the speed and the tension are the fun, and at age four the same speed is what shuts a four-year-old out.