WordWorld

Premise

In the series, when letters are combined to spell words, they morph into the shape of the corresponding object. The animal characters and many objects are made of letters, and are respectively called WordFriends and WordThings. The main setting is a planet that has two landmasses in the shape of Ws for WordWorld; despite its name, WordFriends and WordThings also exist in outer space. In each episode, the characters have a cartoonish adventure, and ultimately must "build a word" using synthetic phonics to solve a problem. Some episodes focus on concepts such as rhymes, compound words, and plural formation with -s.

WordWorld is designed to teach children how to spell. In non-English speaking countries, it is designed to teach children English as a second language.

Cast

• H.D. Quinn as the Narrator, Dog, Fly, Duck, Ant, and Cow
• Lenore Zann as Bear (Season 1) and Kangaroo
• George Bailey as Pig, Bug and Monkey
• Daryl Ekroth as Frog
• Mirm Kriegel as Bear (Seasons 2–3) and Caterpillar
• Heidi Blickenstaff as Sheep and Bee (both Season 1)
• Veronica Taylor as Sheep (Seasons 2–3) and Bird
• Duffy Ozar as Bee (Seasons 2–3)
• Kate Brewer as Cat and Spider
• Esther Lucille as Elephant
• Marc Thompson as Shark, Robot, Fox and Monster
• Zoe Martin as Fish and Whale
• Billy Rippy as Turtle
• Willie Martinez as Crab
• Michele O. Laikowski and Becky Poole as Pig's Nephews
• Sean Schemmel as Goat

Episodes

WordWorld consists of 45 episodes, 26 in the first season, 14 in the second, and 5 in the third. 6 of the second season's segments are merely repeats from the first season, with 22 original segments produced for the second season. There are 84 original segments total.

Series overview

Season 1 (2007–08)

It's Dog's birthday and all of his friends are planning a surprise party. However, when the cake flips around and breaks the letters, everyone panics. Frog must get to the party safely without Dog finding out.

During his "cooking show", Chef Pig gets a pot stuck on his face while eating ice cream out of it. Now there is no pot to cook in and no chef to do the cooking. Luckily for Pig, an ever-helpful Sheep is there to take over for him. But first, Sheep must learn to have confidence in herself before she can save the day.

Sheep, Bear and Frog go out bird-watching and get more than they bargained for when they find an egg. Sheep does her zany best to care for the energetic egg until the baby bird is born and is reunited with his mother.

Because they have similar-sounding names, Duck mistakes a truck for a long-lost relative. His best friend Frog is a bit ruffled at the epidemic of silliness going around, but ends up saving the day for Duck and his word "family" when the truck gets stuck in the muck.

Dog wants to play ball, but he is having trouble communicating with his friends. Pig, Sheep and Frog each think Dog wants to do what they want to do. When Bear actually takes the time to listen to Dog, Dog gets his wish and everyone has a ball.

Frog and Pig's friendship is put to the test when Frog moves in with Pig after his log falls apart and sinks. After some silly mishaps, Pig and Frog finally come to an understanding – about how important it is to see things from a friend's perspective.

The weather is turning colder, and Duck is ready for his yearly vacation. Duck is not sure, however, how to go. When Bird tells him that he just needs to "find the 'V'," Duck doesn't realize that Bird means a "V" formation of migrating birds. Instead, Duck is off and running on a wild "V" chase.

However, Bear won't go to sleep, as her friends might lull her off to sleep. Bear stubbornly refuses to turn off all her lights and go to bed. It's not until they venture out into the night that the WordFriends realize Bear is afraid of the dark. Frog solves the right solution to Bear's problem, and it comes by joining two words to make a new one.

Sheep practicing her magic act, she loses her magicians top hat. The hat wends all around WordWorld, when visiting Pig, and Duck, breaking into its letters each time it crashes to a halt. And whenever our heroes put it back together, the hat takes on a fresh, new form. For Pig it becomes a chef's hat—for Duck, a silly propeller beanie. Clearly, this hat is special and could be magical.

When Pig is too sick to cook the Moonlight Feast, his friends step in, but they find that if you don't follow the recipe you may end up in the soup.

When Pig and Ant quarrel, Sheep and Dog must get them to be friends again.

Bear and Sheep pretend to be princesses, but they only just have one crown. Although, Sheep promises to take turns wearing the crown and being a princess, Sheep gets royally carried away with playing her role. After Sheep hurts Bear's feelings, she learns to process a true princess who is not selfish, but kind and generous instead.

When Frog discovers that you can make a word "more than one" by adding the letter S to the end of it. Frog becomes a mad scientist of sorts, making more of everything. Frog learns that while having a lot of stuff might seem like a good idea, too much of anything soon leads to chaos. Frog fortunately has a robot who likes to clean up.

Duck offers to help Kangaroo deliver letters to his WordFriends, but Duck forgets Kangaroo's instructions and delivers the wrong letters to everyone. Duck discovers that there sure are a lot of words that end with the sound "ail"―such as nail, pail and sail―and that they sure can't be used interchangeably.

When a mysterious rocket lands in Word World, Duck pledges to help a robot track down a very important clock. Pig searches all over Word World, listening for the special sound that will lead the robot to the clock that will save his home planet.

Duck thinks Frog doesn't want to play in the rain because Duck accidentally broke Frog's boat. When Frog doesn't like the rain, Duck learns all about words that end with "oat" before finally coming across a word that will allow Frog to play outside in the rain: a coat.

While playing on the beach, Sheep, Duck and Shark find a message in a bottle with several rhyming clues that will lead them to a special treasure. The trio follows the clues and rhymes their way across the sea: if only they had a ship.

Sheep rescues a tiny whale stuck in a seaweed and brings her home to her haystack. However, Whale grows up maybe big-sized and outgrowing Sheep's tea cups, bathtubs and pools. She realizes they must return to their safety to the sea. Sheep proves his whale friend to be bigger, and the two discover a way to continue to play together.

Duck gets a case of stage fright while singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and causes trouble for all his WordFriends before Sheep and Ant solve the solution, and soon a "star" is born.

It is Frog's birthday, and Duck makes him a big, beautiful birthday cake frosted in the colors of the rainbow. It requires many cans of frosting and Duck learns Pig can't just throw cans anywhere. They must be recycling and recycle to use the letters in a discarded word to make other words, including candle which Duck needs for Frog's cake.

Pig, Dog and Duck are playing cowboys. Bear feels frustrated being bad lessons at rope tricks. Dog went to let her sulk, after much practice Bear is a rootin'-tootin', but Pig and Duck have herded Cow into the mud.

After adventuring through the jungle, Sheep and Bear discover they are lost before sunset ends, but they lose the letters to their map. They have to sound out and hunt down the letters in "map"―but with Adventure Sheep leading the way to get home.

Duck encourages Shark, a great underwater dancer who practices to dance. Therefore, Shark flops all over the stage like a fish out of water. Duck must find a way to put on his show and include Shark.

While Pig and Ant are making cookies, their bag of letter Cs gets away from them, sending his WordFriends on a wild goose chase all over WordWorld to catch a letter C, it causes is in big demand that day. The good news is that Pig and Ant have to help them out.

On Halloween, Sheep makes herself a special costume, while her WordFriends need pieces of her costume for their own costumes.

During Christmas morning, all the WordFriends are excited by the presents Santa has brought for them: Pig has a sled, Bear has a doll, Ant has a cookie, but least Dog doesn't have a ball. Bear gets filled with the Christmas spirit and makes a sacrifice to ensure Dog be merry.

Season 2 (2009)

Bug wants to sign a valentine for his favorite Word Friend, but Bug doesn't know how to write his name. With much encouragement from Frog, Bug learns that with a little practice. Frog can write his name and give his valentine.

On a rainy, windy day in WordWorld, Duck helps his new friend, Caterpillar, build a home to keep her safe from the weather. But not just any word will keep an itty bitty caterpillar from getting wet or blown away.

Bear and Sheep both learn to build the word "bike", and Sheep learns how to ride one for the first time in her life. In both cases, it just takes some perseverance.

Pig is allergic to peaches. When she brings Pig a big bag of peaches to make pies, Pig starts sneezing so much that Pig can't even tell Sheep what Pig really needs is apples. Sheep tries to guess what Pig needs, imagining a silly array of a-sounding words.

When Ant comes over to Pig's barn to eat cookies, Pig tries to get him to drink some milk. Therefore, Ant doesn't like milk, so Ant thinks to solve the problem.

When the bugs keep interrupting Duck's piano lesson, he learns that some things are worth waiting for. He also learns that when a word has many sounds in it, it can be built sound by sound.

When Shark loses his first baby tooth at a sleepover party with Duck, he's got to get to sleep fast so the tooth fairy can come and leave him a present. But there's just one problem: he can't fall asleep. With the help of his good friend Duck and the letter P, Shark finally finds just the word to help him fall asleep.

When two letter O's in Monkey's roof blow away due to the wind, Duck to hunt down the /oo/ sound and fix the roof before it rains. With Kangaroo's help, Duck saves the day and learns you can never have too many "oo"s.

Repeat of an episode aired during the first season.

Repeat of an episode aired during the first season.

Repeat of an episode aired during the first season.

Repeat of an episode aired during the first season.

Repeat of an episode aired during the first season.

Repeat of an episode aired during the first season.

Season 3 (2010–11)

Pig asks Bear and Sheep to make jugs for the jelly pumping from his jelly machine. However, when they move quickly the jugs begin filling up with the purple, oozy treat. The friends are able to find a way to contain all of the jiggling jelly.

When Frog sails away on a big kite that Frog built, it's up to Duck and Shark to save him. Luckily, Kangaroo comes to help her knowledge about the letter K to rescue Frog and get home safely.

Duck and Fly become firefighters and teach Frog to build a firetruck. To have a setup of Frog's telescope, they will earn badges to see fires and smokes. Meanwhile, Ant, Dog, and Pig were roasting marshmallows around the campsite in the forest, until Duck and Fly sprayed water and caught fire, then they earned badges to rebuild a whole fire at night.

Duck must search high and low for his letter X and go missing, he accompanies Shark, causing him into stomachache issues. Duck hears the letter X everywhere he goes, but both mysteries are solved when Frog builds an X-ray to look inside Shark's stomach.

Duck and Dog become curious about compound words when they discover the word "sandbox" is made of two words wreck breaks loose, as they can pull apart in WordWorld.

Reception

Critical

Emily Ashby of Common Sense Media gave the series 5 out of 5 stars; saying that, "This show is perfectly suited for preschoolers' learning level, and it will entertain them as it reinforces their knowledge of letters, sounds, and simple words. With its imaginative design and with the various font styles used to create the letter-based objects, the WordWorld package is delightful enough to draw in parents almost as readily as kids."

Awards

2009 Emmy Award Winner Outstanding Children's Animated Program Outstanding Writing in Animation

2008 Emmy Award Winner Outstanding Achievement in Main Title

Three 2007 Parents' Choice Awards: Gold Welcome to WordWorld DVD Rocket to the Moon/The Birds DVD WordWorld Television Series

Creative Child Magazine – Creative Toys Awards 2008 Preferred Choice Award: Barn Bucket Set 2008 Seal of Excellence Award: Pull-Apart Plush

2004 Preferred Choice Award: Pull Apart Plush

2008 Toy Wishes Magazine All-Star Award WordPuzzle with Sound: Duck's Beach Party

Interactive Media Awards 2007 Best in Class: PBS Kids WordWorld Website

Notes

References

References

1. (February 11, 2011). "Word World files for bankruptcy".
2. Ashby, Emily. (3 September 2007). "WordWorld Review". [[Common Sense Media]].
3. "awards". wordworld.com.