Zachariah OHora discusses the unique challenges, and constant joy, of creating his PBS KIDS’ series about the everyday adventures of Carl, a warm-hearted autistic racoon who enjoys collecting things and loves his friends and family in Fuzzytown.
Author and illustrator Zachariah OHora can’t pinpoint when his adoration of racoons began, but the affection is such that it takes up, in his words, “half my Instagram timeline.”
“They’re just so cute and fuzzy,” says OHora, illustrator of the New York Times bestselling book Wolfie the Bunny, as well as the author and illustrator of a number of award-winning books including The-Parent-Trap-for-cats epic Niblet & Ralph featured on The Today Show. “And they’re really fun to draw. My Cousin Momo actually came out of my obsession with Japanese flying squirrels.”
Known for his picture books featuring bipedal animal characters from lemmings to elephants, OHora’s stories caught the eye of PBS KIDS’ Director of Content for Children’s Programming, Natalie Engle.
“Natalie reached out to me and was like, ‘We like your art style. Have you ever thought about doing a TV show?’” recalls OHora. “Little did I know that it would take the next 10 years of my life and become all-consuming in the best possible way. I had this raccoon character called ‘The Collector’ that, as raccoons do, collects stuff. It was a bit inspired by the fact that I’m a collector as well. I’ve got about 1,000 records. But I didn't really have a story for this character yet.”
The “inclusion model” at OHora’s children’s school, where each classroom has kids with all different needs and neurodiversity, eventually served as inspiration for what would become Carl the Collector, PBS’ newly released 2D animated series for children ages 4-8. The series follows the everyday adventures of Carl, a warm-hearted autistic racoon who enjoys collecting things and loves his friends and family in Fuzzytown. All episodes are available on the PBSKIDS website.
Carl pays extraordinarily close attention to detail and comes up with unique ideas that others might not consider. These traits have helped him amass his extensive collections — from autographs and bottle caps to fake mustaches, pet rocks, sweaters, and virtually everything in between — which can come in handy for solving problems around the neighborhood with his friends. The series breaks new ground as the first PBS KIDS show to feature central characters on the autism spectrum.
Produced by OHora’s Fuzzytown Productions and Spiffy Pictures, Carl the Collector is now available on PBS KIDS in English and Spanish.
“As an author, I do a lot of school visits and seeing this inclusion model where everyone gets what they need and, at the same time, has access to the same teachers and resources, was very different from how I grew up and it was a real light bulb moment for me,” explains OHora. “I was like, ‘This is the way it should be.’ This takes away the stigma of neurodiverse kids. I wanted to celebrate that as well.”
Enter the loveable raccoon, Carl. Check out one of the full episodes on YouTube:
“This was a unique opportunity for me because I myself have a son who’s autistic,” shares Lisa Whittick of Yowza! Animation, who serves as director on OHora’s series. “When I found out about this show, I was so excited to get on board and help guide it along the way.”
Yowza! produced Carl the Collector’s pilot just as Whittick was coming off directing the fourth and fifth seasons of PBS’ Nature Cat. Yowza!’s owner Heather Walker asked if she wanted to direct the series and Whittick jumped at the chance.
“The most important thing I wanted to help bring to the show, as a parent, was the social interaction between autistic kids versus neurotypical kids and how it can be a really positive, beautiful thing,” says Whittick. “When my son was growing up, there wasn’t the information out there about autism that there is today. And, for us as a family, it was a big mystery. We didn’t know what an autism diagnosis meant for a 12-year-old. And my son was old enough at that point to be scared, too. Being able to really demystify autism for people watching this show and teaching kids strategies on how they can help their friends rather than isolate them has been an important thing for me.”
One of the biggest challenges of the series was working on the character movements for Carl, whose movements needed to reflect the way his brain sorted through information or how he self-soothed in social situations.
“We knew we couldn't animate Carl or Lotta or any of the other neurodiverse characters the same typical way we would animate other cartoon characters,” explains Whittick. “We had to be very conscious about the fact that they were going to be stimming and what that was going to look like.”
“Stimming,” or self-stimulatory behavior, refers to the repetition of physical movements, sounds, words or even moving around of objects. This kind of behavior is primarily common for individuals with developmental disabilities such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism.
“Were Carl and his friends going to be pulling on their fingers or twirling their hair or pacing and things like that?” shared Whittick. “Eye contact is also very uncomfortable for some autistic people. We wanted to make sure that those characters don’t hold eye contact for too long. We had to sort through all the things that visually would show the audience Carl's autism without explicitly having to say it every time.”
She adds, “Because of this, pacing on this show was also different from typical cartoons and kids’ series. We couldn’t do quick cuts or fast-paced scenes. We wanted the interactions to feel very natural and calm and we did take a lot of inspiration from Charlie Brown cartoons.”
Even when it came to voice acting, the production team didn’t cut or edit large portions of the child actors’ lines once they were recorded; the show included all the natural pauses and missteps real children would make in a conversation.
“We wanted to leave all that in because it’s very endearing,” says Whittick. “And it makes it just that much more real.”
While this is PBS KIDS’ first time featuring a show about autism in their programming, it’s not the first time one of OHora’s books has been used as a reference on the subject. His book, “My Cousin Momo,” has been used by school librarians to teach students about neurodiversity.
“I wasn’t consciously aware that the story could be used that way when I was writing it,” notes OHora. “But when I learned the story was being used that way, I saw how it worked and thought it was amazing and cool. I brought a lot of that to Carl, but in a conscious and intentional way.”
OHora wanted audiences to understand the nature of autism so much in Carl the Collector that there are scenes in the show where Carl is literally taking a walk inside his own brain. He notes creating that internal world was another major challenge; it was also incredibly rewarding, and he hopes it has incredible impact on those watching the show.
“We came up with this place called ‘Synapse Junction,’” says OHora. “It's this imaginary space inside Carl's head that’s actually based on your brain’s synapse.”
The “Synapse” is the primary means of information transfer in the nervous system and the brain. This structure allows a neuron (or nerve cell) to pass an electrical or chemical signal to another neuron which then in turn causes your body and brain to react. Synapses can be classified as either a chemical or electrical experience.
“Carl is collecting his thoughts in there as they appear in the synapses and then he talks to the thought,” explains OHora. “Then, it shrinks down, and Carl puts it in his little collection jar and processes whatever that situation is. There was a lot of back and forth on those scenes and conversations between me and Lisa as we were trying to figure out how this would work and be seen in a way that people could understand. But it really adds a lot to the show, and it offers a lot of understanding to how Carl and others with autism think.”
Out of all the things a racoon could collect, their thoughts and feelings are certainly the most heartwarming.
OHora continues, “As more people see the show and we get more feedback, the more we hear how people are emotionally moved and touched by Carl. Many share their own personal stories. It’s pretty heavy. But if it’s going to help people and also make them smile, then that, to me, is everything.”
Victoria Davis is a full-time, freelance journalist and part-time Otaku with an affinity for all things anime. She's reported on numerous stories from activist news to entertainment. Find more about her work at victoriadavisdepiction.com.
