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WORLD CULTURE. This image released by the Public Broadcasting Service shows a scene from the ani-
mated series “Let’s Go Luna!” The show, aimed at children between four and seven years old, recently debuted
on PBS and PBS Kids video-streaming platforms and visits countries such as Beijing, Delhi, Tokyo, Bangkok, and
Istanbul. (LATW Productions Inc./Public Broadcasting Service via AP)
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“Let’s Go Luna!” takes kids
on a globe-spanning tour
By Lynn Elber
AP Television Writer
OS ANGELES — Carmen, Leo,
and Andy are globetrotters to envy,
jumping from Paris to Nairobi to
New Orleans and beyond in the company
of a tour guide who knows her way around:
Luna the moon.
An animated series by the Public
Broadcasting Service (PBS), “Let’s Go
Luna!” is a road trip aimed at giving
viewers between four and seven years old a
glimpse of the world’s people and cultures
beyond their own familiar corner.
The series, which debuted in November
(check local listings for times), visits seven
continents and 19 cities. Antarctica is the
stop for a special Christmas episode airing
December 10.
PBS joined with Emmy Award-winning
artist and writer Joe Murray (“Rocko’s
Modern Life,” “Camp Lazlo”) to fill a social-
studies need for its young audience, and
the result is lively, fun, and — don’t tell the
kids — educational, since it’s public TV.
Carmen, a butterfly from Mexico,
Australian wombat Leo, and Andy, a frog
from the United States, are buddies
travelling with Circo Fabuloso, a
performance troupe run by their parents.
The group’s fourth wheel is Luna, whose
nightshift duties makes her available for
daytime adventures. As created by Murray
and voiced by Judy Greer, Luna is a joyful
— even madcap — companion.
In the first episode, her exuberant
dancing unleashed minor chaos in Mexico
City when she joined the children’s
emergency search for a substitute band to
entertain the president.
There are mariachis to meet, a tour of
the city, and a dash of hiccup-causing salsa
flavoring the story, a taste of what’s to
come as the series hopscotches around the
world with clever, engaging animation.
Skeptics contended that young viewers
would be at sea over the show’s concept,
said Linda Simensky, vice president of
children’s programming for PBS.
“We’ve been told a number of times that
kids wouldn’t really understand global
awareness,” with a perspective limited to
their town and perhaps where relatives
live, she said, adding, “We took that as a
challenge.”
While history, geography, anthropology,
and more are folded into the series, the
result is what Simensky calls a “very
simple” concept: People do a lot of the same
things all over the world, just in different
ways, or they do different things to get to
the same point.
“That sort of compare-and-contrast
approach works well for this age group,”
said Simensky, who knows her audience.
She’s been at PBS since 2003, developing
series including “Wild Kratts” and “Odd
Squad,” and previously worked at the
Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon.
L
Murray made the jump from network to
public TV for “Let’s Go Luna!” and found it
a welcome change. As the father of a
toddler and a five-year-old, he’s familiar
with the barrage of ads targeting young TV
viewers, and as a creator recalled one
network’s request that he work on a
fast-food spot (he said no).
“I started feeling more and more that
this wasn’t really the place for me at this
point of my career,” he said of network TV.
For “Luna,” produced by 9 Story Media
Group, Murray has resources, including
early childhood advisers, an anthropolo-
gist to vet cultural depictions, and com-
posers schooled in international music.
Each of the central characters was given
a specific interest to explore in their
travels. Carmen, whose mom conducts the
circus orchestra, is musical; Leo, a chef’s
son, is a foodie; Andy is an artist.
Episodes will be available across PBS
Kids streaming platforms, including the
PBS Kids video app. The series, in the
works for about three years, was inspired
by Murray’s own family travels.
“My wife is from Belgium and my kids
have spent a lot of time in Europe. We
could see the advantage of having kids be
more exposed culturally to other places,”
he said. “I thought America was especially
kind of sequestered.”
q
Dictionary.com chooses word
of the year: “misinformation”
By Leanne Italie
The Associated Press
N
EW YORK — Misinformation, as
opposed to disinformation, has
been chosen as Dictionary.com’s
word of the year on the tattered coattails of
“toxic,” picked earlier in November for the
same honor by Oxford Dictionaries in
these tumultuous times.
Jane Solomon, a linguist-in-residence at
Dictionary.com, said in a recent interview
that her site’s choice of “mis” over “dis” was
deliberate, intended to serve as a “call to
action” to be vigilant in the battle against
fake news, flat earthers, and anti-vaxxers,
among other conduits.
It’s the idea of intent, whether to inad-
vertently mislead or to do it on purpose,
that the Oakland, California-based
company wanted to highlight. The
company decided it would go high when
others have spent much of 2018 going low.
“The rampant spread of misinformation
is really providing new challenges for
navigating life in 2018,” Solomon told The
Associated Press ahead of the word of the
year announcement. “Misinformation has
been around for a long time, but over the
last decade or so the rise of social media
has really, really changed how information
is shared. We believe that understanding
the concept of misinformation is vital to
identifying misinformation as we encoun-
Continued on page 13
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