What is it
Storybots is a series of 100+ educational music videos featuring animated and/or puppet robots. They cover subjects such as the planets, dinosaurs, the alphabet, and more. The production quality is very high and the videos are very entertaining.
Who is it for
Kids of all ages can get something from the StoryBots videos. They are highly entertaining, so even if a child doesn’t understand the subject matter being covered, they can still enjoy the music and the silly antics of the characters: Beep (green), Bo (purple), Bang (blue), Bing (yellow), Boop (red), and Hap, their manager (olive)
What Kids Like
The music is great, with very catchy melodies and the characters are silly and entertaining.
The premise of the show is that the robots live inside our digital devices and are constantly trying to learn about the human world by asking questions such as “Why is the sky blue?” – questions that children also wonder about.
What Parents Like
The education is snuck in painlessly and kids can’t help but learn. The language is totally G-rated with no violence so it’s easy to leave the screen on without having to worry about what the kids are watching.
I like the music and, as a fan of animation, love the fact that the characters are sometimes presented in 3d animation, 2d animation, hand-drawn style, puppets, or claymation. I can’t think of any other project that presented its characters in such a variety of mediums.
What the Critics Think
StoryBots has won a Winner of Teachers’ Choice Awards, a Tech Edvocate Award, an Emmy, and has been nominated for an Annie and a Peabody award. So in a nutshell, it is highly regarded by critics.
Concerns/Flaws
It’s just great. I can’t think of any criticisms.
Who Made it
StoryBots is produced by JibJab, who you may remember as the creators of animated political satire during the 2004 presidential election.
and who went on to create shorts for Noggin and Disney before building their personalized ecard service
JibJab has been able to attract top talent and many famous singers and actors are part of the videos.
History
StoryBots was first distributed as shorts on YouTube in 2012 and “Ask the StoryBots” was picked up as a full-length show by Netflix in 2016.
Where Can I Get it
StoryBots has literally hundreds of videos on their
YouTube channel and “Ask the StoryBots” is available for streaming on Netflix. They have a Spotify channel and multiple music albums as well.
More at storybots.com and Wikipedia