The Backyardigans

Blue's Clues is like one of my favorites.

Backyardigans, Wonder Pets.

What else did they watch? Bananas and Pajamas.

I know Bananas in Pajamas, but they did not watch them.

It's, uh, that's where people found the, uh, Me and My Friends pilot that they were desperately looking for for years.

Me and My Friends pilot is actually the pilot of what later became The Backyardigans.

And that was a huge, huge deep dive that people were doing.

The pilot was actually found two to three years ago.

Okay.

All the Backyardigans.

Damn near.

I know not all of them, but damn near all the Backyardigans were Black.

They were all different kinds of colors, all different kinds of animals.

And we knew Yaniqua was black.

So in 2004, this show comes out, right? And the main characters are Pablo, Tyrone, Uniqua, Austin, and Tasha.

And they are known as the Backyardigans, right?

Oh, my God.

Fucking child.

I'm not allowed to change the channel.

I'm the oldest.

So when the Backyardigans came on, I would always look forward to it.

I would always pay attention when their music came out because they would often release the bangers.

We're here with Amazing Joan, who's an Emmy award-winning TV writer and playwright and one of the original co-creators of the Broadway musical Rent.

I also wrote for Beavis and Butthead, Postcards from Buster, Codename Kids Next Door, Wonder Pets, The Upside Down Show, and also The Backyardigans, Curse the Cowardly Dog.

So if you're into watching some cartoons back in the day, you'll recognize the guy.

He has various plays, including Best American Short Plays and also... light years as well to um the art room and uh first day of school and also co-wrote with uh jennifer oxford talk more about that has a new book and a memoir detailing his bizarre harrowing and joyful struggle to make in theory book is called out of my head live ladies and gentlemen plus dudes and beautiful downtown brooklyn the amazing emmy award-winning tv writer and playwright one of the co-creators of um rent and also sharing some beavis and butthead stories multi-talented billy aronson billy good morning good afternoon good evening mike mike good everything thank you for that lovely introduction i'm thrilled to be here what what's great to have you on board too i'm sure beavis and butthead would approve

any of these people are.

Apparently, half the cast of The Backyardigans was born on this

month.

Yeah, Jamiya and Nali were in The Backyardigans.

Mickey Groh was in Lost.

I know it's pronounced growl.

And then I...

I kept tabs on kids' television, but then when I had my own kids, that's when I dove into Barney and Dora the Explorer, the Backyardigans, Blue's Clues, Doodle Bops, all that kind of stuff.

So there's something about...

Well, it depends.

Thank you.

The freaking Backyardigans are in there, man.

Yeah.

It's dope.

Brian, what's up?

What was it, the Backyardigans that had a song called In the Thick of It or something like that? We're in the thick of it or...

I feel like we're in the thick of it.

It- We're, we're getting started, and the, uh, football is in our backyards.

Man.

That's when you...

Th- When you throw a reference out there like Backyardigans, that goes to show that you have kids, but your kids are getting older.

[laughs]