Between the Lions


Between the Lions is an American animated/live-action/puppet educational children's television series designed to promote reading. The show is a co-production between WGBH in Boston, Sirius Thinking, Ltd., in New York City, and Mississippi Public Broadcasting in Jackson, the distributor from seasons 1–10. The show won nine Daytime Emmy awards between 2001 and 2007. Although it is created by alumni of the fellow PBS children's show Sesame Street and featured guest appearances from some of its characters, Between the Lions was not created by Sesame Workshop, nor was it produced with their involvement in any way. The show premiered on PBS Kids on April 3, 2000, taking over the schedule slot held by The Puzzle Place upon its debut, and ended on November 22, 2010. This TV show is a companion piece to Sesame Street aimed at slightly older children.

Premise

The series focuses on a family of anthropomorphic lions working and living in a large, busy library called "The Barnaby B. Busterfield III Memorial Public Library", starring alongside characters such as Click, an electronic, anthropomorphic computer mouse; the Information Hen, who answers library calls; and Heath, a dinosaur who serves as the library's thesaurus. The program's format is intended to promote literacy and reading; in each episode, the lions introduce a picture book to the audience and read it. Some episodes have featured adaptations of well-known folktales, ancient myths, or fables. In contrast, others have featured popular storybooks such as Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type, or shown the lions learning or benefiting from the lessons presented by the story.
The series often features an array of educational segments formatted each in its distinctive style, particularly parodies of notable media redesigned educationally for younger audiences or simple animations, some sketches more repetitive than others. A unique feature of the series is that it is virtually never set outside of the library, as it usually chronicles the lions' experiences within it. A sub-plot features a pair of pigeons named Walter and Clay, comically infuriating a living bust of the library's deceased founder, Barnaby B. Busterfield III, located in the dome of the library, which is normally intended for comic relief.
After the fourth season, the series underwent a noticeable format change. Notably, the show consisted of two 10-minute shorts, each a condensation of an earlier episode, tied together and united around a theme. The library set was greatly reduced, with just one small section as the primary location. The series also began to focus on consonants instead of vowels. Past segments such as "Magic Time," "Sam Spud", and "The Monkey Pop-Up Theater" were replaced with new animated ones such as "Joy Learno" and "The Trampolini Brothers". Later episodes shifted away from the earlier focus on reading, and stories were just told to tie into the theme of the episode. Major characters such as Busterfield, Walter and Clay, Heath, and Martha Reader vanished from the show as well, despite still appearing in the intro.

Episodes

Characters

Main

  • Theo Lion is the co-owner/librarian of the library, Lionel and Leona's father, and Cleo's husband with a scruffy attitude, loud gravelly voice, and a large appetite. He loves to eat meat and devours it all in one second. He loves to joke but also has a powerful roar and is proclaimed "the King of the Library". Theo has an unending love for storytelling and is always proud to show library patrons the best books available. He also has a blues-singing and guitar-playing alter ego, B.B. the King of Beasts.
  • Cleo Lion is the library's other co-owner/librarian, the mother of the cubs, Theo's wife, and the family hunter. She loves to read to her cubs and use the stories to teach them important life lessons. She has the alter-ego of a country lion singer, Tammy Lionette. Cleo's hunting instincts also make her a good investigative reporter, and she can track down any book in the building, regardless of genre. She also has a powerful roar.
  • Lionel Lion is Theo and Cleo's 7-year-old first-grader son. He loves to read "Cliff Hanger" books and always looks forward to the next one, much to Leona's annoyance. Lionel can get flustered when his family embarrasses him when they are devouring their food or if he is reading a toddler's book to Leona, but he loves them just the same. Since Lionel is always so self-confident, he is often convinced he doesn't need any advice or help with his problems, but he always ends up needing it after all.
  • Leona Lion is Theo and Cleo's 4-year-old daughter. Leona is curious about everything and is preparing to read as well as her brother, Lionel. Unlike Lionel, she is more in touch with her feral instincts and always practices her pouncing and hunting on her brother or her father. While Lionel loves Cliff Hanger books, Leona hates them because of how predictable and repetitive they are.
  • Click the Mouse is a female computer mouse shaped like the rodent of the same name. Click is technically skilled in that she can drag and drop objects and characters into and out of books and websites. When a character needs her, they only need to call out her name since she doesn't mind helping others and will do what they tell her to do. Her only hindrances are being a computer mouse, she must always stay connected to a computer, and she is vulnerable to computer viruses, as shown in one episode. Click vanished for a while after the fourth season, but returned after the last few seasons.
  • Barnaby B. Busterfield III is a grouchy rock bust statue who is the founder of the library, which is named after him, and lives on the dome of the library. He is often left annoyed by the antics of Walter and Clay Pigeon. Being a bust, he cannot go anywhere, so the pigeons and the viewers are the only ones to whom he can address his complaints. He is annoyed when anyone calls him "Buster" and when the announcer pesters him. He has the ability to open the top of his head. Busterfield is absent after Season 4.
  • Walter and Clay Pigeon are the two pigeons that live in the library's dome with Busterfield. They conversely talk to and annoy him. Walter is the male pigeon, and Clay is the female pigeon. Walter and Clay Pigeon are true urban birds, but let's just say that they're not the brightest lights in the sky—they manage to say complete sentences only with each other's help and someone else's help.. Walter and Clay are absent after Season 4.

    Recurring

  • Heath the Thesaurus is the library's thesaurus, who is a giant dinosaur as a pun on the word "thesaurus" or "the saurus". He lives in the basement and often shows up unexpectedly when a character asks about a homophonic word or when a situation calls for one. He was voiced by Tyler Bunch in Season 1 and Peter Linz from Season 2 onwards. Heath does not appear after the fourth season.
  • The Information Hen is the library's information specialist. Each time she appears, she gives information about the library and reads to several callers, usually by telling a joke or singing a song. She appears in animated segments in Season 5.
  • Dr. Alexander Graham Nitwhite is a pelican scientist. In the skits, he announces to Watson that he's discovered "the only word in the entire English language" with a certain letter combination. However, his "discoveries" always turn out to be incorrect, as Watson inadvertently points out; as such, his nickname is rather apt. His name is a pun on Alexander Graham Bell, the British-born inventor of the telephone.
  • Gus the Rabbit is Lionel's best friend, who is on his class hopping team. He has a reading disability and is still learning. He was afraid to tell Lionel about his problem, but Lionel encouraged him to keep trying and ask for help when he needed it.
  • Grandpa Lion is Cleo's father, Lionel and Leona's maternal grandfather, and also the father-in-law of Theo. He visits the library in the episode Out in Outer Space and tells of his friend Ellen Ochoa, the first American Latina in Outer Space. Lionel and Leona even made a biography of Grandpa Lion. He was performed by Martin P. Robinson.
  • Aunt Priscilla and Uncle Otto Lion are Lionel and Leona's aunt and uncle, who were told by Cleo that they had 3 newborn cubs in But Mama But, which Cleo visited in the episode. Aunt Priscilla and Uncle Otto would be Cleo's younger sister and Cleo's brother-in-law, the maternal aunt and uncle of Lionel and Leona, and the sister-in-law and brother-in-law of Theo Lion.
  • Announcer Bunny is a rabbit in a top hat who acts as the show's announcer. He has a microphone right next to his hat. He appears before the show's opening in the first four seasons, saying something like "Announcer Bunny here! Don't touch that remote, here comes Between the Lions!", at which point a preview of a clip shown in the episode plays and then it goes back to him, saying "If you think that was fun, watch this!" and in the episodes with two segments from Seasons 5-10, he appears to introduce the next episode. He also appears to introduce Arty Smartypants in his segments "Magic Time with the Great Smartini", "Four Words Without Any Assistance Whatsoever" and "Not as Smart as a Puck" and also introduces other segments such as the segments with Bertice Berry, Fred Says and Monkey Cheerleaders. On one occasion, he introduced the Heath the Thesaurus song, "Ten Little Words". In some episodes, after a segment with Clay and Walter Pigeon, he would appear to say, "Ha, ha, ha! Pigeons, don't you just love 'em?" In later seasons, he announced the funding for the show. The only time he ever appeared with the lions or in the Library was in "The Goat in the Coat", where he appeared to translate for Sierra the Spanish-speaking mountain lion.