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Octonauts
2010 · TV series · 15 min episodes · 11 seasons
Created by Michael C. Murphy, Vicki Wong
Follows an underwater exploring crew made up of stylized anthropomorphic animals, a team of eight adventurers who live in an undersea base, the Octopod, from where they go on undersea adventures with the help of a fleet of aquatic vehicles.
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15 comments on Hacker News
I don't know about YT kids, but Ms Rachel on YouTube is a really good show for babies / toddlers. On Netflix there's Kit & Sam that's a really cool series, it's apparently from the same makers as octonauts which I don't think is as good, but my daughter actually prefers (probably more age appropriate). Gigantosaur is a really cool one on Netflix as well.
We mostly use YouTube for Ms Rachel and watching music video clips (from the Sing movies and Disney movies). I don't know how it is in the US but here in the NL Netflix has licensed a whole bunch of great kids shows and we don't really use any other apps because of that.
My just turned 4yo - similar I guess. Zero screen time until he was 2. Knew his abcs by 1.5, but reading on his own around 3 and a bit. Now He gets 1 episode of something in the morning. 1 ep in the evening and that's it. Maybe a movie on the weekends. He can entertain himself well. Love books. Today I took him to the doctor, we had to wait and he just chilled and looked at a book. I've never given him my phone to watch something.
I don't know if it's him or genetics or the strictenss around screentime, but he is a pretty easy kid to deal with these days.
TV isn't all bad. Octonauts is cool. He knows so many sea creatures from that show. Creature Cases is another good one.
The mantis shrimp episode of Octonauts is still one of my favorite all-time episodes of kids TV.
I'm pretty happy with how the accounts work: my children watch Octonauts in a Kids account (sometimes I watch with them), my wife and I have separate accounts, so she doesn't get recommendations for war movies and psychological thrillers, and I don't get recommendations for Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
Octonauts are delightful. First it was a book series. I can also recommend Octonauts longer movies. My daughter remembers a few interesting facts about marine life thanks to all this. I also find them quite funny and cute.
Barbie: Dreamhouse Adventures is surprisingly good. Not my favorite though. There is another Barbie series that is pure garbage for me so be ware.
Puffin Rock is very nice. I love to hear Irish accent there.
I can recommend a few from behind Iron curtain, which are without words and classics for me: Krtek, Reksio and Pomysłowy Dobromir (this one has engineering spirit). You can find them on YouTube.
Everything Octonauts - though I actually find the tv series better than the books.
Julia Donaldson books are great, such as The Gruffalo. Great art style and easy rhymes.
We’ve also had a lot of success with the various 5-minute collection books, such as 5-minute Winnie the Pooh stories. They love going from story to story.
This was my first thought as well, I know them because the Octonauts met them in an episode.
Taking this from my blog post (https://briankung.dev/2022/04/13/how-and-why-our-kids-are-learning-chinese/):
Here are some shows on YouTube that we self-host:
- 宝宝巴士 – Baby Bus: shows, lullabies, and nursery rhymes good for babies and up - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCttafJi4SCirZhlxsxISbyA
- 巧虎 – Qiaohu: lots of Asian-style life lessons. Qiaohu was teaching kids to wear masks 3 years before the Covid-19 pandemic - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnjadOj5qlKXsTAXPSwc67A
- 海底小纵队 – Octonauts: a show about saving animals in the ocean that our kids loved - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1HDrSeslwU&list=PLNR4cTkVmPtit4UcSUZkoMNPAZNfGSOa0
- 小猪佩奇 – Peppa Pig: not the parents’ favorite show because the characters can be kind of obnoxious, but the kids like it - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRi0sw4PDw-C2C7fS9hrx5Q
Additionally for older kids, our 8yo has enjoyed:
- 叶罗丽 – Yeluoli, a show about magical dolls and fighting evil
- 小花仙 – Xiaohuaxian, a story about a girl with a magic bracelet
- 绿野仙踪 – The Wizard of Oz: a favorite of my wife's from her childhood. It’s an anime remix of the Wizard of Oz that was originally in Japanese, but she watched it as a kid in China
- 还珠格格 – A period drama about a fake princess
- 白蛇 – An animated movie about a demon snake and the snake catcher who finds her – EDIT – I forgot this one’s not a kids’ show. There is definitely a sex scene. That said, it’s pretty subtle and it went over our kids’ heads.
Make your own.
There's PBS kids shows in spirit like Daniel Tiger, Tumble Leaf, Octonauts, Llama llama, Bluey, Puffin Rock, and many more.
I watch an episode first to make sure it is something educational and not too "entertaining". I'm personally in the camp that if something is too entertaining, you aren't learning much. i.e. Cocomelon, Sesame Street, etc.
I never really liked Octonauts. I was gutted when the kids were old enough that they didn't want to watch the latest Fireman Sam movie on the other hand - especially after I'd spent 2 years waiting for it :(
They grow up so fast.
The trick is to get five series. Then they can be repeated as infinitum, if not on the primary channels.
Octonauts is my favourite toy franchise, they have eight characters and many vehicles with other props. Kids do not mind having duplicates of the octonaut characters. This makes no sense to an adult but a three year old thinks differently.
The octonaut characters have large heads and small bodies. Therefore they do not stand up. The vehicles are for under water so there are no wheels. This again is no problem. Scale is also variable. As is quality, some toys come for free on the octonauts magazine.
The strength of the TV show is what matters. Sony bought the rights and there is a movie and two more series in the works. The franchise is global.
> Everyone here actively despises the local film industry. We do not need to inflict Dutch television on the world. Thats torture.
I don't understand. Do the Dutch hate their own programmes? Why would they bother making shows they don't want to watch?
> if your culture is so great France and Germany you wouldn't need these subsidies.
I'm not sure they need them, just that it helps promote it. These shows might not necessarily be record-smashing-popular, but local film/TV from other countries routinely makes it's way to the US with sizable audiences (despite the US drowning in it's own media). Even childrens shows often have broad appeal. (as just a few examples, see 'Degrassi' from Canada, 'PJ Masks' and 'Miraculous' from France, 'Sarah and Duck' from Britain, 'Octonauts' from Ireland).
Some of those are funded in part from "cultural quotas" (various implementations of similar ideas) such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_content . But it doesn't mean they aren't popular or good on their own.
This.
Kids shows are a great example - my kids don't (when pressed) care that they don't have season 4 of Octonauts, they do like seeing entirely new stuff.
For the price, I'm happy with what we get from Netflix. I much prefer it to Amazon Video where I'm not sure if I'm going to have to pay extra because my kids throw a fit (because it's visible but not on Prime/free).
I'd rather let my daughter watch SpongeBob or Octonauts or Ghibli movies rather than shows that tell her that every aspect of her self worth should be defined by how useful she is to the rich people in town.
And that's the underlying justification for a lot of the episodes: Thomas has an obligation to be grateful for his work and to do as he's told. Even when he doesn't like the job. Even if there are better things for him to do. Even if his friends are sad or in danger.
It's a pretty vile lesson.
It definitely skips the opening credits on the shows my kids watch (Octonauts, Cat in the Hat, etc.). For better or worse, both of these also have another song in the episode near the beginning (the same song, every episode).
This is on a Roku 3, not sure if it's a different experience for other devices.