1996: 'Kratts' Creatures' Premieres on PBS
On this day in 1996, PBS premiered
Kratts' Creatures, a weekday kids' series hosted by brothers Chris and Martin. The duo traveled the globe to observe and interact with a variety of animals, birds, reptiles, insects and other creatures. The brothers engaged their young audience with a mix of comedy, animation and documentary footage, with the goal of providing information from the animals' point of view.
The show co-starred Shannon Duff as computer whiz Allison, and an animated, dinosaur-like creature named Ttark (voiced by Ron Rubin).
The wildly popular series inspired the kids' series, Zoboomafoo, in 1999, and later, the 2011 live action/animated series, Wild Kratts!
In the premiere episode, "Big Five, Little Five," Chris and Martin travel to South Africa to see the "big five" animals — the elephant, the rhino, the buffalo, the lion and the leopard — and end up looking for "little" creatures, the elephant shrew, rhino beetle, buffalo weaver, ant lion and leopard tortoise: