Wonderful Pets!

I love "Wonder Pets"!

Have you seen this show? Probably not, as you are not in preschool and are also not me. It's a series of operettas about classroom pets who save animals in trouble through teamwork.

I actually saw a commercial for the show a little while back and I didn't quite understand what it was. All I knew was that I laughed out loud in joy at the absurdity of the clip that they showed. So fans of absurdist theater — especially absurdist musical theater — this is a show for you.

And before you start to scoff, check this out, from the NYTimes:

The "Wonder Pets" music does not feature the tinny, saccharine melodies that often infect children's television shows. Rather, each episode uses an original score recorded by a live orchestra overseen by Jeffrey Lesser, the Grammy-winning record producer who is the show's music supervisor and who has worked with Barbra Streisand, Sinead O'Connor and Lyle Lovett. Larry Hochman, a veteran composer who received Tony nominations for his orchestrations for "Spamalot" and the revival of "Fiddler on the Roof," serves as the lead composer, and a host of other theater and film composers and arrangers have worked on the show, including Jason Robert Brown, who won a Tony in 1999 for best original score for "Parade," and Robert Lopez, who shared a Tony for best score with Jeff Marx for "Avenue Q" in 2004.

That said, I haven't been super impressed with the score. But you can see that, as Ming-Ming the duckling (pictured above) would say, "This is serious!"

Now, unlike Lisa Loeb's "Number 1 Single," I'm not advocating this show for everyone. But if you are at all inclined, you should check it out. Especially if you've been smoking pot.

"Wonder Pets" shows on Nickelodeon, weekdays at 11:30 a.m.