Kratt brothers bring love of animals to live-action stage at First Interstate Center for the Arts

From staff reports

Young animal fans rejoice – the Kratt brothers are coming to town to teach you all about animals and the cool things they can do. “Wild Kratts LIVE!” is performing this Sunday at the First Interstate Center for the Arts.

The Kratt brothers are something of cult classic public broadcast legends. Their television show “Zoboomafoo” was a staple of the PBS children’s education diet, so if you were a kid in the early 2000s and your parents didn’t have money for cable, you most definitely have vague flashes of a live-action lemur, surreal claymation creatures, and two animal-obsessed brothers floating around in your long-term memory bank.

Each episode invited viewers in for an animal-fact-packed hang with hosts Martin and Chris Kratt and their lemur side-kick at the colorful, jungle-surrounded “Animal Junction.” Something about the fun set design, the animals, the animated adventures, and the iconic theme song had a way of sticking in your mind, and it is highly likely that somewhere out there, right now, a millennial is quietly singing to themselves, “Me, and you, and Zoboomafooooo …”

Nostalgia aside, the Kratt brothers are still at it, bringing entertaining animal education to a whole new generation, now through a combination of animation and live performance.

Their current show, “Wild Kratts” is fully animated and features the Kratt brothers trying out different “creature powers” to learn about all their unique and useful abilities. Adapted for the stage, their live show has the same elements but it incorporates a host of wild costumes, props, and audience participation that tends to result in a noisy theater full of exuberant children. The Kratt brothers know just how kids stoked on all sorts of animal powers – orangutan, power, rhino powers, you name it. Showcased through costume, these powers also come with plenty of shenanigans to blend in some silliness with all of the learning.

The Kratt brothers have held a lifelong passion for animals. They grew up in the New Jersey suburbs with nearby forested areas to supply plenty of impressive wildlife encounters. Both brothers studied animal life in college, and it was Martin’s habit of bringing his video camera along on their wildlife adventures that led to the creation of their very first videos.

Their content always had kids in mind. The videos didn’t just feature the animals they found, but also the brothers performing little gags, like falling off logs and riding off cliffs into some body of water. A few rounds of audience testing and producing new episodes eventually led to a contract. PBS wanted 40 episodes in 18 months. First came “Kratts Creatures,” and later “Zoboomafoo.” In total, 65 episodes were produced, and although “Zoboomafoo” originally ran from 1999 to 2001, the reruns continued to air for more than a decade.

Now, they continue their journey of educating kids across North America, keeping their usual blend of light-hearted performance and imaginative animation. If you’re interested in tickets for their upcoming live performance, visit wildkratts.com or firstinterstatecenter.org to purchase tickets, ranging from $37.50-$162.63, for the 1 p.m. Sunday show.