''Octonauts'' is a children's television series, produced by

Silvergate Media Silvergate Media Holdings Limited, doing business as Sony Pictures Television - Kids, is a television production and brand licensing company based in New York City and London. The company was founded in 2011 by Waheed Alli and was acquired by So ...

for the BBC channel CBeebies, and based on the children's books written by Vicki Wong and Michael C. Murphy. The show follows an underwater exploring crew made up of stylized

anthropomorphic Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics t ...

animals, a team of eight adventurers who live in an undersea base, the Octopod, from which they go on undersea adventures with the help of a fleet of aquatic vehicles. Although its technology is fictional, the exotic creatures and locations that the crew encounter are based on real marine animals in their natural habitats. The show's subject matter has been compared to that of ''

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'' and '' Thunderbirds'' blended with

Jacques Cousteau Jacques-Yves Cousteau, (, also , ; 11 June 191025 June 1997) was a French naval officer, oceanographer, filmmaker and author. He co-invented the first successful Aqua-Lung, open-circuit SCUBA (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus). T ...

. The show was animated in Ireland by

Brown Bag Films Brown Bag Films (BBF) is an Irish television CGI and computer animation production studio owned by Canadian production studio 9 Story Media Group and based in Dublin with 2D and 3D animation facilities based in Bali, Toronto and formerly Man ...

for its first four series. The show was renewed for a fifth series in 2018, with Canada's

Mainframe Studios Mainframe Studios is a Canadian computer animation company owned by Wow Unlimited Media and based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Founded in 1993 as Mainframe Entertainment Inc. by Christopher Brough, Ian Pearson, Phil Mitchell, Gavin Blair and ...

taking over animation work. A Netflix-original spinoff, subtitled '' Above & Beyond'', was released in September 2021, and featured the Octonauts venturing onto more land-based habitats of the natural world.

Characters

Main characters

The Octonauts, consisting of the Octopod crew and captain, are the recurring main characters.

Vegimals

Vegimals are half-animal, half-vegetable creatures. The vegimals were discovered by Shellington as eggs attached to the side of the Octopod. To protect them he brought them into his lab, where they hatched a few days later. After a few weeks, they established themselves as an integral part of the crew. They primarily speak Vegimalese, a language made of chirps and warbles (heavily accented English with inter-mixed gibberish), though they also speak a limited amount of English (with an accent). Shellington is the only (non-vegimal) Octonaut who has some fluency in Vegimalese.

Minor characters

Vehicles

Books

The original books were first published in the US by Immedium in 2006 and were republished in the UK by HarperCollins in 2009. Six titles by Meomi have been published: * ''The Octonauts & the Only Lonely Monster'', about an Architeuthis (Giant Squid). * ''The Octonauts & the Sea of Shade'', about a world where everyone's shadows have gone missing. * ''The Octonauts & the Frown Fish'', about a glum-looking catfish. * ''The Octonauts & the Great Ghost Reef'', about coral bleaching. * ''The Octonauts Explore the Great Big Ocean'', about the search for Tunip the Vegimal's home. * ''The Octonauts & the Growing Goldfish'', about Dunkie, a giant goldfish who won't stop growing. A series of shorter books based on individual episodes from the TV series is being published by Simon & Schuster. These titles can be distinguished by the "As seen on TV" label on the covers and are not written or illustrated by Meomi. The books have the same titles as the episodes they are based on.

TV series

In 2010, ''The Octonauts'' was adapted into a 52-episode CGI animated television series co-produced by Chorion and Brown Bag Films. It first aired in the UK on 4 October 2010 on CBeebies, a BBC television channel for children under 7. The first series ended in February 2011 but continued to be aired as repeats. A second series of 22 episodes commenced in November 2012. ''The Octonauts'' had its US premiere on the

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on 9 January 2012 In September 2014, Silvergate Media announced its sale of season 4 to the Disney Channel, to be aired in 2015. Many of the characters' voices were redubbed to give them American accents—Hispanic in the case of Peso and Pinto—although Captain Barnacles, Kwazii and Professor Inkling retained their original British voices. Another notable difference between the British version and the US version is the absence of the "Creature Report" feature at the end of each episode. This educational and melodic recap of the adventure is missing from the UK version, but is available to view in Britain through Netflix, which streams the American version. In Australia, in 2014, the Octonauts became the second most-watched children's TV show in the country, seen daily on ABC2 by 257,000 viewers nationally. By season 4, the Octonauts had been picked up in more than 100 countries, including RTÉ Two (Ireland), Treehouse TV (Canada), ABC Television (Australia), TF1 (France), SuperRTL (Germany), CCTV (China), Karusel (Russia), Disney Junior (Spain, Portugal), and SVT (Sweden). The show has been translated and shown in French (

TF1 TF1 (; standing for ''Télévision Française 1'') is a French commercial television network owned by TF1 Group, controlled by the Bouygues conglomerate. TF1's average market share of 24% makes it the most popular domestic network. TF1 is par ...

), Spanish and Portuguese (

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), Finnish (

YLE TV2 Yle TV2 ( fi, Yle TV Kaksi; sv, Yle TV Två) is a Finnish television channel owned and operated by Yle. TV2 was launched in 1965 as the successor to the former television channels TES-TV (Tesvisio) and Tamvisio, and broadcasts public servic ...

), Welsh ( S4C), and Slovakian ( STV 2). The series was made with the help of

marine biologist Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms in the sea. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies sp ...

s Dr. Lara A. Ferry-Graham and Dr. Michael H. Graham, who had previously worked on ''

Finding Nemo ''Finding Nemo'' is a 2003 American computer-animated comedy-drama adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Directed by Andrew Stanton with co-direction by Lee Unkrich, the screenplay was w ...

''.

Episodes

The TV show is episodic, with each 11-minute episode seeing them encountering an unusual but real sea creature as they explore strange underwater worlds. Often they must discover a vital biological or behavioral fact about that creature to rescue it or themselves from danger. The stories usually feature three main characters: Captain Barnacles, Kwazii, and Peso, with the other five Octonauts acting in supporting roles. The opening theme tune finishes with the chant "Explore! – Rescue! – Protect!", the Octonauts’ motto.

Creature Reports

Creature Reports are one-minute, musical, poem-like sequences that recap the facts learned about the sea creature that the Octonauts encountered in the associated episode. In the UK, these were shown as separately scheduled items, but in the American version, they were used after each regular episode. The exception is the episode of "The Surfing Snails", where it was replaced with a

surf rock Surf music (or surf rock, surf pop, or surf guitar) is a genre of rock music associated with surf culture, particularly as found in Southern California. It was especially popular from 1958 to 1964 in two major forms. The first is instrumental su ...

song called, "Surf's Up, Bubbles Up (Ready to Ride)". The Creature Report's addictive, repetitive nature has been postulated to have psychological benefits. For children, it provides a sense of predictability that promotes good feelings and mental balance. For adults, it provides a sense of virtual participation via the principle of involuntary musical imagery. The initial working title of the 2017 American Superhero film " Thor: Ragnarok" was "Creature Report", a reference to the Octonauts, which acted as the movie production's

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Video services

Seasons of The Octonauts are available on variety of streaming and direct purchase video services.

Streaming services

Direct purchase services

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and

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organise their episodes into packages, similar to the region 4 DVD titles.

Home releases

Reception

The TV series was well received when shown on CBeebies in the UK and by ABC in Australia. According to the authors' website, it was the No. 1 pre-school age show in the UK, and the first pre-school show to be ranked in the top ten by older audiences (aged 3–4 and up). The show was the top-ranked ABC programme for 5- to 12-year-olds in January 2011 in Australia, with the ABC calling its first month an "unprecedented success online and on-air". The Octonauts DVD boxed set was 4th best-selling Children's TV DVD at

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UK as of 7 April 2013.

Awards and nominations

In 2013, Octonauts was nominated for two awards: an

International Emmy Award The International Emmy Awards, or International Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. Bestowed by the New York–based International Academy of Television Arts and Sc ...

in the ''"Kids—Preschool"'' category and an

Irish Film and Television Award The Irish Film & Television Academy (IFTA) is an all-Ireland organisation focused on film and television. It has about 1000 members, and is based in Dublin, with branches in London and Los Angeles. The IFTA now holds separate ceremonies for the ...

in the ''"Best Children's/Youth Programme"'' category. In 2017, the series took home the Annie Award for Best Animated Television Production in the Preschool category for the episode "Operation: Deep Freeze".

Films

In 2020, two new movies were released on Netflix: on August 14, ''The Octonauts Movie: The Caves of Sac Actun'' (which takes place in a

cenote A cenote ( or ; ) is a natural pit, or sinkhole, resulting from the collapse of limestone bedrock that exposes groundwater. The regional term is specifically associated with the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, where cenotes were commonly used for ...

in Mexico) and on October 13, ''The Octonauts & the Great Barrier Reef'' (a musical). In 2021, ''The Octonauts Movie: The Ring of Fire'' was released March 30 on Netflix in the United States.

Spin-offs

The Octonauts brand has been licensed by the production company for numerous spin-off activities. These include

Octonauts Rollercoaster Adventure Octonauts Rollercoaster Adventure is a family roller coaster located in CBeebies Land at Alton Towers, Staffordshire. It opened on 21 March 2015. It is located next to Spinball Whizzer, in an area which was previously part of Adventure Land. Th ...

, a themed rollercoaster within the CBeebies Land of

Alton Towers Alton Towers Resort ( ) (often referred to as Alton Towers) is a theme park and resort complex in Staffordshire, England, near the village of Alton. The park is operated by Merlin Entertainments Group and incorporates a theme park, water pa ...

theme park and themed bedrooms with the CBeebies Land Hotel. There is also a travelling live show called ''Octonauts Live'', which has toured in the U.S. and other countries. An ''Octonauts'' app was launched for iOS on 17 November 2016, produced in partnership with Night and Day Studios. A spin off series, titled ''Octonauts: Above and Beyond'', premiered on September 7, 2021, with the full first episode being released on YouTube on August 25. Rather than an aquatic setting, ''Above and Beyond'' features the crew exploring and assisting in natural habitats such as forests and deserts; essentially all terrestrial habitats.

References

External links

* *

Channels

Octonauts on Disney Junior US

Octonauts on Discovery Kids

Octonauts on Discovery Kids Brazil

Octonauts on TF1

Octonauts on TFOU

Octonauts on Treehouse