G | 22min per episode | children | 2024
Each episode depicts a supportive parental figure, Mr. Kirk, gently but firmly offering life lessons to a naive, curious, and occasionally willful puppet iguana Iggy, whom he looks after like a child rather than as a pet. Each episode draws on biblical truths from Brave Books’s Freedom Island book series, one book at a time.
Freedom Island Series
In Episode 1, Iggy aims to get even with squirrel Carlos for betraying a secret of his to troublemaker Culture. But Mr. Kirk explains that forgiveness is always better than revenge.In Episode 2, low on self-esteem, Iggy falls for Culture’s lie. Culture says that as an iguana, Iggy isn’t loved by the human Mr. Kirk. Culture wants Iggy to change its identity and turn into a human to be better accepted.
Iggy adopts a new persona, “Chad” hoping to now appear as “cool” as he imagines human children are. But Mr. Kirk misses his iguana. Why isn’t Iggy happy being what he was created to be? Concerned, he reads to Iggy from a Brave book, “Elephants are not Birds.” Iggy realizes that he doesn’t need to become someone else to be loved, he already is someone, and loved for being just that. David West’s closing song is touching.
Scene choreography here sometimes lacks subtlety. In Episode 2, a child suddenly pops up unexplained on MAPLE’s screen with a question (like on a game show) and Mr. Kirk answers. Or a prayer appears too abruptly in dialogue, complete with biblical tone. Screenwriters might weave these in less jarringly; currently they distract from the otherwise sincere storytelling.
Still, this is a brave effort. Such shows needn’t have all the answers. Sometimes they just need to ask the right questions, provoke the right thoughts, or be conversation starters for guided discussion at homes, in schools, or churches.
Many shows normalize a world where children can’t do without smartphones or video games and are bombarded by audio-visual cues, so that they can’t distinguish real from unreal. This show breaks that mold.
There’s also a visual hierarchy. To Mr. Kirk, everyone makes mistakes, except God. God is truth. He is most real and most universal. After God, it’s mature, caring human characters that are most real; they’re conscientious interpreters of God’s truth.
Puppets may cast lively shadows, but only look real. Tech screens, like MAPLE, may conjure lifelike images, but they’re unreal, too. They are dependent on humans to process understanding from facts or knowledge, and meaning from experience. Children needn’t be conscious of this, but parents and teachers must. Subconsciously, this structure helps children embrace a more truthful hierarchy of action and consequence: God first, humans next, everything else lower down.
