LET’S GO LUNA! is an animated series that takes children on adventures around the globe and immerses them in new cultures. The program features three friends—a wombat, butterfly, and frog—whose parents work in a circus that travels the world. They’re constantly traveling to new places, and Luna, the moon, is always with them as a guide.
The program, which debuted on PBS in November 2018, is a great example of content that puts the PBS Editorial Standards principle of inclusiveness into practice—both in front of and behind the camera.
Inclusiveness means that, over time, “content should reflect the views of people from different backgrounds, such as geographic areas, ethnicities, genders, age groups, religious beliefs, political viewpoints, and income levels.”
LET’S GO LUNA! achieves this by letting kids experience the sights, sounds, food, music, art, and customs of life in different cities across the globe.
To give viewers a thoughtful and accurate depiction of people from different backgrounds, the program relies on curriculum advisors behind the scenes, said Natalie Engel, director of content for children’s programming at PBS KIDS. Show creator Joe Murray’s studio also has a cultural anthropologist on staff, Erik Messal, who serves as an educational consultant for the program.
“As children learn to see what makes us similar and respect what makes us different, they begin to develop a deep sense of how we are all connected as people. This is the foundation for building healthy, lasting relationships with friends, classmates and colleagues,” Messal writes.
Messal reaches out to cultural experts for each location the show visits, which ranges from Nairobi to Beijing to Sydney. These experts advise the producers on how “to represent the culture as authentically as possible,” which, Engel said, includes weighing in on such things as the clothing the characters wear, the accents of the characters, the design and signage of the cities, and the music that is played in each episode.
For instance, in an episode about Cairo (Aren’t We a Pair?), Carmen meets another butterfly named Leyla who is also looking for her lost pet. When Carmen goes to Leyla’s house, Leyla asks her to remove her shoes, and Leyla pulls her purple hijab down from her head.
While these are subtle, brief moments in the show, there is considerable discussion behind the scenes to make sure the program gets the cultural nuisances just right, Engel said.
And while the audience is exposed to many different cultures, Engel said, a couple of common themes run throughout the series: Everyone is different, but in a lot of ways we’re all the same. And no matter where we are, we all share the same Earth and the same moon, so we’re all bound together.
Engel said the programming group at PBS KIDS tries to be mindful about what gaps exist in the representation and curriculum of their shows. “We’re always thinking about what we could be doing better,” she explained. They knew they wanted a show that focused on cultural studies—so when the concept for Luna came along, it was uniformly beloved. Given the group’s priorities and goals, “it was an easy concept for everyone to get behind,” Engel said.
Contact Standards & Practices at standards@pbs.org
