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Friday, December 31, 2021

Knee-Deep in the Hoopla: 2021 in Review

 


Madeline Fretz - Ahh, 2021. What a year for Sprout fandom! Last year we had the virus, lockdowns, and LOTS of handwashing, but this year was probably better. This year we showcased new things, looked back at the past, and got tons of new surprises - such as pictures, specials, reboots and revivals, online videos, and new seasons.

One that fits into all three of these categories is probably my biggest Sprout project (for now), my long-anticipated Sprout fanfic, so I knew I had to make a reference to it in this post's title. "We Built This City" by Starship is (SPOILER!) one of the songs in the fanfic. Now, I know most fansites and fan blogs, including this one, don’t usually show fanfic and/or fan art, but I talked about mine here a lot. Basically, the fic is a nostalgic half-road comedy, half-get the band back together plot, half-"putting on a show" plot, and half-telethon, that includes lots of references to old Sprout and its PBS days.

As for the blog, for the first few months I abandoned the blog due to my commitments to the generic "fan stuff" (such as PBS Kids Sprout TV Wiki), and only came back occasionally. However, all that changed in July when I started posting here again. I started the "My Week" series, inspired by Muppet fansite and huge PaKST inspiration ToughPigs. In September, I started the "Weekly Character Wednesdays" series, inspired by another Muppet fansite by the name of the Muppet Mindset. And as of November, I’ve been talking about Sprout Christmas specials.

Okay, Sproutlets. Sit back, relax, and together let's take a look back at 2021 and what an amazing year it was.

January:

  • Happy New Year! - The post that kicked off the new year - containing of a Snowy Side Up Show video and a news article about Cheer in the New Year.
  • Caillou Leaves PBS Kids - On one of the saddest posts on this blog, it is announced that Sprout's longest-standing program, which is largely hated by most people, has stopped airing on PBS. But don’t worry, it now airs daily on Cartoon Network's Cartoonito block!
  • The SproutOnline.com song - This post is about a Sprout jingle that played almost daily from 2008 to 2014. If you know the lyrics, great! Dare to sing along! If you don’t, don’t worry, they’re on this post!
March:
  • Sizzle - Wow! I guess I was right when I said I only came back to post occasionally prior to July. Anyways, this post chronicles a Sprout sizzle from 2012 that features a Colbie Caillat song.
April:

  • On-Demand! - Back in April, my family, my Mom's friend Lisa from Las Vegas (who appears in the fic), and I went on an amazing cross-country adventure around Las Vegas, Arizona, and Utah to see the canyons (and not just the Grand one). You totally should’ve been there! Anyways, probably the only Sprout-related thing I did during that trip (aside from editing a few pages on the wiki) was watch a 2005 on-demand promo, that when I got back, I did a post about the history of Sprout's video-on-demand service. Enjoy!
  • Sprout Diner - It was the 2000s and childhood obesity was all the rage. Sprout was all about living healthy lifestyles from the beginning, so one of their planned interstitial series was Sprout Diner, which was about eating healthy. This post chronicles the history of this short-lived, two-season webseries.
  • Dora on Sprout? - As of April, I discovered lyrics to Let's Go Show songs on the Wayback Machine and put them on the wiki. Not long after, I discovered composer Tim Burns' SoundCloud account which had many of those songs, and uploaded them to my YouTube channel. One of them was "My Favorite Color is a Rainbow." I was skimming Vimeo a lot back then (and still nowadays), and one of the Sprout-related videos I managed to find on there had an instrumental of said song. Dora the Explorer, a Nick Jr. show, was in that video among actual Sprout shows. Huh?
May:

  • Got Great Pics? - I managed to find several rare Sprout pictures on the likes of people's Facebook accounts and the Wayback Machine (including one Flickr photo), and put them on here on this post, my only blog post of May. I also put most of the photos on the above video set to Sprout production music. Sometimes I wonder if that piece of production music was an instrumental of a Let's Go Show song, but it definitely wasn't a Preschool Musical instrumental. Hmm…
June:


  • Wiggly Waffle - In June, I started an Unofficial Sprout Podcast, and this is the topic of my only episode so far. As I was preparing for the premiere, I wrote this post on the blog to prepare myself for what I was supposed to say. The post chronicles the history of The Wiggles' Sprout morning show, which ran during the Sam era.
July:

This picture we used for our family holiday cards this year.
  • Me just being silly
  • Cape Charles - Ahh, this was the month I returned to posting regularly on this blog. So far, this is my only non-Sprout-related post here. Every Fourth of July as of 2017, my family goes to Cape Charles in Virginia, and this is a collection of photos from this year’s vacation.
  • My Week with 2010 - The start of the My Week series.
  • Clips from Wiggly Waffle launch day FOUND! - This year, someone found clips from the August 24th, 2009 broadcast of Wiggly Waffle and uploaded it to their YouTube channel. I uploaded it to mine too since it was a temporary upload, but deleted it when said person found the full clip of their previous video.
  • My Week with Kindness Counts
August (AKA my first month of high school):

September:
October:

November:

December:

Thanks to everyone who read this blog over the past twelve months. Here’s to hoping 2022 is just as good!

Click here to party like it's 2022 on the Parents and Kids Share Together forum!

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