If you liked The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and you really, really should have, then The Elephant & Piggie Show! may be for you. Or more accurately, for your kids.
Paramount+ announced on Thursday the voices of literary BFFs Elephant and Piggie will be played by former Kimmy Schmidt co-stars (and onscreen BFFs) Tituss Burgess and Ellie Kemper. In addition, Neil Patrick Harris will voice the bus driver role in The Pigeon Show! Starring The Pigeon. It’s pretty solid casting for preschool shows — then again, the Elephant & Piggie and Pigeon books are pretty solid for preschool books.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, well, you probably do not have young children — or maybe you’re more if a Dr. Seuss family. Both of the new Paramount+ series are adaptations of Mo Willems‘ New York Times best-selling children’s books; the pigeon of The Pigeon has his own books, and pops up in the Elephant & Piggie ones as well.
The Elephant & Piggie Show! is described by Paramount as a warm, comedic pre-K series about the hilarious and sometimes challenging work of “best-friending.” Basically, Elephant Gerald is careful and Piggie is not; Gerald worries so that Piggie does not have to. As you might imagine, hijinks do ensue.
The Pigeon Show! Starring The Pigeon is about the day-to-day struggles of a pigeon who just wants to be listened to. He’ll be your best friend if you have a bus and you let him drive it, but as the main book we’re referencing here warns, Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! He probably doesn’t even have a CDL Class B (or C) license.
Willems, a three-time Caldecott Honor recipient (for Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale, and Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity), is adapting his books through his Hidden Pigeon Company. (The pigeon often hides in the pages of Elephant & Piggie. It’s like Where’s Waldo without all the false-alarm stripes.)
Original Article on Hollywood Reporter