Olympic Backyardigans Tie-In

I’ve been watching a lot of The Backyardigans this week, about two episodes a day. I’m therefore particularly pleased to chime in about the next new episode, which will premiere on Monday. It’s called “Match on Mt. Olympus,” and it’s about a basketball game in ancient Greece. The musical style this time around is samba, a personal favorite of mine which should prove a nice contrast to the on-screen athletics. Here’s some information on the episode.

The timing of this release appears very much to coincide with the Beijing Olympics, which start on Friday. I presume the episode will be airing all week, providing the perfect tie-in for parents who want to explain the games to their youngsters. Basketball is evidently the only sport featured in the episode, so track and field and other events will still require some technical explaining, but the show will provide context for parents who want to discuss the ancient origin of the games or competitive sports in general. As far as basketball itself goes, as a father of a daughter I’m quite grateful that Tasha will be playing against two boys. Both Americans and Australians have a very good reason to watch their Olympic women’s basketball teams this year, and I personally am going to try to tune in to one or two games with Loretta regardless of the teams’ nationalities (and root for Becky Hammon, shown below, no matter who she’s playing for). At the beginning of the summer we bought one of those plastic all-purpose playground balls so we could get into soccer (my favorite), basketball, or just plain catch, and Loretta’s recently taken a liking to basketball, constantly demonstrating how she can dribble (for all of about five seconds) and throw it through my arms as an oversized hoop. At any rate she says it’s her favorite game, so I intend to use the Olympics to show her that girls can play—and play well. Here’s a schedule of the women’s basketball games, though I’m not sure when they’ll be airing in the United States.



This is a perfect potential example of the principle of extension which I talked about in one of my first entries. Combine it with an actual game in the driveway or park, and you can make the Olympics not only relate to your toddler (through the Backyardigans episode) but come completely alive (through actual play). Whether the scheduling tie-in came from the show’s creator Janice Burgess, the writing team under Adam Peltzman, or the scheduling people at Nick Preschool, it was an excellent concept. I’ll be sure to tune in.