In the Spotlight with The Kratt Brothers

Christopher F. “Chris” Kratt and his older brother Martin Kratt  grew up in Warren Township, New Jersey.  Together they host  the television programs Kratts’ Creatures, Zoboomafoo, and Be the Creature (which airs on the National Geographic Channel), and Wild Kratts (which airs on PBS Kids and TVOKids).  I had a chance to speak to these energetic brothers who have a real passion for educating kids about wild and sea life. My daughter is quite obsessed with their new show Wild Kratts and had a question of her own to ask the brothers.

You have such great enthusiasm for animal and plant life. Have you two always been interested in nature since you were kids?  

 Well, we grew up in a really exotic place  – the wilds of suburban New Jersey – and we did have a chance to meet up with bullfrogs, raccoon, garter snakes and deer and had our first creature adventures checking out these animals.  For some reason we were always fascinated by animals, like a lot of kids are, and read any animal books we could get our hands on.
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What have been some of your favorite “creature adventuring” experiences?

One of our favorites had to be our first trip to the Amazon where we camped out for 6 months and filmed animals like scarlet macaws, jaguars, and pygmy marmosets!  But then of course there was that trip to the Shiga Mountains of Japan where we were hot tubbing with snow monkeys in a natural hot spring in the middle of a blizzard!

What is one of your favorite animal facts you can share with us.

We always learn new things when we work on a new episode.  For example we learned that pigeons feed their young chicks a  milk like substance  – pigeon milk!  And that walrus have internal life vests  called pharyngeal throat sacs that they blow up with air so they can float in stormy Arctic seas and even take naps.  

My six year old wants to know how Zoboomafoo is doing?  

 Zoboomafoo is doing great – leaping around and eating garbonzo beans.

Any news you want to share with dandelion moms?  

New episodes of Wild Kratts are rolling out for a special Wild Kratts “Rainforest Week” on PBS KIDS April 1-5, which will feature five episodes all about exploring the wonders of the rainforest, including three episode premieres. On Monday, April 1, the week kicks off with the brothers investigating the world of the Spider monkey in “Bugs or Monkey?” On Tuesday, April 2, we go on a wild cat adventure in “Shadow: The Black Jaguar,” and on Wednesday, April 3 we go in search of an obscure rainforest creature in “Rainforest Stew.” And we’re writing and starting to animate 26 new episodes for a Season 3 of Wild Kratts.

Thanks so much Chris and Martin!  We and millions of other families are big fans of the shows you two create and star in!  Keep Adventuring!

And to learn more about the story behind Zoboomafoo here is an excerpt from www. https://www.thekrattclub.com/zobooj.html

When Martin and Chris were looking for a co-host for Zoboomafoo they immediately thought of the Primate Center.  They came to Duke looking for a cute lemur.  A Primate Center technician introduced them to Jovian.  He had a “screen test.”  Everybody fell in love with him and Jovian became Zoboo!!

The production crew for Zoboomafoo came to the Primate Center in September, 1997 and were at the Center filming for a little over 2 months.  They built part of the set for Animal Junction inside Jovian’s cage, and that’s where they filmed the parts of the show where Chris and Martin are interacting with the live animal.

You can read more about Zoboomafoo here: https://www.thekrattclub.com/zobooj.html

And here is a fun Wild Kratts game here: https://pbskids.org/wildkratts/videos/

Photo courtesy of PBS Kids