On Thursday, PBS debuts its new children’s program, “Carl the Collector.” Like many TV shows aimed at the under 10 demographic, “Carl” features adorable animated animals who work together to solve problems and learn valuable life lessons. Carl, a kind raccoon who loves to collect things, lives in a fictional world called Fuzzytown with his friends, including twin rabbits, a helpful beaver, a reserved fox and an energetic squirrel.
As we’ve come to expect from PBS children’s programming, the series is funny, sweet, educational and poignant. But “Carl the Collector” is also groundbreaking because Carl is autistic. It’s the first time PBS has centered a series on a neurodiverse character. It was created by children’s book author Zachariah OHora, who says the inspiration came from watching his own children and their interactions with their peers.
“All kids, regardless of what their needs are, get the same access to teachers, social time in the classroom and get support for whatever they need,” he says, noting that his children attend an inclusion school. “I noticed that my kids just didn’t differentiate. It was just such a light bulb moment for me. This is how it should be. More exposure to the full spectrum of humanity.”
Sara DeWitt, senior vice president and general manager of PBS Kids, says that the public broadcaster endeavors for its shows to be both mirrors and windows. For autistic children, Carl can be a mirror, a character they may see in themselves. For neurotypical kids, he can be a window into better understanding their peers.
To ensure authenticity, the series, from Fuzzytown Productions and Spiffy Pictures, involved neurodiverse people at all levels of production from the actors to the writers to the show’s advisers. Like Carl, series adviser Stephen Shore, a professor at Adelphi University, is autistic, and when he saw the first episode of the series, he couldn’t believe how much he had in common with Carl, down to their mutual love of argyle sweater vests.
“Zach didn’t know I existed when he started writing ‘Carl the Collector,’” he says. “So I think that speaks to Zach doing his research in depicting an autistic child authentically.”
Shore says he combines his personal experience as an autistic person with his practical experience working with autistic people. The result are moments in the show like Carl’s stimming (wiggling his fingers or flapping his arms) or the exactness of his speech.
For director Lisa Whittick, whose son is autistic, the show is deeply personal.
“I’ve been working in animation for 20 years and never did I think I’d have the opportunity to work on a show that a community I belong to has been wanting and needing for so long,” she says. “We would have been able to diagnose our son much earlier if we had any clues because he was 12 when he was diagnosed. At that time I didn’t know much about autism at all and it was a very scary and stressful time for us and it was scary for him too. This show will go a very long way in helping to alleviate that fear.”
Carl is voiced by Kai Barham, who has autism and makes his acting debut with this series. Since it was important to production that the character be voiced by an autistic child, Whittick reached out to the support group at Grandview Children’s Center in Ontario, Canada, a community she is a part of, and posted an open call for the audition. Like his animated alter ego, Barham collects things like Squishmallows — he has a raccoon one when he talks to The Times — and rocks (Whittick brings him a special one every time he comes in to record). “I think anyone who is autistic, they will be happy to be represented,” he says.
While everyone involved in the series believes it is a personal choice about whether or not to disclose an autism diagnosis, after much discussion, it was decided that it was important for Carl to tell his friends (and the audience) that he is autistic. “I thought there should be an episode where [viewers] learn there might be some reasons why maybe Carl might be acting a little bit different than some of the other characters they’ve known from their kids’ TV shows or their own real life friends,” writer Ava Xiao-Lin Rigelhaupt says.
That desire resulted in “The Fall,” which will be part of the first batch of episodes to roll out digitally Thursday and will be broadcast on PBS on Nov. 21. In the episode, Carl’s friend Nico falls and Carl doesn’t have the reaction Nico was expecting. The storyline was inspired by something that happened to Rigelhaupt as a child. She remembers sitting at the kitchen table doing her homework when her mom fell and Rigelhaupt didn’t respond the way her mom thought she should. “I saw her fall and, like Carl, I froze,” she says. “I felt just awful. I remember racking my brain because I didn’t know what to do. I often explain that autism for me feels like everyone read this social skills rule book except for me, but I’m still expected to take the test. At that moment, I felt at a loss.”
Carl and his mother work out how he will disclose he is autistic in a way that is educational to Nico and will help Nico understand. “Disclosure has to go further than just saying, ‘I’m autistic,” Shore explains.
Following Shore’s saying that if you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism, the show’s creators thought it was important to portray how autism manifests in different ways. Lotta, a female fox, has sound sensitivities and chooses not to tell her friends she has autism. “Because autism presents itself differently in females, a lot of times they can use masking techniques to elude being diagnosed,” Ohora explains. “Her experience with autism is totally different than Carl’s.”
The show’s straightforward animation and subdued color palette are also important. “Animation is simpler and easier to process,” Shore says. “That is one reason autistic people tend to like animation. There are so many subtitles that go on in live action that can easily overwhelm an autistic person.”
Being part of a groundbreaking show can seem heavy, but its ultimate aim is to entertain the young people watching.
“Representation is so important. That’s one of the things that makes this really special,” DeWitt says. “But when people hear that they sometimes think, ‘Oh this is going to be a very serious show.’ But it’s a really funny show.”
Ohora says the overall goal is that “everyone can learn but in the funnest and fuzziest way possible.”