New preschool series from creators and producers Justin T. Lee and Lindsay Lee employs real animatronic characters and handmade sets inspired by the Halton Railway Museum.
CBC Kids has announced the greenlight of new preschool series Go Togo! from award-winning Toronto-based prodco Gazelle Automations. The five-minute, 27-episode shortform series will introduce three to five year-olds to early math concepts through the fun and excitement of big public transit vehicles (in miniature scale). Production wrapped in May, and the series will premiere this fall.
Produced using real animatronic characters and handmade sets, the series follows Togo the subway car and his friends Stella the streetcar and Wheeler the bus, as they make stops, pick up passengers, and explore the big city of Transitville. There’s never a dull moment when there’s so much to do and learn!
Go Togo was conceived by producers Justin T. Lee and Lindsay Lee of Gazelle Automations, the team behind the award-winning children’s series Miikshi. Go Togo features a unique hybridized format, mixing live-action animatronics and elements of stop motion and 2D animation. All the vehicle characters are 3D-printed animatronic puppets operated by remote control that have swappable face panels for different expressions.
The inspiration for Go Togo struck when co-creators and producers Justin and Lindsay Lee visited the Halton Railway Museum to view their old subway and streetcar collection.
“Justin and I are huge fans of public transit, and we know kids love the vehicles. We realized we could capture all the fun, awe and excitement of watching a bus or streetcar whiz by, but in toy size,” said Lindsay Lee.
“We wanted to invoke a feeling of a child playing with their toys in a hyper-realized way, as if we’ve entered their imagination,” continued Justin Lee.
Each episode follows a short, simple format aimed at creating familiarity through repetition. Every morning, Togo, Stella or Wheeler are given a specific transit-related task by Hub, the benevolent control tower that runs the transit network. Along the way, they encounter a problem and must use basic math concepts and logic to solve it.
Additional characters include Sparks, the grumpy yet lovable rail grinder with a heart of gold (voiced by Paul Sun-Hyung Lee (Kim’s Convenience, The Mandalorian). Dr. Repairo, the friendly and helpful repair car, has the tools and tricks to get vehicles up and running again when things go wrong. And numerous signal lights around Transitville help vehicles know when to stop and go — and have loads of personality.
“Working with our partners at Gazelle Automations, we hope that Go Togo! will engage preschoolers, spark their curiosity, and build a foundation of mathematical thinking,” says Drew Mullin, executive in charge of production at CBC Kids. “In Go Togo!’s magical world of animatronic characters and handmade sets, children will be delighted to see actual toys spring to life, bridging fantasy and reality. We can’t wait to share Togo’s adventures with families across the country.”
Go Togo is a CBC Kids Original production, produced with the financial participation of the Canada Media Fund and the Shaw Rocket Fund, and with film and television tax credit assistance from the Government of Ontario, and the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit. The Toronto-based team behind the series includes Lindsay Lee and Justin T. Lee as co-creators/executive producers, Jeff Mackey as co-executive producer, Kanja Chen as supervising producer, and Bonnie Do as producer. For CBC, Sally Catto is general manager of Entertainment for Factual and Sports; Marie McCann is senior director of children’s content at CBC Kids; and Drew Mullin is executive in charge of production for CBC Kids.
