‘Wowsabout’ Looks to Nature, and Jim Henson, in Hopes of Inspiring Awe

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‘Wowsabout’ Looks to Nature, and Jim Henson, in Hopes of Inspiring Awe

Produced by the Jim Henson Company in Sequoia National Park, the PBS Kids special leads a series of programs tied to America’s 250th anniversary.

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Ronald the pig and Roxy the hedgehog lead “Wowsabout,” a new children’s special about the awe-inspiring power of nature that producers hope will expand into a series.

Credit...

The Jim Henson Company

By

Laurel Graeber

April 30, 2026,

5:03 a.m. ET

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The filming of a children’s television special isn’t usually threatened by the approach of a full-grown American black bear.

In this case, the furry interloper ultimately veered far away from the TV crew, but the production, “

Jim Henson’s Wowsabout

!,” still features lots of living nature, including a California quail, bighorn sheep, an American crow and other black bears, not to mention the majestic trees of the show’s location,

Sequoia National Park

in California.

“Wowsabout!,” a half-hour preschool special premiering on Friday on

PBS Kids

, also introduces an irrepressible hedgehog and a punctilious pig. But those two are among several puppets, the first that the show’s producer, the

Jim Henson Company

, has built for PBS Kids since the last time it made them for “Sesame Street.” The stand-alone special, possibly the first for small children to focus on awe, shows how this emotion inspires curiosity, fosters learning, forges fellowship and encourages people of all ages to conserve natural and cultural resources.

This premise is “not woo-woo,” said the puppeteer

Dorien Davies

, who joined the independent producer

Halle Stanford

to create and write “Wowsabout!” “It’s peer-reviewed science.”

Much of that research is in

the book

“Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life,” by

Dacher Keltner

, a psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a science consultant for this show and both of Pixar’s “Inside Out” movies. A co-executive producer of “Wowsabout!,” Keltner identifies eight sources of awe, including moral beauty (acts of altruism), nature, music and collective effervescence.

Image

“Wowsabout” draws from ideas in the book “Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life,” by the psychologist Dacher Keltner.

Credit...

The Jim Henson Company

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