Corus Entertainment’s preschool channel Treehouse is revving up to premiere Trucktown (80 x 11 minutes), a rough and tumble series that follows a group of rambunctious young trucks in their ultimate playground. Produced by Nelvana Studio, Trucktown is based on a successful series of books by renowned children’s author Jon Scieszka (The Stinky Cheese Man and other Fairly Stupid Tales, The Time Warp Trio, Spaceheadz) and published by Simon & Schuster, which includes over 50 titles and has sold more than 1 million copies worldwide. The new CGI animated series premieres on Treehouse on Saturday, 6 September at 4:00 pm in Canada.
“We’re excited to be bringing Trucktown to Treehouse,” said Jamie Piekarz, director of content, Corus Kids. “Our young viewers will love the vibrant personalities of all the trucks crashing, smashing and playing their way through each episode’s adventures.”
The new CGI animated series, centres around Jack Truck, his best friends Dump Truck Dan and Monster Truck Max (the Monster Truck), and the rest of the truck gang as they roar, romp and power their way through Trucktown. This group of friends have never met a wall they couldn’t smash or a (road or) bridge they couldn’t build up – and smash down again. Filled with good old-fashioned kid fun, Trucktown is an exciting place, where smashing and crashing and building and breaking are the (only) best ways to play.
“We’re thrilled to extend Jon Scieszka’s beloved series of books into a fun and entertaining brand for kids,” said Andrew Kerr, co-head of Nelvana Enterprises. “As a channel that kids love and parents trust, Treehouse is the perfect home to launch the Trucktown brand for preschoolers in Canada.”
Author Jon Scieszka will make a special appearance at Treehouse Big Day Out, a two-day family festival featuring The Wiggles, Splash’N Boots and other Treehouse characters, taking place on 13 and 14 September at Molson Canadian Amphitheatre in Toronto where he will introduce an episode of Trucktown.
The author’s latest book in the Trucktown series, “Race from A to Z,” will be released later this fall. Scieszka penned the series from inspiration during his ten years as an elementary school teacher, in which he noticed many boys weren’t interested in reading and wanted to create a world boys would want to be a part of and would motivate them to read. The first book in the series; “Smash! Crash!” published in 2008 became a New York Times best seller. Scieszka also founded Guys Read Guy, a web-based literacy program for boys whose mission is to help boys become self-motivated, lifelong readers and he was appointed the first National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, a position created by the Library of Congress to raise national awareness of the importance of young people’s literature as it relates to lifelong literacy, education, and the development and betterment of the lives of young people.