Jan. 16--Sunday's first episode of the new, Chicago-made kids' TV series "Moochie Kalala Detectives Club" starts with Tim Kazurinsky's character telling his grandkids a fantastical story that leads to a search for truth at Adler Planetarium.
Although the cultural institution at the center of the story differs from week to week, that's pretty much the format for this new, six-episode series airing at 11 a.m. Sundays on Chicago's leading PBS station, WTTW-Ch. 11.
And it's a winning one in this series made by Edgewater's Dreaming Tree Films and targeted at children of elementary-school age. When programming for kids isn't too frantic, jammed with characters and action and overexcited speech patterns, it can err in other directions, by being too medicinal or by forcing its child actors to be capital-A Adorable. "Detectives Club" strikes a nice balance, interweaving the tall tales told by Kazurinsky, the former "Saturday Night Live" player with deep Chicago roots, with the quest for truth that takes advantage of the city's first-rate cultural institutions and the scientists who work there.
Sunday's debut visits the Adler to learn what we really know about Mars. And then, in another neat touch that further bonds the show to the city (and keeps things moving), it visits an area classroom to perform some basic science experiments related to the episode's lessons. Child actors Evelyn Alumbreros and Gregory Vasquez are engaging companions, and Dreaming Tree's husband-and-wife team of Kelli (producer) and Estlin (director) Feigley bring their stories' disparate threads together with style and ease. Subsequent epsidoes visit the Museum of Science and Industry (tornadoes), Lincoln Park Zoo (big primates), Field Museum (T. rex), Robie House (architecture) and Shedd Aquarium (beluga whales).
