Getting Along Fine in the Big City

The hero of Nick Jr.’s new animated series, “Oswald,” is a cheerful big blue octopus who is always willing to lend a hand (or several) to help his best friends--a dog named Weenie, a fussbudget penguin named Henry and an eternally optimistic daisy named ... Daisy.

The half-hour series launches in prime time tonight on cable’s Nickelodeon. Beginning Tuesday, it will be seen weekday mornings on Nick Jr. “Oswald” will also appear weekends on “Nick Jr. on CBS” when the fall lineup kicks off on Sept. 15.

“Oswald” is the brainchild of noted children’s author and illustrator Dan Yaccarino (“Goodnight, Mr. Night” and “Deep in the Jungle”).

“I’ve been working on this show for about four years,” says Yaccarino. “I always wanted to get into television and do an animated version of my books. I wanted to do a show about a group of characters that are very different, that somehow are able to get along and be friends. They are not all animals. They are not all bugs.

“Oswald is an octopus. There is a snowman and some weird eggs and gingerbread men and dragons. To hear me talk about it, you would imagine that the show would be disjointed and strange, but it all comes together so nicely. You totally accept it. There’s never a question--why is a cactus walking down the street with a bird?”

“I think Oswald is a great social hero,” says Brown Johnson, senior vice president of Nick Jr. “He is the straight man. He’s the Dudley Do-Right. Not that he goes out and rescues people, but he is just a nice guy. He is really, really polite. He’s very into trying and experiencing new things which is a big deal for our audience.”

“Oswald” lives in the colorful, fanciful metropolis of Big City, where he encounters new adventures every day. He loves to spend time with his friends and roller skate and munch on Egg Foo Yummy. His favorite expression is “Omigosh.”

Fred Savage, who grew up in front of America’s eyes as Kevin in “The Wonder Years,” is the voice of Oswald. David Lander, of “Laverne & Shirley” fame, turns the fussy Henry into a close relative of his character from that sitcom, Squiggy.

Johnson points out that finding the right voice for Oswald was extremely difficult. “Some people were too whiny,” she says. “Some were too sort of cartoony-sounding. Fred is really straight ahead as Oswald. He is neither stupid nor goofy.”

Savage also enunciates perfectly as Oswald, speaking slowly and deliberately so the target audience--2-to 5-year-olds --will better understand the stories. “The audience is so young, so you have to speak clearly,” says the actor, now 24. “If you have a bigger word that might be a new vocabulary word, you have to take your time with that. You don’t want to be too angry or critical. You want to keep it light and positive. You have to be always conscious of the tone of the show.”

Evan Lurie composed the sweet, bouncy tunes Oswald and his friends sing. “I am not a singer,” says Savage, laughing. “Halfway through the season, [the producers said], ‘The singing is great, Fred, but we set some time with a singing coach, if you don’t mind!”’

Savage admires the fact that Oswald approaches the world with his arms--all eight of them--wide open. “I love how he is kind to everybody,” he says. “He’s definitely kind of the Everyman character of the show.”

Oswald is not without his flaws. “That’s what I really like,” Savage says. “The whole tone of the show is that it doesn’t condescend at all. It doesn’t talk down to kids. It shows that people [make] mistakes, but it is how you deal with the setbacks in life that really make you a good person.”

Henry, says Lander, represents habits young children get into: “I only eat my tuna fish at a certain time. I only take my bath at a certain time. The repetition factor gives a lot of kids security.”

Lander, who does a lot of animated voice work, had a difficult time finding the correct one for Henry. “Everybody was beating around the bush,” he says. “What they really wanted was Squiggy’s voice, but nobody was willing to say that. I kept saying, ‘You want Squiggy, don’t you? Let me try a modified version of Squiggy--one who can pronounce his Vs.”’

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“Oswald” will premiere tonight at 8 on Nickelodeon and can be seen weekdays at 10:30 a.m. beginning Tuesday on Nick Jr. It will also air weekends on CBS beginning Sept. 15. The network has rated it TV-Y.