This article was co-authored by Chris Hadley, who writes for the online web series magazine Snobby Robot and for the film music magazine Film Score Monthly Online. In addition, he is the writer/creator of the cable news satire THE LATE, LATE NEWS.
Allie Jennings stars as the eponymous and perky kids’ TV show host in the parody/satire JANNY JELLY. Tommy Fleming stars as Mrs. Janny’s mom. Photo courtesy Jackie Nell.
Every kids’ TV show has a perky host, adorable characters, colorful scenic design, earworm-worthy songs, and important educational lessons that young viewers can apply to their everyday lives. The new series JANNY JELLY has all of those elements in its 7-episode first season. However, this show is definitely not for the little tykes.
Created, written by and starring Allie Jennings as its untenably sunny title character, this deceptively innocent-looking satire/parody of children’s TV programming upends all the usual tropes associated with shows like SESAME STREET, MR. ROGERS’ NEIGHBORHOOD and BLUE’S CLUES. Each episode takes aim at the condescending approaches aimed at the typical childhood audience.
Using the same device used by PEE WEE’S PLAYHOUSE’s Paul Reubens, JANNY JELLY’s Allie Jennings confronts topics over the heads of her ostensible audience’s immature brains. Janny, her mother (a.k.a. Mrs. Janny’s Mom, played by series co-producer Tommy Fleming), and her cute little friends learn about amusing issues such as food packaging, negative body image, corruption in politics, environmental destruction, and even death!
The story of how JANNY JELLY danced and sung her merry way onto our screens is entertaining in and of itself. Jennings, who gradually tired of auditioning decided to create the kind of project she always dreamed of doing: one that merged Jennings’ love of perverse adult comedies like WONDER SHOWZEN with a role she could enjoy and sink her teeth into.
“I came up with the idea after I’d gone out for a lot of auditions for roles that I didn’t feel like I was right for. I kept going out for these weird horror movies where I played this demon girl. I wished I could be in something I was really excited about, like a project that was goofy and fun but had a message, too. I was like, ‘oh, I’ll just write one!’”
What Jennings wrote turned out to be an edgy subversion of a genre that can often be annoyingly gentle. “I thought that a twisted kids’ show would be the perfect vehicle to show off my comedic sensibility,” she replies. “I’ve always really liked musicals, even though I can’t sing. I thought that a kids’ show would be a good vehicle to get in some really fun, original songs, while getting my point of view across on a lot of different issues.”
Jennings’ personal experiences with some of the subjects featured in JANNY JELLY are also compounded by the ways that adolescents grew up learning about things that were supposed to be easy to understand. As she and other kids would end up discovering during their adulthood, the lessons they learned in the classroom were more complicated than they thought.
“For the issues of politics and the environment, all of them are topics that I think about on a regular basis as topics that should be simple. The idea of eating food should be a simple thing, and as kids, we’re taught that it’s a simple thing,” says Jennings. “Later on in adult life, I had experiences with weird body image issues, plus learning about food production and how the meat packing industry is kind of corrupt. They treat animals really poorly. This simple thing that I was taught as a child, you learn that it’s a lot darker as an adult.”
“Whatever the lesson I think should be taken away from the show, I would flip it, and by the end of the episode, Janny believes the exact opposite,” Jennings says. “The other characters that came along to try to teach her the appropriate lesson would typically have the good intentions to teach her the right lesson, but somehow, through misunderstanding and her own selfishness, she would take away the wrong message.”
“One of the fun things about Janny is that she represents the way people learn things in the real world,” says director/co-producer Ryan Wagner. “If you don’t stop to question what people are teaching you, then you might be learning from an absolute idiot. Parodying that is of a fun way to represent the way we learn in general.”
“Instead of the kids’ show host being the smarter one talking down to the children, some of the children’s comments are quite intellectual and aware,” adds Jennings. “It seems that the children watching the show are smarter than her, and more aware of what’s going on in the world than Janny herself.”
One of the most common edutainment tropes - the invisible kids’ audience - is hilariously parodied in JANNY JELLY. “BLUE’S CLUES has this wonderful trope of Steve talking to a children’s audience that you can’t see, but you can hear their responses,” Jennings replies. “That was a really fun joke to play with - not only playing off the inappropriate questions that Janny asks the children, but also the unexpected responses by the children who ultimately realize that the show is kind of messed up.”
JANNY JELLY’s producers didn’t need to conduct endless casting calls to find that inquisitive off-camera chorus. “The little kids’ voices you hear in the show are both my younger cousins,” Fleming says. “We just made them say all that weird stuff, but my aunt and uncle were very cool with that. They’re very talented. They’re great. They’re good actors.”
Developed by production designer Monique Thomas, JANNY JELLY’s relatively simple virtual set was modeled to match the look of shows like BLUE’S CLUES and the Canadian series THE BIG COMFY COUCH. Complimented by Marly Hall’s charmingly economical costumes, plus bright visuals from Thomas and other gifted graphic designers, JANNY JELLY can easily be confused for an actual live action kids’ TV show.
“So much of what sells this show as a kids’ show is the costumes,” Wagner says. “The thing that I always said to them (Hall, Rutledge and Thomas) is that everything should look as good as it can while still looking homemade. Homemade was the big feel of everything. They could have done much more beautiful stuff, but I kept them down in that homemade area. We had an incredible team of people who all worked really, really hard to make the show as bad as it does!”
Like Jennings and Wagner, Fleming marvels at the impressive quality of JANNY JELLY’s low budget wardrobe design. “I am always floored watching the episodes by how amazing the costumes looked,” he says. “It is a kids’ show aesthetic, and it is supposed to be a little DIY. We just got someone who is really talented to get in there with limited resources, and to do what a low budget kids’ show would probably do.”
Even JANNY JELLY’s music and songs are produced to equal the makeshift style of its visual elements. After challenging his production and costume designers to produce work that’s not as elaborate as they’re capable of making, Wagner pushed series composer Charlie O'Connor to create a score that's neither richly orchestrated nor lyrically complex. Produced in a diverse range of musical styles, O’Connor’s songs hilariously correspond to the subject matter and guest characters in each episode. When it comes to songs about serious topics, O’Connor even subverts the expectations of viewers and listeners.
Describing the lessons she and her cast hope to impart upon JANNY JELLY’s audience, Jennings hopes that they’ll learn how compassion and wonder can outshine arrogance and ignorance. “I want people to learn from Janny -- but not the lesson she’s teaching.”
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