Campers! It's almost time to head back to Camp Onomatopoeia for new weekly episodes of fun and adventures with Blueberry and her pals on "Blueberry's Clubhouse."
The six-episode third season of the series featuring the manic, funny, friendly puppet of the title and her beloved pal Max, begins at 9:30 a.m. Friday on Arkansas PBS with an episode titled "The Great Clubhouse Cleanup" and will air each Friday through Aug. 12.
The new season will focus on the theme of growing up, and there are lots of changes coming to the clubhouse. Max, played by 14-year-old Piper Wallace of Conway, who has been with the show since it debuted in 2020, realizes this will be her last summer at camp.
Meanwhile Sophie, a new camper played by 7-year-old Olivia Gilliland of Memphis, becomes part of the clubhouse crew that also includes Chef Shawn (Brett Ihler), Camp Counselor Carol (Verda Davenport) and others. Along the way Blueberry, Max and the other campers will learn about art, science, history and the emotions that come with change and growing up.
Also new this season is the transition from four 30-minute episodes to six 15-minute episodes.
"Blueberry's Clubhouse" was created by Arkansas PBS and the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts for children pre-K through second grade. The characters inhabit a colorful, sometimes zany world where they use a crafty periscope or homemade viewfinder to interact with grownups and other young people at places like the Innovation Hub, the Museum of Discovery, Central Arkansas Library System libraries and Apple Seeds Teaching Farm.
Blueberry also grabs her tin-can phone to chat with family members like her Uncle Boysenberry (a dead ringer for PBS painting show hero Bob Ross); her Aunt Gooseberry, who is an airplane pilot; or her parents, Huckleberry and Juneberry. Along with the top-notch production, the geegaw-filled set, spot-on sound design by Tracy Prince and writing that doesn't talk down to its audience, the show is an all-around hoot.
Eric White, 36, of Arkansas PBS is one of "Blueberry's" producers.
"We have a lot of fun making it," he says. "There is so much detail and, for lack of a better word, love, that goes into it, so much thought and energy and talent. It's hard not to have some of that spill off the screen a little bit."
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Blueberry the puppet wasn't supposed to be the star of her own show.
In 2020, the Arkansas Arts Center, now the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, received a grant to create an in-school puppetry residency at Forest Heights STEM Academy in Little Rock, to teach students how to make puppets.
"Then covid happened and the school shut down," says Rivka Kuperman, performing arts coordinator and associate artist at AMFA (pssssst ... she also plays Blueberry, but we'll get to that later). "So we had to do something to fulfill the grant."
Kuperman and her co-worker, Erin Larkin, created Blueberry in April 2020 to help students talk about and navigate life during the pandemic.
"Erin came over and we made a puppet on my porch," Kuperman says. "Over Zoom, I showed her to the students and I said, 'Who is this?' And the kids said it looks like a blueberry, and that's how Blueberry was born."
Blueberry was part of a short video teaching the students about puppetry. Levi Agee, director of production at Arkansas PBS, was called in to help with the video, Kuperman says.
Blueberry's charm could not be contained in a single short video, however. The network teamed with the museum to use the bespectacled puppet in its Arkansas Alternative Methods of Instruction programming for home-based learning and the first four episodes of "Blueberry's Clubhouse" were made in summer 2020.
"We made it real fast," White says. "We started shooting in the first week of July, and two weeks later the first episode went on the air. Within a month and a half, we made four 30-minute episodes."
The first season found Blueberry and Max in episodes like "Blueberry Weathers the Storm," "The Mystery of the Missing Caterpillar," "Into the Wild Blue Yonder" and "End of Summer Jamboree." They also learned about gardening, letter writing, how to make musical instruments and other lessons.
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In Season Two, Blueberry's look was upgraded a bit with a new hairdo. In the season's four episodes, she and Max learned to adapt to life with Max's brother, Miles, in "The Bothersome Brother." The friends also worked through a "Family Day Dilemma," made a meal in "Summertime Friendship Feast" and learned about overcoming fear in "Camp Counselor Carol's Fearful Phobia."
The 37-year-old Kuperman brings a fun and curiosity-filled energy to the role of Blueberry.
"Puppets get to do things people can't do," she says. "Blueberry has highs and lows. She will rev up to 100 real quick and then have to take a moment to collect herself. To be able to have those raw, panicky moments, the exuberant happiness, the huge emotions, is a lot of fun. It's something we don't get to do as adults."
Corey Womack, the show's writer, credits the cast and crew with taking his ideas from the page and translating them onscreen.
"We have phenomenal producers with [White and Terrell Case] and the incredible people at AMFA, so I'm coming up with scenarios like in season three where Blueberry is climbing a bookshelf. It sounds simple, but she's a puppet. I asked Eric, 'Can y'all even do this,' and he said, 'We'll figure it out.' It's all of us pushing each other to be our most creative."
Along with the educational aspects of the scripts, Womack, 34, isn't afraid of tossing in a reference for the adults watching along with their children. In the first season, when Max was searching for something to perform at the camp talent show, Blueberry suggested she sing a song by rock band Weezer.
"I'm not a huge fan of their later stuff," Max says.
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Piper Wallace was already a veteran of several Arkansas theater productions, including the lead role in a Conway production of "Matilda the Musical," when she took on the role of Max.
"Piper's ability to read a page — she can read what the line is and she very much understands the subtext — if she didn't have that intuition, the first and second seasons would have been less successful," Womack says. "And just like with Blueberry, I can write things to Piper's voice now."
She also helped Gilliland — who has had roles in independent films but is making her first appearance in a series — get her bearings during production.
"Piper was so great," says Olivia's mom, Taylor. "She took Olivia under her wing and showed her around set and helped her feel more comfortable."
"It was really, really fun," Olivia says of her experience taping the series. "Blueberry was real funny, and Max was really cool."
Just don't ask about any of the new season's plot lines.
"No spoilers," Olivia says with a laugh.
Olivia has three younger siblings who started watching the series when Olivia auditioned, her mom says. "I love that it teaches them life lessons, but they don't even know they are learning. It's just fun for them."
White, the producer, says, "We really got lucky finding Olivia. She does a wonderful job."
Working on the show has "been a dream come true," he adds. "I get to work with wonderful people and everyone giving 100%. I don't want it to end. Each new season is a blessing, and I think we'll get a fourth, fingers crossed."
Blueberry, the funny, hyper puppet voiced by Rivka Kuperman, is the star of "Blueberry's Clubhouse," which begins its third season July 8, 2022, on Arkansas PBS. (Special to the Democrat-Gazette/Arkansas PBS)