The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel logo

The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel: Introducing the Adventure Podcast for Middle Schoolers

What is the allure to you of a serialized story?

I think the chance to tell a long story, something that moves from season to season that the kids can look forward to.

I don't know if kids' podcasting is having a moment yet -- I hope so -- but the list of high quality podcasts created for kids grows by one this week with the official release of The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel, a scripted, serialized speculative fiction adventure show for middle school kids, performed by middle school kids. It's the kind of well-produced podcast that demonstrates that people are seeing a large audience that's hungry for more audio entertainment and deciding to invest a lot of time into serving that audience. Are your kids ready to move on The Alien Adventures of Finn Caspian or are they looking for something slightly more "real" than The Radio Adventures of Eleanor Amplified? Then this is what they'd graduate to.

It's also a really good yarn.

I encourage you to subscribe to the show (here's the iTunes link) and give the first episode a spin while you wait for the season to officially start, but in the meantime, you find out more about the show and its Blobfish Radio creators by reading the interview below with Chris Tarry, one of the show's producers and creators.

Zooglobble: You wear a lot of different hats -- how did you find your radio/audio production hat?

Chris Tarry: I’ve been a professional musician going on about thirty years -- a bass player -- so I have a lot of experience working in studios and with ProTools and other audio applications. I also moonlight as a published fiction writer, so the two feel like a nice fit for podcast production, especially when it comes to a serialized mystery show for kids. At the age of 39 (I’m 46 now), I went back to school and got my MFA [Master of Fine Arts] in creative writing, my minor while in school was screenwriting. Myself and David Kreizman (one of the other Mars Patel producers and head writer of the show) have also worked together developing a few spec TV pilots, so it all kind of comes together when we're working on The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel.

What was the genesis of the idea for The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel?

There are four producer/writers involved with the show; myself, Benjamin Strouse, Jenny Turner Hall, and David Kreizman. The genesis of the idea started with Ben -- he and I were putting together a writing group and one day while we were working on that he mentioned an idea for a kids old-time radio show. We had no idea what the show would be, just that we wanted to do a certain “type” of show. He almost said it as an afterthought and it stuck with me. I called him up and said, “Hey, the writing group is cool, let’s do it. But what about this idea for a kids show?”

From there we recruited David, who’s an Emmy Award-winning writer and show runner, and Jenny, who has a ton of experience directing and working with actors. Ben is a children’s book author and an entertainment lawyer. I do all the sound design, editing, and mixing of the show. The music is all original -- some of it I write, most of the other spots come from a long-time collaborator of mine named Shawn Pierce who is a film and TV composer on shows like The Dead Zone, Motive, HBO’s The Bridge, and many others.

David, Jenny, Ben, and I all live in this unique little New Jersey town called Maplewood. It’s about 30 minutes from New York and because of the proximity to the city the town has an incredibly high percentage of people who work in media, production, and entertainment. Its been dubbed Brooklyn West because it’s basically the town you move to when you have two kids and need to leave the city. In fact, if you listen closely to episode one, there’s a quick guest appearance from David Kestenbaum of Planet Money fame. His kids and my kids are in the same daycare class. It’s that kind of town.

We knew pretty early on that we wanted Mars to be the kind of show that deals with the reality of middle school. That kids could listen, hear real kids their own age dealing with things they deal with everyday. The show has a lot of sic-fi elements (with plenty more to come!), but we also don’t shy away from the realities of being a kid in school. The first episode opens with a Code Red, basically an active shooter situation, which kids deal with in drills everyday and is very much a part of their reality. So in that way, we try and take those things head on, and maybe that makes the show a little different, a little scary in parts, but we did that on purpose in an effort to not talk down to the listeners. In YA books they say that kids don’t read down. We applied the same principle to this show. We think kids want to listen above their age, so we challenge them to do so.

How long did it take you to put together the show (scripts, finding talent, producing it)?

The show has been in development for over a year. We came up with the story by basically sitting in a room together and pitching ideas. It was a very organic experience, a lot of brainstorming on whiteboards, and through that process came the characters and basic story outline. From there we broke up into two writing teams and took on scripting the first few episodes. Now that we’re a little further along, and our roles have settled in, we run it very much like a TV writers room, each of us developing an episode and running everything through David as head writer.

Finding talent was a huge process. We went back and forth for a long time on whether or not we should have adult actors playing kids, or teenagers playing kids, or kids playing kids. Eventually we decided to go with kids playing kids because there was nothing out there like that that we knew of. This posed a few problems we hadn’t expected, the main one being that an eleven-year-old boy sounds exactly like an eight-year-old girl right up until the moment he doesn’t. We spent a long time trying to find kids who had original sounding voices. Jaiya Chetram, the actor who plays Mars, was literally the last person we heard. We had the whole cast set but still needed a Mars, and not only a Mars, but a kid who was a good enough actor (with an original voice) who could carry the whole show. It was stressful, but in the end Jaiya was a huge stroke of luck.

How long will the season last?

Every season is ten episodes, with a few short dispatch episodes thrown in from our fictional podcast sponsor (and nefarious tech billionaire bad guy of the show, Oliver Pruitt). We have the general shape of things up through season 3, so it’s a nice long burn.

What were the audio and story inspirations for you (and the team)?

With a show that’s been in development for as long as ours, there’s been a few things come out while we’ve been putting everything together that seem to take their influences from similar places, the biggest of those being the Netflix show Stranger Things. That show is set in a different time period, but has a similar feel in that kids disappear and the gang gets together to solve the mystery. Our show ultimately has a very different feel and direction (and is obviously not a TV show), but they have similar conceits. We were initially a little bummed when Stranger Things came out, but when it became a huge hit, there was a kind of excitement in the possibility of being the Stranger Things of podcasts. On a more influential level, there’s definitely hints of Goonies, X-Files, and X-men, shows all four of us grew up on. We really strive to be a TV show for the ears, so a lot of our influences come from the world of TV.

What was the most fun you had in its production?

It’s really great to hear the show come together. There’s so many little steps involved; breaking the story, writing the scripts, recording the kids, editing, adding music and the sound design. I think one of my personal favorite moments was when we were in the studio recording episode 1 and 2 with our amazing kid actors. We were in between takes, the four of us producers discussing something about the show in the control room, and the live room microphones were still active. We heard the kids discussing what they thought was going to happen later in the season, and they were so excited, like giddy excited, and that’s when I knew we had something pretty special.

How are you financing this first season? How do you hope to finance future seasons?

We have some local investment in the podcast, some basic startup capital but we're in talks with a few places about sponsorship of this and future shows.

The general feeling with kids shows (we think) is that parents don't want their kids being advertised to, so we decided pretty early on to make the antagonist of the show a fictional sponsor of the podcast. That plays out in some really interesting ways throughout season 1 and beyond. It's a nice way to subvert the traditional idea of a narrator who needs to exist outside a show to guide the listeners and bring them up to date at the top of every episode. It feels like a unique approach. Plus when you have a fictional tech billionaire sponsoring your show, who needs real money?!

What is Blobfish Radio and do you have more productions in the works?

Blobfish Radio is the production company we put together to produce scripted podcasts for kids. We have a few other shows in development; a show called The Ghost of Jessica Majors, and another called The Voice of Reason. But for now we’re focusing on getting Mars Patel out into the world.

What do you hope Mars Patel accomplishes?

Kids podcast programming is like the wild west wrapped in a show about the wild west; in other words, no one is quite sure how kids find and consume podcasts. This is an extra level of ambiguity than the already ambiguous world of podcasting. So, ultimately, I hope the show finds and connects with its intended audience. We’ve put so much work into it and we’ve been trying to build things into the show that might help facilitate those connections. There’s an accompanying fictional website that’s run by our main bad guy Oliver Pruitt, it’s the site where the show is ultimately broadcast (posted) from, and it has special functions that allow kids to interact with the show in different ways. If those are popular we’ll build in more crossover. In the end I just hope kids (and even adults) enjoy what we’ve done.

Interview: Amy Lee

I will admit that Amy Lee was not high on my list of artists I expected to release a kids' album, but after doing this for fifteen years, I probably shouldn't have been, given the long list of artists who have dipped their toes into the kindie pool.

Of course, the idea that Amazon Music would be a thing, much less the entity releasing Dream Too Much, Lee's entry into the kids music world, would have been fanciful fifteen years ago as well.

So let us accept that the co-founder and lead singer of Evanescence has brought her powerful voice to bear on songs about bees, ducks, donkey, chickens, and more. The album was inspired in part by the birth of her son Jack, whose toddler brain came up with lines like "monkey in the band" and "muffins are sleeping" that found their way into the title track. Dream Too Much the album is available to Amazon Prime members for streaming and the rest of the world to purchase on September 30, but you can read a few thoughts from Lee below on growing up, song inspirations, and his son's favorite instrument.

Zooglobble: What are your first musical memories of growing up?

Amy Lee: You know, one of the things that had a real impact on me as a little girl was Fraggle Rock. I used to watch it before school when I was 6 or 7. I have realized, seeing it again as an adult, how awesome and musical it was. There was an original song in just about every episode, and there was so much depth and creativity in it. Jim Henson is one of my all time heroes. Even as a kid, what's always attracted me to music most is when it digs into your soul and makes you feel. My first favorite songs were by Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, The Beatles, The Temptations, Whitney Houston, Jeff Healey....

How did you go about choosing the songs for Dream Too Much?

Well all of the originals were totally inspired by my 2 year old son, Jack. I was writing those songs before I knew I wanted to make an album just naturally, to connect with him. Then it became this fun, elaborate project, and my mission was always making music I thought he would love. Most of the songs we chose to cover relate to my childhood memories and my family. "Rubber Duckie" and "Goodnight My Love" are both songs my dad sung and played to all of us kids when we were young, many times. I wanted to get a good recording of my dad doing those for us all to have forever, that was the original reason that my father and I got together to record this year.

What your musical hopes and dreams for your son?

I just want him to follow his heart and do what makes him really happy, whether that's music or not. Of course I would LOVE for him to grow into a musician and take an interest in that. Music is a huge part of my life so it would be really amazing to share that interest. He already seems to have rhythm, if that's even possible. Maybe its just a toddler thing but he absolutely loves drums and percussion. Hitting stuff and making different sounds. I love it!

Photo credit: Drew Reynolds

Laurie Berkner performs at the Krannert Center

Interview: Laurie Berkner

Laurie Berkner is without a doubt a kids' music superstar, known for her albums, TV shows, videos, and so much more. One might even say that to many preschoolers (and probably not a small number of current aspiring kids' musicians), she's kind of a hero.

This week Berkner releases Superhero (see what I did there?), her first un-themed album of all-new music since Rocketship Run, released in 2008. Which isn't to say she's been relaxing in the meantime -- she's released holiday, lullaby, and classics albums, not to mention written a couple musicals and probably saved some kittens stuck in trees -- but I thought this would be a good time to talk to Berkner about kids' music today and how she keeps her music-making fresh and challenging for her after 20 years making music for families.

And the secret thrill she gets from writing musicals.

Zooglobble: Who are your superheroes? Why?

Laurie Berkner: Oh man, there are so many for so many different reasons. Here is my answer for today. Ask me again tomorrow and I’ll have another list for you.

The first people who come to mind are: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Susie Lampert, Lucy and Brian Mueller, and Hannah Shaw.

-- Lin-Manuel for changing the face and sound of musicals through a creative risk that he spent six years of his life on, and for being someone who stands up for what he believes in (like breaking down stereotypes and fighting for immigrant rights).

-- Susie, for how she gets so much joy from giving both as a musician and as a psychiatric nurse for people with serious mental illnesses.

-- My daughter Lucy for navigating through the world of being a kid with her unique brand of creativity and kindness towards others and in that way being a teacher for me.

-- My husband Brian for never giving up on discovering his true calling and having the persistence and humility to go back to school at 40 years old alongside kids right out of college and finally get his PhD in psychology so he can do what he was meant to do and help other people with his insight and compassion.

-- Hannah Shaw (who is someone I just recently discovered) for making a career out of rescuing neonatal kittens who would otherwise be euthanized and fostering them until they are healthy enough- and old enough - to be adopted, as well as educating others in how to help these animals themselves. (Oh, and she’s also a rap artist!).

I admire and respect all of them so much for pursuing the things that they are good at, and that bring themselves and other people so much pleasure.

It’s been about 8 years since the release of Rocketship Run -- what inspired you to start work on Superhero after that long break?

I had been writing and recording a lot in the interim, but everything I did was either based on a theme (Christmas, lullabies, classics, songs for the musicals I was working on) or because I was hired to write something for a specific purpose. It felt like it was time to let my imagination be free and write a new batch of songs where I was just thinking about kids, and things I thought were fun or that I would want to sing about. It was both wonderful and very daunting. I felt very free to write about anything that inspired me, but at the same time there were so many things that inspired me, it was hard to narrow down all of the choices! I wrote 21 songs for this album and started many more that didn’t make it on there.

You have a handful of duets on Superhero -- how do you decide who you’d like to sing with, is that a function of the song or the artist?

I always start with whom I would like to sing with. Then I find a song that I think they would enjoy singing and that will bring out what they do best. I have so much fondness for both Brady Rymer and Kira Willey that I was very excited to ask them to be a part of this album. I asked Kira before I had even finished writing the songs and was happy when I realized her lovely airy voice would sound so good (along with her violin playing!) on "Swing Me." With Brady, I knew he would be playing on the album as part of the band and immediately thought of his voice once we had recorded the instrumental parts of "Opelika, Alabama." Maybe it’s partially because I remember listening to his song “Road Trip” so many times in the car when my daughter, Lucy, was younger. He mentions so many fun names of towns and he has such a down-to-earth kind of energy, I just thought he would nail the vocals on that one. He did.

With Ziggy [Marley], I was inspired to ask him because of having sung with him once before on his album, Family Time. I love the way we sounded together on that album, and I’m a big fan so I was honored that he agreed to sing on Superhero with me. I really love his voice and wanted it to be featured on a track that felt like a real duet, with two distinct characters. It soon became clear that "My Marisol" was that song.

Have you found that writing or performing music is easier because those muscles are so well developed or harder because you’ve been doing it for so long that it’s harder to feel like it’s fresh?

That’s a great question … I definitely find performing easier now than it was when I started. I’m still nervous before every show, but it’s less so now because I can remind myself how much I enjoy singing with everyone once I get on stage. When I was younger I used to feel like I was actually going to throw up before I would perform. I couldn’t even stand to do a piano recital in my teacher’s living room without freezing up and crying.

As for writing, I’m not sure if it’s easier now or harder. I have much higher expectations of myself now that I’ve been doing it for so long, and sometimes that self-criticism really stifles my creativity. I used to just make up songs on my way to work as a pre-school music specialist so I would have new material for that day. Now I often tweak and play with a song idea for a much longer time than a 45-minute commute. At the same time, the actual process of writing a song when I have a deadline is less of a mystery to me now, so I have many more strategies I can use to get the writing process started if I’m struggling.

You’ve written a couple musicals and are working on a third -- what is the best part about working on a musical as opposed to writing and performing on your own or with a band?

I love that there is a story that I have to help move along and that I’m writing in different voices for different characters. I’m not really very good at envisioning the musical as a whole before I’ve written the songs or before I have seen the actors play their parts, so when it does finally all come together it’s an incredibly moving experience. I love hearing other people sing my songs well and in ways that I would never be able to do myself, and I love being IN THE AUDIENCE! I never get to do that at my own concerts. To experience my music along with other people as a listener is just the greatest experience. It’s like being a fly on the wall, especially when people around me don’t notice it’s me sitting next to them while they are reacting to the show.

What makes you most nervous about being a (kids) musician in 2016... and what makes you most excited?

Most nervous: streaming services like Spotify, because they pay so little and make selling albums so much harder. Therefore it’s difficult to make a living as a musician - which is something I have worked very hard to do for the last 20 years.

Most excited: all of the possibilities for making and sharing music. Because it’s so easy to access music now, that many more people can experience it, enjoy it, and share it. It is amazing to me that when I started out, in order for people to hear my music I had to sing for them live or I had to get my cassette tapes directly into their hands. The only way for me to do those things was to gig a lot and sell the music to them myself.

Now I can share my music on YouTube and millions of people can watch it any time they want, and I can sell my music online (or put in on a streaming service like Spotify!) and anyone who wants to hear it has access to it. That is AMAZING to me. It also allows me to make connections with other musicians and my fans so much more easily. I love that ability to be more connected to the people I admire and who care about what I’m doing.

Photo credit: Darrell Hoemann Photography (top), Steve Vaccariello/wardrobe by Corinne Barlow (bottom)

Short and Curly team in Sydney office in 2016

Interview: Kyla Slaven (Short & Curly)

One of my favorite podcasts for kids right now is Short & Curly, a production of Australia's ABC. You can read my review of the show if you'd like, but basically it's an ethics podcast for kids and families that delves into ethical issues without being ponderous. It's the product of those four people striking a pose in the picture above, giving you a sense that they're not taking themselves too seriously. The three in front are the "on-air" talent: Molly Daniels, an actor and writer; Carl Smith, a reporter for ABC TV; and Dr. Matt Beard, from Australia's The Ethics Centre.

The woman in the back is the engine that makes everything go -- she's Kyla Slaven, the producer for Short & Curly. I wanted to get some background on her, the show, and how the Australian kids podcast scene compares to the American one. (Spoiler alert: a lot of it is going to sound familiar to American podcasters and podcast listeners.)

Zooglobble: How did you get into radio/audio production?

Kyla Slaven: I got into radio accidentally. I was studying journalism at university a long time ago and the documentary film subject was so popular they balloted students for a place. My number didn’t come up, I gave radio a go, and fell in love with it.

How was Short & Curly created (e.g., where did the idea come from, how did you get ABC to support the show, etc.)?

Short & Curly has been on my mind for a few years now. I have previously worked as the producer on a philosophy show for adults at the ABC (The Philosopher’s Zone), and once made a program about studying philosophy in primary school. The kids, the ideas and questions, the whole ethos of it all in the classroom was exciting to me. So I just kept thinking that children were up for a program which appealed to their curious and interesting young minds. I didn’t study philosophy at school or university, another regret of mine, but always wanted to be a journalist or a teacher, so this kind of combines the two. I applied for a secondment [or temporary transfer] from the station I usually work at (RN at the ABC) to come to this digital first/podcast project (called First Run, which also made Science VS – now a Gimlet show) and this was one of the ideas I pitched.

I think the ABC was interested because it was a group of people not really being serviced by audio/radio at all (kids). The show is aimed at children listening with the families and also the show builds in things which are only possible in a podcast format, i.e., the pause button approach.

How long did it take you from getting the OK from ABC to having the show ready to air?

This is a bit hard to answer because I was also overseeing pilot podcasts being produced by other people in this First Run project as part of my job, but it was at least 6 months. We had to find/cast the hosts and our in-house ethicist, thinking through how it might sound, we had to find a school to be our brains trust and play around with ideas for topics and sound. I think we have already gotten better at working out how many ideas you can get into one show before it becomes unwieldy.

Our team live in different cities and come together for an intense week for production with me in Sydney, but they all have other jobs as their main gig. The hosts do scripting over a few days each (in the lead up to our week together) and our ethicists is always bouncing ideas around with us, but mostly it is just me working on the show, in all the pre- and post-production tasks. But I really love the week in the studio when I sit in the control room and watch the three of them in the studio riffing off each other and bringing the whole thing to life. There is a fair amount of fun and laughter that week though we are zonked by the end.

What were/are your goals for the series?

The goals were to help develop the culture of families listening to podcasts together (especially on car trips for holidays or stuck on traffic on the way to sports training and the like); the ABC had research showing parents were keen for non-screen based media and entertainment for children. We wanted to reach number one in the kids and family iTunes category in Australia, which we did. (Most of the programs are about parenting, though, rather than being podcasts for children.) I think we still have a lot of work to do in terms of creating a family podcast listening culture (that such podcasts exist, then how to listen to them).

What has been the response to the series in Australia? Internationally?

We have done pretty well, but not as well as some other ABC podcasts. I think some of this is about the issues in the [previous] answer. There is also so much work in getting the word out, targeting people and groups who might be interested in the broader concept or individual programs.

Co-host Molly in recording studio with a couple kids

Did you learn anything, particularly as it relates to creating audio for kids, in the first season of the show that you incorporated into your production of the second season?

What we have learnt, and are still fumbling our way around, is to be really clear in our heads what the two or three main “stops” in the journey are for each episode. We have also tried to do more rather than less signposting of where we are heading and where we have come from. Again, it’s a work in progress but these are probably the two main things we know we have to really nail. We have also tried to amp up the silliness and the colour of each episode using [sound effects] and the host interactions to set up self-contained little worlds.

Who’s your favorite ethicist/philosopher?

I don’t have a favourite philosopher, but I realised when producing the philosophy show that the host (who WAS trained in academic philosophy) was always at his most excited when we were looking at philosophy of science and some of the more esoteric stuff (to me, at least) like about time or reality, whereas I have always been more taken with philosophy and philosophers really grounded in political and social questions, whether in ancient times, during the enlightenment or now. But like I say, I am by no means an expert on philosophy or ethics.

What’s next for the show? For you?

I’m not sure what is next for the show, given we are not even one year in. There is a lot more to explore, as well as the potential for expansion into other areas of philosophy. We are hoping to do a live show later this year, partly so we can just have the fun of being in a big room full of children who are interested in curly questions about the world. My official job is at RN, a national mostly talks-based radio station that is part of the ABC. I would love this show to continue and would love also to do more in the kids audio world, but who knows?

Interview: Eric Herman

Eric Herman and I go way back -- his album Monkey Business was the very first album on I received from a kids' musician for possible review.

Since that time, we've both had our share of success in the kids' music world, though I would defer to Eric in terms of success given the fact that his stone-cold classic song (and video) "The Elephant Song" is approaching 29 million views on YouTube.

Earlier this summer he released Bubble Wrap, an album filled with both humorous songs (as is his wont) but also more serious songs, songs colored by his experience of the death of his wife Roseann, who played a big role in his musical career (and animated the aforementioned video for "The Elephant Song").

Eric answered some questions about the new album, both the serious side (how Roseann's illness and death affected the album) and the not-so-serious side (his favorite comedic bits from Bubble Wrap), plus has some perspective on a kids' music career that's stretched for nearly fifteen years.

What are your first musical memories?

When I was about 4 or 5 I had a cheap little record player and a few 45s of Elvis and Johnny Cash. I had memorized "One Piece at a Time" and would belt out that and "Hound Dog" to anyone who would listen (i.e., my poor sisters and parents). I'm sure my vocal stylings left something to be desired, but the enthusiasm to perform was definitely there.

This was also the heyday of Sesame Street, Electric Company, and Schoolhouse Rock (yes, I'm old), so I have early memories of grooving to that great stuff.

When did you decide you wanted to make music for families?

Back in 2002, several different people encouraged me to do music for kids. It seemed like an odd convergence, so I thought I should at least consider it. At the time I was living in Buffalo and doing a lot of live theater and singer/songwriter shows at coffeehouses, and making a kids' music album was just another thing to do on the side.

If you'd have told me then that I'd be doing nothing but kids/family music for the next 14-15 years, I'd have scoffed. But that kind of took off and felt like a really fun and fulfilling direction to go. When I realized you could write and perform various styles of music and also include a range of ideas from comical to more serious, all within the banner of "children's/kids/kindie/family music," that was very appealing. Also, working with kids entertainment in some way was always a dream of Roseann's, and while she never pushed me in that direction, once I moved that way she was thrilled, and it was a good fit for our fledgling family.

You've been pretty open about how the death of your wife Roseann played a significant role in parts of Bubble Wrap -- what made you decide to talk about that so openly?

For one thing, Roseann deserves to be talked about. She was always a huge force in what I do, and she did have some input and influence on some of the songs that ended up on Bubble Wrap. For songs like "Sunflower Seeds" and the title track, she had direct input about some words and vocal lines, and in some cases, she was a catalyst for the band, where at a rehearsal she'd say something like "reggae" or "Fleetwood Mac" and we'd start ad-libbing music based on that prompt. Those particular prompts yielded "What I Want" and "Everybody's Watching," neither of which sound like reggae or Fleetwood Mac, but it was a useful tool to get something going, and she was great about encouraging things in positive directions like that. I treasure the original recording I have for our "Everybody's Watching" jam, because she can be heard laughing exuberantly and commenting on things as we were finding the different changes of that song in the moment.

Moreso, though, it's probably my last real chance to memorialize Roseann in connection with our music and my career. There may be other songs I'll write about her, and her influence will always be deeply within me and our daughters, but it felt important to share that her life and her loss were a part of this work. Of course, I'm much more on my own from this point forward, and about half of Bubble Wrap came together or was developed after her death, so it also feels like a bridge in that way.

Did writing the song "Okay" help you accept Roseann's death more, or did acceptance lead to the song -- or a bit of both?

The former, though it wasn't written with that intention. "Okay" began musically three months before Roseann died, and the only lyric I had initially was "You did the best you could. It's all good." I thought it might be a song about an adopted child speaking to their biological mother, in understanding for the choice they made at the time. We had been trying to adopt, so I thought Roseann would like that idea, though I never actually shared it with her (which was unusual, but I wanted to flesh out the idea better before bringing it to her).

But I couldn't get any farther on the lyrics, so I set it aside until just a few days before she died, when I suddenly got a burst of input to write most of the rest of the words. Even then, though, I didn't think it was about her or anyone dying... She had been very ill recently, but that had been the case on and off for four years, and I assumed she'd bounce back again.

The night after she died, I picked up my guitar and started playing that song and suddenly realized that not only was it really about a child losing their parent, but it had a lot of deep personal resonance between us. And it was an incredibly cathartic coping tool for me and my girls in the weeks that followed. I must have listened to the rough demo of that song a hundred times that first week. It was as if we were still communicating through the music, and it worked as a message between us, going both ways... "It's okay. You did the best you could. It's okay. I'll love you always." I don't know about her, but I needed to hear that.

Eric Herman with daughters Evee and Becca

Which do you find writing more difficult: serious or silly songs?

I find all writing difficult, especially lyrics. But I suppose I'll go with the old acting adage - tragedy is easy, comedy is hard. Drama and tragedy can be expressed more from the heart and in many different ways that might be effective and meaningful and emotionally resonant. But for comedy to work, the words and phrasing often need to be very particular, as well as the timing and the setups for the jokes or payoffs. Not to diminish the craft and work that can make a serious song great, but I think that dramatic writing is more likely to come organically for me, where comedy requires much more wrestling.

What's your favorite silly/funny song on the album?

I'd say that Bubble Wrap is less silly/funny than most of my other albums, although I think there's a fair amount of humor and some wit in there. "Take a Bath" is probably the most comedic song, building on a simple idea to increasing absurdity. The stinger line from the astronaut was the last thing added to the recording and I'm so glad we thought of that at the last minute, to one-up the joke yet again.

The album does have some of my favorite individual lines, like the "baloney" part in "You Are What You Eat," the epic "fale" in "Where's Saturday?" and the intro line of "Everybody's Watching," which I'll admit might be a darling that should have been killed, but I love it.

You've been making music for families for nearly 15 years -- what have been the biggest positives for kids musicians during that time... and the biggest challenges?

The biggest positive is that the genre itself opened up so much during that time, so that the idea of having specific music for your kids or to share as a family was more widely embraced, in general. Sure, there were people like Raffi and Joe Scruggs and Trout Fishing [in America] doing family music in the '90s, but I think it grew so much more with The Wiggles, and with Ralph [Covert] and Justin [Roberts] and others coming on at that time and expanding the range of the genre. The rising tide lifted all boats and made opportunities to find a direction and an audience much more possible for everyone.

An obvious challenge during a time of plenty is distinguishing yourself among the many others, and finding ways to connect with an audience and get your work out there.

In retrospect, there are things that I could have done (and can do) better in terms of connecting with others and also as far as defining myself better. I've always done a variety of different things on my albums and that's selfishly what interests me, but I can see where some albums haven't been as cohesive because of that. I'm content to do what I do, but I can acknowledge where a tighter focus has served others very well.

What's next for you?

I'm working on a stage musical about Alexander Hamilton's life, tentatively titled "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Duel with Aaron Burr." Should be a big hit, eh?

Other than that, I'm not sure. There are a few different ideas in the *maybe* stage, but nothing has lit a fire under my butt yet. Every time I'm in this limbo between specific projects, I start to doubt whether I can ever create anything again. But then at some point, a direction or idea hits me and I'm off to work. I should know to trust that will happen, and yet, I still have that period of severe doubt every time. I suppose that may be essential to the process.

In the short term, stay tuned for a few more Bubble Wrap videos, including "Phone," "You Are What You Eat," and "Hello."

Photo credits: Larissa Workman (Eric on tightrope), Eric Herman (Eric, Roseann and daughters), Darin Warnick (Eric with daughters), Denise Culver (Thunder Puppies)

The Radio Adventures of Eleanor Amplified logo

The Radio Adventures of Eleanor Amplified: WHYY's Brand New Podcast for Kids

If you look at my list of podcasts for kids, you'll note that while there are a lot of story podcasts -- shows that tell many different stories -- there are relatively few what I call "audioplays," which is an amorphous term in my list, but which includes serialized audio dramas.

Starting tomorrow, that list of serialized audio dramas officially grows by one as The Radio Adventures of Eleanor Amplified begins its first season. It's a show grown under the auspices of Philadelphia public radio station WHYY and it features... well, according to the podcast's iTunes page, it features:

Eleanor Amplified, the world-famous radio reporter, as she foils dastardly plots, outwits crafty villains, and goes after The Big Story. Listen in as Eleanor's pursuit of truth takes her into orbit, out to sea, through a scary jungle, and even to the halls of Congress!

That doesn't intrigue you? How about a trailer?

There will 10 episodes (not including the trailer above), with episodes 1 and 2 hitting your podcast player tomorrow, June 29, and the remaining episodes released weekly.

For many reasons -- not just the story, but also the story behind the story -- I wanted to find out a little bit more. So I dropped John Sheehan a line. He's the creator of Eleanor Amplified. His day job, as it were, is as a producer for Fresh Air with Terry Gross at WHYY. How did he get to WHYY?

I played in rock bands all through college. One night, I was working the door at a venue and began talking with a woman who, as it turned out, was a producer at WHYY... I was newly into public radio, and very enthusiastic about it, and she invited me to come by the station and try editing some audio. I was familiar enough with audio software from my band experience, and I bluffed my way into a part-time job. I freelanced for years and eventually was hired on Fresh Air with Terry Gross - that was 2008.

Asked about the genesis of show, Sheehan cites an inspiration and a limitation:

First: A looong family car trip made me think, "Hey, I should do a podcast that kids and parents could listen to." Second: Fiction was all I had time for. My wife and I had just learned our second daughter was on the way, and I officially had zero free time outside of work. So I had to come up with a podcast that I could make from my desk, right before work, during lunch breaks and on my walks home. And with the exception of recording the actors, that's exactly how I did it.

As for the creative and audio inspiration, Sheehan listed Saturday morning cartoons, Indiana Jones, and Flash Gordon:

Obviously, I'm borrowing the form of old radio serials and radio theater, but I wanted it to sound contemporary. I wanted the tone and the feel of the series to be something kids today would recognize. I use a lot of music, snappy dialogue, and a lot of sound design.

Lest someone think that this is just a response to the sudden attention paid to the need for more kids' podcasts, it's taken about a year for Eleanor Amplified to get to this point. Sheehan pitched the "very vague" idea of "children's adventure stories about an intrepid reporter" to an internal WHYY podcast competition. After about six months, during which time Sheehan made some test episodes (and his wife and he had their second daughter), the station finally gave the go-ahead:

When it was ultimately approved, I was able to hit the ground running: I cranked out scripts, brought the actors back for whirlwind recording sessions, and started making episodes... I honestly enjoyed every step of the process, but having the actors in the studio breathing life into the scripts was amazing.

Another reason why Eleanor Amplified is a big deal is that it's the first kids podcast I'm aware of that's receiving foundation support. As you might suspect, advertising in kids podcasting poses challenges that aren't there in podcasts for adults -- it'll be a significant component of what the audio producers in Kids Listen will grapple with. So the fact that Eleanor Amplified has funding from the Sutherland Family Foundation -- not to mention the support of WHYY itself -- is a precedent that a lot of other producers no doubt hope is a successful one. Sheehan himself says there's "definitely an audience for family friendly content" and hopes there's more foundation support for similar efforts.

In the end, though, the 6-year-old listening to Eleanor Amplified doesn't care about the economics of kids podcasting -- she cares about the stories. I hope it's successful purely as a listening experience. And Sheehan?

If it sparks some imaginations I'll consider it a complete success. Growing up, I loved cartoons and adventure stories. I'd even say I needed them. I would think about a thrilling scene or a plot twist or a cliffhanger-ending long after the episode was over. And if Eleanor can generate even a little of the kind of excitement I felt as a child, it'll be 100% worth it.