Here's what you can expect from an episode of Iconicles!
Main title/opening song: A brief, animated, musical introduction to the world of ICONICLES, our key animated stars and our live action host – repeated at the top of each half-hour episode.
Live action welcome: Nat welcomes us to the Iconi-carium and introduces the theme for the day, generally inspired by whatever activity in which he happens to be engaged. This will be different for each half hour.
Iconi-screen song: An engaging, infectious, rhyming song with four possible final verses, one for each of the different ICONICLES locations. This animated and live action song plays in each episode, thereby encouraging and ensuring familiarity with the various habitats of the Iconicles. Each version introduces the characters from one of the specific locations - the same characters who will be featured in that episode’s narrative story.
Narrative story: At the heart of each half-hour episode is a ten-minute animated story, a character-driven showcase for the theme, introduced by Nat. Divided into three acts and separated by live action interludes, these stories always follow the same format and focus on one set of characters at a time.
Live action interludes: In addition to the opening and closing, Nat appears in between acts of the narrative story – sometimes interacting with animated characters (either on his Iconi-screen or with him in the Iconi-carium) and always interacting with the viewers at home.
Iconicle transition: Part of the live action interludes, this is the moment when one of the four lead Iconicles enters the live action world of Nat's Iconi-carium with a signature (and always repeated!) transitional move. Each character is recognised and recalled by their distinct personalities, designs, personal sound effects and/or accompanying, musical themes. The transitions are one more extension of this effort to breed familiarity.
Game One – Spot the Iconicle: Each narrative story is set in one of four specific locales. At some point in the story, a character who is NOT supposed to be in that specific location appears in the background, doing something that relates to the episode’s theme. During one of the live action interludes, Nat leads the audience (and any visiting Iconicle!) in a game of 'Spot the Iconicle'. This simple game not only reinforces the audience’s familiarity with the characters of our show and the specific environments in which they live, but provides opportunities to further explore that episode’s theme.
Game Two – Who, why, what, when, where, why: A curriculum-based observation game occurs in each episode, led by Nat and/or his Iconicle guest. Like 'Spot the Iconicle', this game is designed to make full use of Nat’s Iconi- screen (replaying, scrolling, freezing, dragging, zooming) and focuses on core, pre-school learning objectives: shapes, colours, sizes, sorting etc.
Closing song: A simple, conclusive song sung by Nat at the end of each episode, thanking the audience for spending time with him and his friends and inviting them back for more!
