The Busy World of Richard Scarry is an American/Canadian/French animated children's television series, produced by CINAR Animation and France Animation in association with Paramount Television (whose logo can be seen at the beginning of every episode), which aired from 1994 to 1997, first on Showtime, later on Nickelodeon as part of Nick Jr, and ran for 65 episodes. The television series was based on the books drawn and written by Richard Scarry. Reruns of the show formerly aired in syndication as part of the Cookie Jar Kids Network block. It was also shown on the Cookie Jar Toons block on This TV until October 26, 2013. Reruns of the show aired on Qubo from May 13, 2013 to September 25, 2016, and again from March 28, 2017 to May 26, 2018.
Premise
The series takes place in the fictional city of Busytown and mainly stars Huckle Cat, Lowly Worm and many of the other residents of Busytown. Every "human" in the series is an anthropomorphic animal, most commonly pigs, foxes, breeds of dogs, mice, rabbits, goats, and cats. Each episode always features a conflict (which is eventually resolved in the end). However, episodes featuring other anthropomorphic animals, like Couscous catching Pépé le Gangstaire and his dirty rats, Sam and Dudley, Sneef, Cucumbers and Pickles, etc. have taken place outside of Busytown in other places around the world.
Trivia
- A spin-off of The Busy World of Richard Scarry, Hurray for Huckle (later retitled Busytown Mysteries) was originally going to premiere on Qubo and the NBC block, but due to Cookie Jar purchasing DiC Entertainment, which led to the former owning their CBS block KEWLopolis, the show has since launched when the block was reformatted as Cookie Jar TV instead.[1]