Too Much TV: Working For (Or On) The Weekend

Here’s everything you need to know about the world of television for Friday, March 20th, 2026:

JENNIFER OXLEY TALKS ABOUT THE NEW SEASON OF 'WONDER PETS: IN THE CITY'
When my son was younger, we watched a lot of animated kids programs on Noggin, a commercial-free cable network for kids which boasted some great original kids programming, such as Jack's Big Music Show and Wonder Pets! The latter show also aired on Nick Jr. and had a visual style that was incredibly distinctive.

Josh Selig and Jennifer Oxley developed the series and Oxley created a style of animation called "photo-puppetry" that uses photos of real objects and moves them using Adobe After Effects. There was plenty of music and a real focus on the magic and overall kindness of animals. Each episode followed basically the same premise. The episode started in a classroom in which the teacher and kids were leaving for the day. A red phone began ringing, and when The Wonder Pets answered the phone, they'd find that an animal was in trouble somewhere.

The show aired for three seasons, from 2006 to 2016. In 2024, Apple TV ordered an updated take on the show, helmed by Oxley. And while the characters and setting are a bit different this time around, the series will still feel familiar to fans of the original.

Season two of Wonder Pets: In the City premieres Friday, March 20th on Apple TV and I was recently able to speak with Jennifer Oxley about the show and what it felt like to bring back the series after being away from it for nearly a decade.

Here is an excerpt from the complete interview, which you can read here:

When you were originally doing Wonder Pets!, you were caught up in the middle of production, and it's really busy and hectic, and you don't really have the time to reflect on it. And now that's been ten or so years since the show ended, I wondered what is like to have the time to get a bit of perspective on the show. To realize that there is an entire generation of people who grew up with the show. And that it has more meaning to people than you realized when you were originally working on it.

Jennifer Oxley: Yeah, that's really important and powerful. As I was doing it, it was early in my career, and I didn't really know. I didn't know if it was going to be a success, and how it would really be resonating with kids, or even adults.

But then for years after, people would sing back to me, "What's going to work? Do you work? The phone, the phone is ringing." They would sing back these themes from the show. And then even fast forward to now, the kids that were watching it way back when are now older, and just posting these videos on social media about the show, and how it made a difference in their lives. It's really special.

So how does that frame your preparation when you're getting ready to reboot this? It's now going into the second season, but you've got to be aware, there's people out there who have these memories of the original. You don't want to disappoint them, but you can't do the same show you did back then.

Jennifer Oxley: You just sort of hit it right there. Because when they first asked me, if I wanted to think of what a reboot might be, my first thought was "My gosh, I want to do what I did before. I want to sort of live up to and elevate, you know, what we were doing." And it becomes a question of why now? Why reboot it? Why not just let it live? You know, what more do we have to say?

So I asked myself all those questions, and it really pushed me to make sure that this reboot lived up to what made the original, I think, for fans, so great. I think there are some fans that maybe still miss Linny, Tuck, and Ming-Ming. And there was this request to introduce all new pets. But they're not gone. It's just that we get to meet a brand new team of pets that are sort of working in tandem with them.

THE CREATORS OF 'KPOP DEMON HUNTERS' HAVE A LOT TO SING ABOUT
The negotiations took awhile, but KPop Demon Hunters creators Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans have signed a deal with Netflix that not only gets them onboard for a sequel movie, but Puck (gift link) reports they get bonuses for the first film as well as a piece of other ancillary products:

Sony, whose animation studio produced the first movie, made only around $20 million (plus a $5 million fee for keeping the film on the platform) due to some Covid-era dealmaking— is getting a raise to about $40 million for the sequel, plus a retroactive “bonus” that brings the fee on the first movie up to that same number, and a royalty on merchandise. Plus there are now separate bonuses if the sequel performs, a perk that Sony business affairs executives really wish they had inserted into the original deal.

Because animation takes so long, the Kang and Appelhans contracts look more like TV showrunner overall deals than one-off film pacts. Both are exclusive to Netflix for about five years, and together they are making about $10 million annually during the term, guaranteed, per sources. Both Kang and Appelhans also scored a share of ancillary revenue from the franchise, including merchandising. And that starts now, so it includes all those makeup kits and glow sticks branded with the first film. They don’t share in the music revenue from the first movie—Sony made that deal with Republic Records, which released the soundtrack—but Kang and Appelhans will participate in music money on the sequel. The process for selecting songwriters or performers hasn’t begun, though I’m told a murderer’s row of K-pop artists have made their interest known. (Netflix and reps for the talent declined to comment on all of these figures.)

REMEMBERING THE CHEESY ACTION MOVIE LEGACY OF CHUCK NORRIS
I think it's fair to say that we'll likely never see another action star like the recently deceased Chuck Norris. His acting range was about as expansive as my bum knee and most of the movies he starred in didn't much of a plot beyond "Norris snarls, then kicks someone's ass." But the best of his film career offered up a lot of cheesy fun. And if you're looking to resample some of his best (and that's a relative term) work, Pluto TV has a large number of his films available free on demand. Including Good Guys Wear Black, A Force Of One,     The Octagon, The President's Man, The President’s Man: A Line in the Sand, An Eye For An Eye, Lone Wolf McQuade, Missing In Action, Missing In Action 2: The Beginning, Braddock: Missing In Action III, Code of Silence, Invasion U.S.A., The Delta Force, The Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection, The Cutter, Firewalker, and Logan's War: Bound By Honor.

In most of these films, Norris comes off a bit like a dollar store Rambo. But it's worth checking out An Eye For An Eye, Lone Wolf McQuade and Code Of Silence.

ODDS AND SODS
* CBS News Radio operated for 99 years and will cease production in May. Over 700 affiliated stations will have two months to find a replacement network. One big question is what will happen to the extensive CBS Radio archives. I hope that before Bari Weiss opts to trash it all in order to save money, they offer someone the opportunity to house it independently. I am certainly willing to take on that task if no one else will.

* Season three of 24 In 24: Last Chef Standing premieres Sunday, April 26th on the Food Network. The 24 chefs competing are: Robyn Almodovar, Avishar Barua, Chris Brown, Dawn Burrell, Monique Cadavona, Sam Fore, Lex Grant, Trimell Hawkins, Anthony Iracane, Maryam Ishtiaq, Joe Isidori, Brian Malarkey, Maria Mazon, Christina Miros, Shota Nakajima, Olivia Ostrow, Viet Pham, Michele Ragussis, Alex Stupak, Lee Anne Wong, Molly Yeh, Zac Young, Ara Zada and Antonello Zito.

*  Democratic Attorney Generals are asking a judge in California for a nationwide temporary restraining order blocking the acquisition of TEGNA by Nexsta. The motion says the Trump administration may have rushed approval of the deal yesterday to prevent a court from blocking it.

* The Oscar-nominated film Marty Supreme will premiere on streaming Friday, April 23rd on HBO Max. It premieres on HBO the following evening.

* A review of Polymarket's social media feeds by the NY Times found it has published hundreds of false and misleading posts, as the betting market presents itself as "News 2.0"

* Kalshi has been temporarily banned in Nevada. the gambling capital of America. A judge has issued a 14-day restraining order, effective immediately, barring the company from “offering a derivatives exchange and prediction market which offers event-based contracts relating to sports, election, and entertainment related events.”

* The Roast Of Kevin Hart will air live on Netflix Sunday, May 10th and will be hosted by the totally not racist Shane Gillis.

NEVER AGAIN
Actor and comedian Michael Ian Black has a newsletter and he just posted an incredibly powerful piece on what it feels like to be an American Jew at this point in history:

My family and I are, apparently, the hostile force. Not the band of conmen at our nation’s helm. Not the warmongers. Not the power-hungry. Not the sycophants. Not the cowards. Not the white nationalists. And yes, some of those people are also Jews because some Jews are, indeed, terrible people. Just like some Christians and Muslims and atheists are terrible people. Because some people are terrible. One’s faith is no more determinative of your moral center than one’s hair color.

For years, I have carried around with me the haunting final words of Daniel Pearl, the Wall St. Journal writer kidnapped by jihadists in 2002. His abductors videotaped a final message from Pearl, who condemned American aggression in the region before stating: “My name is Daniel Pearl. My father is Jewish. My mother is Jewish. I am Jewish.”

His captors then slit his throat.

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