Super Why!
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 Who's got the power, the power to read? Who answers the call, for friends in need? Super Why! Super Why, he's the guy he's Super Why!
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Super Why! is a 2007 American preschool CGI animated series. Produced for PBS Kids, the series aired from September 3, 2007, to May 12, 2016. The series follows a boy named Whyatt Beanstalk, who, along with his friends, become the Super Readers and jump into books.
Why It's Got the Power to Read
- The animation is great, especially for the CGI-animated parts of the show.
- The show includes a lot of fairy tale characters, imagined as residents of Storybrook Village.
- The name Storybrook Village is a good pun on "Storybook" and "Brook".
- Great voice acting, especially from Tajja Isen, who voiced Princess Pea/Princess Presto in ALL 3 seasons!
- There are many fun fairy tale books in the series.
- Unlike Dora the Explorer, Jojo's Circus, and Little Einsteins, the fourth wall/fake interactivity breaks here aren't too long nor even bothersome at all and give enough time for the viewer to answer, especially in the second season onwards.
- Catchy songs, especially the theme song and closing song "Hip Hip Hooray!".
- The usage of the font called "Century Gothic" is well-executed, and was even edited as well, both on the uppercase and lowercase letters.
- It is very adventurous and also reminds us of fairy tales.
- Likable characters, especially the Super Readers.
- Whyatt Beanstalk/Super Why is the leader of the group with the power to read.
- Littlest Pig/Alpha Pig is a pig who has alphabet power and can build things.
- Little Red Riding Hood/Wonder Red has word power and likes to rhyme and make word families with her basket.
- Princess Pea/Princess Presto has spelling power and likes to draw letters with her Magic Spelling Wand.
- Puppy/Woofster is Super Why's pet dog who has dictionary power and can find the definition of a certain word with his doggy dictionary.
- Some heartwarming moments now and then, especially when Whyatt visits his brother Jack from college.
- The concept of a children's series about a child exploring the insides of a book is very interesting. In addition, the 1999 pilot episode which was lost for many years was very good.
Qualities That Got Erased by the Eraser
- The changing of a story can be a concern as the actual fairy tales are shoehorned to the lesson the characters learn, which may remove the conflict from the original stories.
- There are some mean-spirited moments, like one where Jack berates Wyatt for messing with his gutiar.
- In Season 3, the animation started to slightly downgrade as the shading and rendering looked cheap and uncanny. The show also started re-using clips from the first two seasons, resulting in inconsistency.
- Not even the animation from the first two seasons was that perfect, with the first clip from this mini-precopulatory video being the worst offender.
- The new short-form series Super Why's Comic Book Adventures omits Alpha Pig and Woofster, and is replaced by Power Paige. Though while likable, she can be considered a Mary Sue.
Reception
The show received positive reviews on Common Sense Media, with a rating of 4/5. However, New York Times reviewer Susan Stewart criticized Super Why! for taking classic fairy tales with traditionally dark lessons and morph them into etiquette lessons (specifically The Three Little Pigs and Hansel and Gretel). She also criticized the show for its usage of fourth wall breaks for viewers to answer. Despite her criticism, Stewart agreed that Super Why! is brilliant in educational value, nonetheless.
It has a 6.1/10 on IMDb and an audience score of 83% on Rotten Tomatoes.