Team Umizoomi

Team Umizoomi is an American computer-animated musical children's television series produced for Nickelodeon and created by Soo Kim, Michael T. Smith, and Jennifer Twomey with an emphasis on mathematical concepts, such as counting, sequences, shapes, patterns, measurements, and equalities. Neither imperial nor metric units are used in the show, meaning it can be shown in any location, regardless of which system is used locally. The program debuted on Nickelodeon on January 25, 2010 and ended on April 24, 2015, through despite this, it continues to reruns on Nick Jr. channel block as of now.

Team Umizoomi

"Calling all Umi's! Team Umizoomi! One, two, three, four! Umi! Zoomi! Umi! Umizoomi!"

Genre:	Preschool Musical Adventure Comedy Educational
Running Time:	23-24 minutes 45 minutes (special episodes in Seasons 2-4)
Country:	United States
Release Date:	January 25, 2010 – April 24, 2015
Network(s):	Nickelodeon Nick Jr.
Created by:	Soo Kim Michael T. Smith Jennifer Twomey
Distributed by:	Paramount Domestic Media Networks
Starring:	Sophia Fox Madeleine Rose Yen Ethan Kempner Juan Mirt Donovan Patton P.T. Walkley
Seasons:	4
Episodes:	80

Despite being a computer-animated show, the show also features live-action scenes for humans, both standalone and blended with the computer-animated sequences.

Plot

"Team Umizoomi" consists of the tiny team superheroes: 6-year-old leader Milli, her 5-year-old brother Geo, and their friendly robot, Bot, who lives in UmiCity. These mighty math superheroes introduce young viewers to the mathematical concepts of counting, measurement, shapes, and patterns. For each episode, Milli and Geo help other kids with their problems, which are sent to them via the Umi Alarm.

Why It's UmiTastic

Very educational, as it focused the viewers learned about the emphasis on mathematical concepts, such as counting, sequences, shapes, patterns, measurements, and equalities, as well as the message, like using your imagination, being small won't matter, being a good sport, best friends help each other, etc.
Like Little Einsteins, Wonder Pets! and Blue's Clues, the animation is amazing, fresh and relaxed. What's more about it is that the combination of computer animation and live-action worked really well, like any scenes involving Milli, Geo, and Bot for live-action characters. Some characters blend in pretty well, and some stick out like a sore thumb.
- In fact, it was so impressive that it was animated by Cuppa Coffee Studios, who also animated Little Einsteins in season 1 alongside Curious Pictures.
- Speaking of Blue's Clues, Soo Kim (One of the members) created this show, and Donavan Patton (Voice of Joe) also voices Bot.
The premise of mighty math superheroes help the kids to solve the problems in the fictional city by the concepts is original, creative, uncommon and cute, especially for a Nick Jr. show standards.
Extremely catchy and timeless musical songs for a preschool/Nick Jr. show standards that were well fitting for mixture of different genres, especially with rock and pop, the theme song, Mighty Math Powers, Crazy Shake Song and Snack Patterns.
Entertaining side characters, such as UmiCar and DoorMouse.
Promotes teamwork, imagination and creativity uniquely.
- In the case of the imagination topic, Geo has the idea to make stuff that is not made of shapes. For example, he created motorcycle out of toys, helicopter out of the food and wrecking ball out of bathroom by using his powers in "Team Umizoomi VS. The Shape Bandit", thanks to his shape belt being stolen.
Bot is a good, funny and smartest role model where he demonstrates leadership efficiently and has his powers to help themselves.
- Belly-Belly Belly Screen/Super Robot Computer: It allows Bot to view the person in trouble, the things to do, etc.
- Bot-O-Mat: It can store anything the team may need.
- Robot Gadgets: Usually everyday items (such as skis, vacuums, etc.) or non-ordinary items (such as lasers).
The two siblings (Milli and Geo) are cute, diverse, smart and likable main characters who have adorable chemistry pair, creative designs and personalities, work together to solves the problems and are able to learn and do something as well as have creative powers. And despite being siblings, some fans can't help but pair Milli up with Geo.
- Milli:
  - Milli-Measure: Milli's pigtails, but she prefers "ponytails", become a ruler, scale, etc. She can also use it to add measurements to specific things, which was revealed in one of their promos.
  - Pattern Power: In episodes up to "The Big Boat Race", Pattern Power is, basically, applying a pattern onto an item. In episodes starting with "The Dinosaur Museum Mishap", Milli changes her dress into a pattern mostly to add something missing to the pattern by peeling the picture of the item off with that picture fading then more color added, to fix a pattern or to follow a pattern to get through obstacles. Examples of her dress patterns are on Milli's Many Patterns.
  - Ponytails: Milli's hair extends to her liking. See more on Milli-Measure.
  - Karate: Milli knows how to do karate. She has powerful chop, kick, even her ponytails. She mostly uses her skills to get past pattern and remove measurements or to divide something into fractions.
- Geo:
  - Super Shapes: The main power of Geo. It often consists building various objects and/or tools out of shapes for certain episodes, like UmiBoat and UmiCooper.
  - Shape Splitter: A sword that could split any shapes in half to build the item. This power was introduced in "DoorMouse in Space", and was also used in "The Kitty Rescue" and "Animal School House."
  - Shape Magnet: A power introduced in the Season Three episode "Rainy Day Rescue". Also used in other episodes such as "The Umi City Treasure Hunt" and "City of Lost Penguins". Geo holds a magnet which can attach to or attract any kind of shape.
  - Antennaes: The antennaes on Geo's helmet are not just for decoration. He uses them to make blue prints. He slightly tilts his head to the right and the antennaes make blue prints to look like whatever he wants it to look like. In "Team Umizoomi VS. The Shape Bandit", he made blue prints that were made up of objects he found around the area. In "Movie Madness!", while in the spy movie, he used the sunglasses he was wearing to make a blue print of a shark submarine.
Very intriguing and interesting each episode plots, for the most part with some continuity.
The Shape Bandit is not only clever antagonist in the show, but there are also other good antagonists seen in the show as well, such as Zilch, Squiddy, and The TroubleMakers (even through the Troublemakers are not that smart and didn’t reform).
Milli, Geo and Bot (the main characters) talks to reasonably the toddlers and audience in a charming way to understand is not pandering at best.
Some tear jerker moments, such as the Shape Bandit's speech about wanting to live in a home.
The live-action human characters (including kids) in Umi City are cute and interesting who helps with Team Umizoomi to do something.
Awesome and great humor, especially the scene when the Troublemakers failed to succeed the plan by ended up for garbage stuffs.
The episode "Team Umizoomi VS. The Shape Bandit" provided that even without his shape belt, Geo still has his powers and make anything with shapes found in his surrounding.
Outstanding and funny sketches moments that sometimes pays homage for pop culture, like DoorMouse chasing his cheese.
Very good voice acting. Milli's secondary voice actress, Madeleine Rose Yen, was the better replacement of Sophia Fox, who sounded much better and capturing the tone.
The episode "Umi Rescue Copter" was a great way to end the show in the high, due to long month hiatuses between new episode airings. Although it isn't dead, since it reruns on the Nick Jr. channel block as of now. There's also a petition for the show to continue with its 5th season.
Tons of memorable catchphrases, especially the animated characters, like:
- Milli:
  - "Umirific!"
  - "Uh, guys?" (in numerous episodes)
  - "Pattern Power!"
  - "Milli Measure!"
- Geo:
  - "Awesome!"
  - "Umi-zoomi!"
  - "Super Shapes!"
  - "Hold onto your helmets!"
  - "Calling UmiCar, Calling UmiCar!"
  - "Come and get us!"
- Bot:
  - "Legs extendo!"
  - "Arms extendo!"
  - "Jaw extendo!"
  - "Yoinks-a-doinks!"
  - "Sizzling circuits!"

The Only Bad Qualities

Like other Nick Jr. shows such as Dora the Explorer and Blaze and the Monster Machines, any viewers above the target audience for this show would find the constant fourth wall breaking annoying at times.
It can get formulaic and repetitive at times, with the same plot.
The TroubleMakers, while being good villains, can sometimes be annoying.

Reception

A lot of critics and fans of Nick Jr. as well as Nickelodeon were so happy and agreed that the show teaches good lessons for kids, especially mathematical concepts. The show got 6.1 out of 10 on IMDb.

Videos

Trivia

This is the first Nick Jr. show as well as the first Nickelodeon show to debut in the 2010s.
- Likewise, it is also the first show that were produced by Nickelodeon Animation Studio to debut in the 2010s.
This show is part of the hypothetical Blue's Clues Cinematic Universe, alongside Super Why!.
"Milli" more literally means "By the thousandth" or just "thousand". It may also be based upon the word "chameleon" since she can change colors/colors from her dress kind of like a real chameleon.
Milli and Geo are the only main characters with definite age (Milli is six years old and Geo is five years old). The other character Bot's age is indefinite. It predicts that the age gap of Geo and Milli is one year.
Curious Pictures, who produced this show, were also produced Codename: Kids Next Door and Little Einsteins.
- Likewise, Cuppa Coffee Studios, who animated this show, were also animated Little Einsteins in season 1.
- And speaking of Cuppa Coffee, they also animated the pilot of Super Why (which has Blue's Clues crew on it)
A video game based on the series was released for the Nintendo DS on November 1, 2011.
There are three commercial to promote the show, Heidi's High Heels, Jeff's Wheels, and Gordon's Strawberry Shortcake.
For some reason, in some Team Umizoomi products, Milli's clothing has a more reddish tone.
Strangely, in the first ten episodes, the splat and lightbulb logo from Nickelodeon were used, despite using the rebrand current logo from promotional material, although it was justified, since it was produced in 2008-2009. Likewise, on August 9, 2011, on Nickelodeon USA airings of 2 Team Umizoomi episodes ("Counting Comet" and "Ice Cream Truck"), a Bubble Guppies episode ("Boy Meets Squirrel!"), and a Dora the Explorer episode (Baseball Boots), the 23rd Nickelodeon Productions logo was, due to plastering errors, strangely revived. As a result, the 26th Nickelodeon Productions, Curious Pictures (for Team Umizoomi only), and Nelvana Limited (for Bubble Guppies only) logos were plastered at once and had the music from those logos.
- Also, on at least one print of Team Umizoomi, it used the laughing sound from the 2001 and 2008 split-screen credits logos instead of current logo music. This also happened on airings of various iCarly episodes on September 26, 2009, and again on an airing of the iCarly episode "iNevel" on November 1, 2009.
Joanna Ruiz (aka Geo's UK Voice Actor) was also known the voice of Pixel and Trixie on another Nick Jr. show, LazyTown.
Out of all the members of Team Umizoomi, so far, Milli is the only member to not be in trouble. Bot was in "Crazy Skates" and "Milli Saves the Day", Geo was in "Milli Saves the Day", while UmiCar was in "The Great UmiCar Rescue".
Andy Holt (aka Bot's UK Voice Actor in Season 4) was also known the voice of Mr. Grouper on another Nick Jr. show, Bubble Guppies.
As kids, Jennifer, Soo and Michael each loved The Borrowers, Thumbelina and The Littles, stories about tiny characters who live in a human-sized world. Years later, their "mini" obsession became the inspiration for Team Umizoomi, a series about tiny superheroes in a colorful urban world who solve big math problems.
Bot is voiced by Donovan Patton, the same actor of Joe who took over for Steve Burns on Blue's Clues in 2002, As stated before, Soo Kim worked on the show.
Ripley Sobo would later star in a major role in The Punisher (2017).
Geo's name is a prefix meaning Earth. It's also related to Geometry, which refers to shapes.
The Pilot of Team Umizoomi had the characters look less like humans and more like magic toys, hence the show was to be named The Umibots!. There were also two characters (Zig Zag - purple and Alphonse - orange) also set to be on the team, but their concepts were scrapped and recycled for the Milli and Geo we know and love today.
"Milli" more literally means "By the thousandth" or just "thousand". It may also be based upon the word "chameleon" since she can change colors/colors from her dress kind of like a real chameleon.

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