Thunderbird Entertainment Group announced that its animated series Molly of Denali has been nominated for Peabody Award. The series is co-produced by WGBH Boston and the company’s kids and family division Atomic Cartoons, for PBS KIDS and CBC Kids.
“It is such an incredible honour to receive a Peabody Award nomination for Molly of Denali, a series that we have been so passionate about from the very beginning,” said Thunderbird Entertainment and Atomic Cartoons CEO Jennifer Twiner McCarron in a statement.
The Peabody Awards Board of Jurors has selected 60 nominees that represent the most compelling and empowering stories released in broadcasting and digital media during 2019. The nominees were chosen by a unanimous vote of 19 jurors from nearly 1,300 entries from television, radio/podcasts and the web in entertainment, news, documentary, children’s and public service programming.
Molly of Denali follows the inquisitive 10-year-old Molly Mabray, who has cultural heritage from three Athabascan groups (the Gwich’in, Koyukon and Dena’ina), as she and her friends explore the epic surroundings and rich Native culture that is home. The series is designed to help kids ages 4-8 develop informational text skills through video content, interactive games, and real-world activities.
The series has been acknowledged as the first nationally distributed children’s series in the US to feature an indigenous lead character, since it premiered in July 2019. All Alaska Native characters portrayed on the ground-breaking series are voiced by Indigenous actors, and more than 60 Alaska Natives contributed to the series as writers, producers, actors, musicians, and language and cultural advisors.