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A Six Token Band children's show on PBS done with puppets. You can read more about it on The Other Wiki here.
The Boys[]
- Ben Olafson: European (German and Norwegian) — but not the token Christian; he follows the Norse gods.
- Leon MacNeal: African-American.
- Skye Nakaiye: Apache.
- Kyle O'Connor: Irish-American (and handi-capable). Appeared late in the series' life.
The Girls[]
- Julie Woo: Chinese-American who grew up in San Francisco.
- Jody Silver: Lithuanian Jewish.
- Kiki Flores: Spanish (well, Mexican-American).
Also in the cast: a cat and dog named Sizzle and Nuzzle, who usually took the role of the B-Plot. There's also the multicolored gibberish-speaking Piece Police who run the place.
The puppets were well done and the stories were quite Anvilicious but enjoyable even to a teenage viewer.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: The Puzzle Place kids often talk to the viewers for a moment involving the episode's subject.
- Captain Ersatz: The Mighty Magic Pigeon Pirates.
- Christmas Episode: "Deck the Halls".
- Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere: When Jody was avoiding all bread during the Passover, everyone wanted her to try this special bread someone's mom had made.
- Cross-Dressing Voices: In the episode "Helping Hands," Kyle's voice was performed by a woman, though originally in his debut, he was voiced by his performer Drew Massey.
- Early Installment Weirdness: One early episode had Jody sporting straight hair instead of curls with no explanation whatsoever.
- Fear of Thunder: Leon.
- Girlish Pigtails: Kiki.
- Inconvenient Itch: Caused by the fancy, new dress Kiki wears later in "Deck the Halls" and twice she has to scratch.
- Instant Thunder: Averted in the thunderstorm episode. The kids learned to count the seconds between the lightning and the thunder.
- Nice Character, Mean Actor: One episode had Julie and Kiki meet their idol, a self-proclaimed "cute" singer. They later find out she's incredibly mean underneath.
- Panty Shot: Kiki has one from behind in "Gotta Dance" during a musical number as she bounces while dancing with Leon.
- Porky Pig Pronunciation: Nuzzle in "Owning It". In the kitchen, he accidentally slides and skates into Kiki. Irritably and impatiently, as she begins by telling him, "Nuzzle, darling...", he nervously responds with:
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"Y-y-y-y-yeah??? |
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This is the only time Nuzzle is shown speaking to one of the kids. Kiki pauses and she seems taken aback by this as she clearly understood him before she turns, and faces the viewers.
- Soap Within a Show: One episode in which Kiki accidentally broke Julie's horse figurine spoofed Days of Our Lives as part of an Imagine Spot.
- Sweet and Sour Grapes: Inverted here: In one episode about decision making, the Piece Police make different varieties of doughnuts for each of the kids, but they have to choose one at a time. Leon wants the cruller, but Jody has a hard time choosing which doughnut she wants, preventing everyone else from doing so. Through the process of elimination, she rejects the least desirable doughnuts until the cruller is left. Leon eventually tries to convince Jody that the cruller is "too plain" and trade with him, but that fails. After some thought, however, he realizes that the one he has probably won't be so bad, though all that is done away with when Sizzle and Nuzzle steal and eat it behind his back.
- Talking Animal: Nuzzle and Sizzle when the kids and Piece Police aren't around them. However, this occurs once with Nuzzle when he speaks to Kiki briefly in "Owning It".
- Theme Tune Roll Call
- Title Theme Tune
- Trademark Favorite Food: Kiki loves cinnamon, even putting it in her chili as part of a chili cook-off. It won first prize.
- The Unintelligible: The Piece Police.
- When You Coming Home, Dad?: Jody's father.
- You Have to Have Jews: The show used Chanukah as the major winter holiday opposite to Christmas (including Jody getting mortally offended when Ben innocently stuck her menorah on the Christmas tree).