Between The Lions was a PBS kids' show with puppet/marionette animal characters designed to teach reading. As the title suggests, the main characters are a family of lions who live in a library. The series lasted from September, 2000 to November, 2010.The series was known to have a writing team who sometimes forget that this is an Edutainment show and made it far too amusing to watch, be the age group younger orolder. There were also a lot of jabs at famous children's novels, such as Dick And Jane becoming "Chicken Jane".Yes, it's just as silly as it sounds.
Breaking the Fourth Wall - Leona, dressed as a doctor, in "Clickety-Clack, Clickety-Clack!," looks at the camera, saying "Oh, no! You know what we need... a miracle!"
Humiliation Conga: The attempts made by Lionel's family to help him get over the fact he has antlers. Sure, they all mean well, but it's no less embarrassing... especially the "coat rack" bit.
Literal Cliffhanger - Cliff Hanger, who appears in a series of animated vignettes, and is even the subject of one or two episodes. His life is Failure Is the Only Option in terms of actually getting off the cliff. (He does get off the cliff once, but he ends up following a sign that leads him right back onto it - in his defense, though, the sign CLEARLY said "Cliff"!)
Long Runners: A decade is impressive, considering that many shows on PBS Kids (or rival programming blocks) don't make it past four years.
My Name Is Not Durwood - Walter and Clay, the pigeons, constantly annoy Barnaby B. Busterfield III with this. (He doesn't like being called "Buster".)
Incidentally, another character, Dr. Nitwhite, gets ticked off when his assistant, Watson, calls him "Dr. Nitwit."
Theo and Cleo, during their cooking segments, display a lot of sexual tension. You can't help thinking that after they're finishing devouring that (as always, uncooked) hunk of meat, they'll start devouring each other.
Pungeon Master: Sam Spud describes the other characters he meets with food-based expressions. (eg, "She was a real peach. As a matter of fact, she was a peach!")
Reading Is Cool Aesop: This was essentially what the series was trying to promote, though it also focused on the basics of learning to read.
Stealth Pun: The title is not only a pun on "between the lines", but it also refers to the fact that there are lion statues near the entrance of the library, which you must walk between to enter.
Shout Out: Lionel's "42" jersey, confirmed in The Salmon Of Doubt by one of the show creators to be a reference to Douglas Adams. One of the show's major staff was Christopher Cerf, who was a good friend of Adams.
Sam Spud's name sounds similar to that of Sam Spade, the detective from The Maltese Falcon.
Surfer Dude: Gwain from "Gwain's World", except he prefers hosting jousts to surfing.
Take a Third Option - In "Bobby the Hopping Robot," Theo is sure that either he or the toy robot must be defective because he can't make it work, but Leona calls the help number and finds out that it's actually the instructions that are wrong.
Title Theme Tune: "Between the Lions, between the covers of a book, it's time to look Between the Lions!"
Tongue Twister: Trixie the Tricky Pixie offers to help Cliff Hanger if he can say, "six thick thistle sticks." By the time Cliff succeeds, night has fallen, and Trixie says she has to go to a picnic in Dixie.
Trouser Space - Pretty much Arty Smartypants' whole shtick.
Victory Is Boring: Cliff Hanger's cartoonist decided to retire his comic, and had Cliff get off of the cliff and onto a beach. Cliff enjoyed it at first, but soon lost his sense of purpose.
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