City Kids is an American teen-oriented/family/musical T.V. series created by Jeffrey Solomon. It aired late Saturday mornings on ABC and ran for one season from late 1993 to early 1994. It was co-produced by the City Kids Foundation and Jim Henson Productions, and distributed by the Jim Henson Company. The theme song was composed by both future New York Undercover star, Malik Yoba and Raleigh J. Neal II, who also wrote other songs for this program and were the creative music supervisors.
What made this stand out from other teen shows like Saved by the Bell was that it not only featured teen characters, but also muppet characters who are original to and created specifically for this show, and they're used partly to teach lessons to the teen viewers. It is a coming-of-age series that revolves around a diverse circle of high schoolers and friends in New York as they tackle typical teen issues, going through the trials and tribulations, such as searching for employment and telling the truth. The muppets in this represent the Greek Chorus for the teens, but they're never seen together nor interacting with them at any point at all.
Although this was aimed at mainly the teen urbanites, the series just didn't receive enough attention from any demographic. Despite its one-of-a-kind concept and setup, the ratings weren't successful and as a result, ABC dropped the show after a single season. Among the ethnically-diverse cast and perhaps the most prominent member is future Psych star Dule Hill in an early role. Donald Faison also appeared in this as a dancer. The muppet characters would later also make appearances in various, other projects.
City Kids provides examples of:
- Anthropomorphic Food: The rapping hot dogs, Frankie Frank and The Footers.
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Broken Aesop: One of the common features of this. - Coming of Age Story: The center of this for the kids' senior high years.
- Crowd Song: Every song in the show.
- Dreadlock Rasta: Dread, who has purple dreadlocks specifically.
- Early Installment Character-Design Difference: The designs of some of the muppets (Captain, Lieutenant, Libido, Toya, and Trish) appeared differently in newspaper promos and the pilot episode from their looks in the rest of the series. Such as Lieutenant originally being depicted as a bespectacled, red monkey.
- Gossipy Hens: The Dirt Sisters, Toya and Trish.
- Greek Chorus: Muppets Dread, Bird, Frankie Frank and The Footers, the Koozebanians, Captain, Lieutenant, Libido, Toya, and Trish all represent this.
- Hip-Hop: This soundtrack is a major theme.
- Holiday Episode: "Rooftop Thanksgiving"
- Hormone-Addled Teenager: As one of the themes of this, the Inside-the-Head, sex-crazed muppet, Libido, would be the cause and representation of any teen to become that. Because of his sexual appetite, he has to be bridled by way of being caged to prevent the teen from losing his/her giving in to his/her urges and giving up celibacy.
- Muppet: All the puppets in this show originated here and are used as teaching tools, a unique aspect of this teen show.
- The Musical: At least one song is featured in each episode.
- Show Stopper: "Heal The World", from "Rooftop Thanksgiving".
- Spontaneous Choreography: Most notable during the intro and theme song.
- Thanksgiving Episode: "Rooftop Thanksgiving" is the series's only holiday episode, which finds the kids mistakenly thinking a family going through hard times would lead to a worse situation, but it turned out to be false and was a misunderstanding.
- Wide Eyesand Shrunken Irises: This is the norm for both the prototypical and redesigned versions of Libido, indicating mania.
- Wild Hair: Both the prototypical Libido and redesigned Libido have this, except the latter version's hair looks like it's made of wires.
