Trivia / Odd Squad

• Actor Allusion: Martin Roach played Fladam, Destroyer of Cubes, after starring in Cube Zero.
• Adored by the Network: In June and July of 2016, PBS reran the first 10 episodes of season 2 over and over in order to familiarize the audience with the new characters. Eventually, they went back to rerunning the old episodes alongside the new ones.
• Content Leak: PBS Kids' website accidentally leaked the final Odd Squadcast episode "Broadcast Seven" by releasing it alongside "Broadcast Six" on December 23, 2020, a week before it was set to release officially. However, the episode wasn't listed on the podcast's website, on Spotify, or on Apple Podcasts — "Broadcast Six", the intended upload for December 23, was put on all four platforms.
• Creator's Favorite Episode: The "Meet Our Neighbors" interviews on Fred Rogers Productions' website reveal some of the crew's favorite episodes.
  • Amanda Vernuccio (production designer) likes "Villains Always Win".
  • Kevin Morra (prop builder) likes "Odds and Ends".
  • Mark DeAngelis (writer, producer, and showrunner for Season 3) has three favorite episodes: "Drop Gadget Repeat", "Extreme Cakeover" (which was originally going to be called "Cakes on a Plane"), and "Slow Your Roll". He also has a fondness for Odd Squad: The Movie.
  • Lakna Edilima (writer and producer) likes "16-and-a-Half Blocks", part of the Season 3 finale.
  • Sarah Imrisek (game developer) likes Soundcheck-based episodes, such as "Soundcheck Part Deux" and "Music of Sound".
  • P. Jason MacNeill (sound effects designer) likes "Zero Effect" and "Crime at Shapely Manor".
• Descended Creator: Mark DeAngelis, the showrunner for Season 3 and a writer and producer for the show, plays a visiting tourist in "Sample of New York". He also plays a man with a floating head in the OddTube episode "Oddness in NYC".
• Development Hell: The Squadcast, a podcast based around the show, was stuck in limbo due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Since its initial announcement at the TCA Winter Press Tour in January 2020, there was no word on its development or release, but the project still remained listed by official sources. Season 2 of OddTube, which wasn't set to premiere until the fall, was pushed forward to the summer in place of the podcast's release, so it's possible that the pandemic played a role in its delay. While the podcast was eventually Saved from Development Hell with a press release put out by PBS Kids regarding the Squadcast and a couple of other podcasts based on PBS Kids shows, detailing a premiere date of November 25, it was once again delayed and instead released on December 2, 2020.
• Died During Production: Joanne Rogers, the chair of the board of Fred Rogers Productions (which co-created this show), died on January 14, 2021, as new episodes were being produced.
• Fan Community Nicknames: PBS Kids, as well as the show's social media pages, have used the term "agents" to refer to the demographic that watches the show. "Oddballs" is used as a more general term used for fans both inside and outside the intended demographic, coined by Olympia during her hosting stint on OddTube.
• Fandom Life Cycle: Sits between Stage 2 and Stage 3. The show has a very small fandom that, even in 2014-2015 when things like fanart reached their peak, didn't grow to substantial proportions. Many people outgrow the show and leave it behind, and even today, the show has a very small fandom that is comprised of a mere handful of people, while a lot of others simply enjoy the show but don't get involved in the fandom — fanart, fanfictions, and similar works have fallen to the wayside.
• Fandom Nod: One video made by PBS Kids includes all the hints in Season 2 to the fact that Otis used to be a villain, something that only the older fans picked up on and not the target audience. A fan of the show was even mentioned by name.
  • When Season 3 ended, PBS Kids put out another video containing all of the hints and Easter eggs leading to the reveal of The Shadow's true identity: Olizabeth, Opal's younger sister. At the end of the video, it's all but stated that they have plans to make an entire web series out of these kinds of videos, with the next topic being the Shmumbers brand and its appearance in numerous episodes.
• Fanwork Ban: PBS Kids is infamous for taking down videos using Odd Squad in any sort of caliber. While there aren't too many fanmade videos that have been made about the show (the majority of videos are full, often low-quality episodes uploaded to YouTube), any video that has any clips of the show in it is liable to be taken down by them, even if it falls under fair use. While they have previously handed out Content ID claims to videos that use their shows and prevent them from being viewed in the United States, they have now taken a more aggressive approach due to them partnering with OpSec Security, a company specializing in anti-fraud and anti-piracy services, and give copyright strikes to potential violators under their "PBS Distribution" name — and they don't appear to be letting their guard down anytime soon.
• Flip-Flop of God: Both halves of Season 3 and the upcoming Season 4 have been subject to production companies and networks not knowing if they are Spin-Off series or are additional seasons of the original show, with answers fluctuating among prodcos and networks.
• God Does Not Own This World: Downplayed. Tim McKeon and Adam Peltzman are the creators of the show, but the former is generally regarded as the showrunner. After Season 2 concluded, he handed showrunner duties over to Mark DeAngelis, a writer and producer for the show. However, neither Tim nor Adam have left the show entirely, and continue to work on it as writers. Nonetheless, the show has stayed in the co-ownership of both Sinking Ship Entertainment and Fred Rogers Productions ever since its premiere.
• He Also Did:
  • Co-creator Tim McKeon co-created Out of Jimmy's Head. He also wrote for Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, Adventure Time, Fish Hooks, Gravity Falls, Wallykazam, and Wander over Yonder.
  • Co-creator Adam Peltzman is the creator of Wallykazam. He also wrote for Blue's Clues, The Backyardigans, The Octonauts, and much more.
• Long-Runner Cast Turnover: A very odd version, enforced by the show's premise - since only children are allowed to work for Odd Squad (even to the point that Olive at age 21 is thrown out even though in-universe she's still Olive at age 12, just "trapped" in an adult body), the cast was swapped each season. This is primarily due to various cast members getting older (you know, as kids do), which led the writers to either devise an in-universe excuse for their departures ("Oscar Strikes Back") or not make up an excuse at all and have the characters and actors quietly leave the show (Olympia and Otis, for example).
• The Merch: The show has spawned quite a fair bit of merchandise, even by PBS Kids standards (considering the network, nor any of its shows, are Merchandise-Driven). It's gotten to such an extent where the show now has its own Amazon store.
• No Dub for You: The show has very few dubs known to exist: a Spanish dub for Discovery Kids and Netflix in Latin-America, a Dutch dub for KiKA in Germany, and a Portugese dub. Other countries that air the show go with the regular English version.
• No Export for You: Oddmented Reality, a virtual reality "appisode", has not been recognized outside of Canada by PBS Kids or by any other network. Not even Sinking Ship Entertainment themselves has made any mention of it. In spite of this, however, it is still on Apple's App Store in the United States.
• Only So Many Canadian Actors: Sinking Ship Entertainment, one of the co-founding companies of Odd Squad, is infamous for this — not just with its actors, but with its writers and directors, many of whom have worked on (or are working on) previous Sinking Ship shows. Millie Davis and Michela Luci are two of the bigger examples actor-wise, having acted in numerous SSE shows in some form or another and going on to act in future shows from the company.
• Out of Order: The show has suffered from this a few times.
  • "Crime at Shapely Manor" (the 3rd episode in production order) and "Reindeer Games" (the 4th episode in production order) were pushed back slightly to make room for Two Shorts-style episodes to air during the show's premiere week.
  • "The Curious Case of Pirate-itis" officially aired on October 5, 2015, premiering as part of PBS Kids' "Oddtober" event for that year. It later aired on January 4, 2016, along with its sister episode "Oscar the Couch".
  • "Disorder in the Court" is episode 36 in production order, but was the 39th episode aired.
  • "Haunt Squad" and "Safe House in the Woods" aired before "Xs and Os" and "Dr. O No" for PBS Kids' 2017 "Oddtober" event. This caused a Continuity Snarl, as Olly, whose official debut is in "Dr. O No", plays a minor role in "Haunt Squad", where she is shown being a Food and Beverage worker rather than an Odd Squad Doctor.
  • Otherwise, the show airs most episodes in order due to its serialization, a rarity for PBS shows.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Apparently, Jaiden Cannatelli, who played Agent Ohlm, was bullied at school for playing a stupid character. This caused the writers to retool Ohlm to be Season 2's Hidden Villain. How well this was executed, and how well of a choice this was, tends to vary among fans.
• Recycled Set: The bullpen of the Odd Squad Headquarters (as well as HQ as a whole) is used when other precincts are visited, for obvious reasons (don't want to build a new set/it's too expensive). For scenes in Season 3 that take place inside of a precinct, Ms. O's office is repurposed, with decorations changed to reflect whoever is sitting at her desk.
• Screwed by the Network: The show started out strong, having the most full-length material that PBS Kids has ever released prior to a show's premiere, showing that in spite of their push to make the show animated and not live-action, they were banking a hefty bit into it so it could be a success. However, it began to suffer from lengthy hiatus and even got involved in controversy regarding Fred Rogers Productions' improper grant distribution, which contributed to its slow downfall. Needless to say, this show has never really been PBS Kids's favorite after its premiere, even in spite of them greenlighting Season 4.
• Short Run in Peru: This show gets hit with international early releases so often it's almost staggering. And a majority of them are mainly due to PBS Kids' tendency to push lengthy Series Hiatus onto their shows.
  • Funny enough, TVO Kids in Canada (where the show is produced) used to release Season 2 episodes earlier than PBS Kids and other countries. However, they ended up falling in line with the American children's network eventually, and now air new episodes at the same time they do.
    • Except for one occasion where they surprisingly didn't. The episodes "Double O Trouble", "Can You Wrangle It?" and "Ahead of the Times" were leaked early by way of being uploaded to TVO Kids' YouTube channel along with "Mission O Possible" and "Nature of the Sandbeast", which had already aired in the US. None of the episodes were set to air on TV either. This was due to the channel having a habit of frequently uploading episodes of the show in batches of five. Unsurprisingly, the unaired episodes were made private less than a week later, and were eventually made public.
  • In 2017, the rest of Season 2, beginning with "Hands on a Desk Chair", was leaked, airing in Australia on ABC ME 2 years before PBS Kids and TVO Kids would air the episodes in proper, with both networks holding a special for the season finale, Odd Squad: Odds and Ends. It was never announced that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation had struck any sort of international deal with Sinking Ship Entertainment regarding the airing of Season 2; instead, the company struck international deals with other countries to air the show, such as Hong Kong.
  • On June 22, 2020, ABC ME began airing Season 3. Up to that point, episodes from the "Odd Beginnings" two-parter up to "Slow Your Roll" had aired in both America and Canada, with new episodes coming a couple weeks later on July 6th. Shortly after Australia began airing it, it was revealed via ABC's TV guide — as well as another TV guide site, OurGuide — that Australia wouldn't just be airing episodes up to "Slow Your Roll", but also the July episodes a whole week earlier than both PBS Kids and TVO Kids. And then it went From Bad to Worse, as their TV guide (and OurGuide) revealed that they would be airing the rest of the season's first half, meaning the mid-season finale, "End of the Road", would air on July 10th. And how long did American and Canadian viewers get to wait for the finale? 6 months. Like with the first instance, it was never announced that Sinking Ship Entertainment had booked any international deals with ABC to air the third season — in fact, May 2020 had the company announce that the show was renewed for Netflix in countries outside of the US, while Vietnam picked up its second season.
  • September 5th, 2020 saw "Oswald in the Machine" being put onto TVO Kids' website, despite the episode itself not being planned to air on the network anytime soon. Whether this was done in error or this was an intentional move is unknown. ^note PBS Kids would later officially air the episode on January 18, 2021.
  • Starting in mid-October 2021, episodes in the second half of Season 3 have been premiering steadily in the UK on CBBC. This includes episodes that have already aired in the US (up to "Nature of the Sandbeast"), but it also includes unaired episodes leading up to the series finale, "Odd Together Now". This was before it was revealed that the PBS Kids 24/7 channel had episodes from "Double O Trouble" to "Welcome to Odd Squad" lined up for its Family Night on the weekend of December 31, 2021, with no plans for the episodes to premiere on any local PBS stations.
• Shrug of God: When asked about the future of the show, Mark De Angelis reiterated a comment he posted earlier on his Instagram about his departure from working on it, saying that "it's not the 'end' end of Odd Squad" and that it's possible the franchise as a whole could continue with another movie or another Spin-Off. Considering that Tim McKeon appears to have moved on to other projects like Helpsters and both prodcos are moving on to other shows, it was very plausible that the show's fate was to rerun on PBS Kids until it's dropped from all schedules. However, in July of 2023, Season 4 was confirmed to be in production with Tim McKeon and Adam Peltzman both returning as writers, making De Angelis's comment a reality.
• Sleeper Hit: Since PBS Kids is known for having animated programs with no Story Arc or Worldbuilding (save for a select few, like Cyberchase), it came as quite a surprise that Odd Squad would have both of those things and be a live-action/animation hybrid show. Naturally, due to its education not being shoved down the audience's throats and instead being hidden in episodes, parents and kids fell in love with it. Those outside the main demographic fell in love with the show due to its Story Arcs in each season, its lovable characters (up to and including the villains), and the fact that it wasn't just another saccharine Slice of Life show from a kids' network known for that type of show.
• So My Kids Can Watch: Toni Collette, who plays a villain named the Sand Queen in the Season 3 finale "End of the Road", has stated that her kids love the show, and that she's excited that they saw her in the role.
• Stunt Double: Doubles are used for any action scenes with the main cast. One probably wouldn't even know they had stunt doubles unless they looked at the credits.
• Two Voices, One Character: There are six total actors for Agent Orson: Landon Rowan and Logan Rowan in Season 1, and Nathan Avila and his brother Nashton as well as Mason and Nolan Gahan in Season 2. The Avila brothers playing one character is lampshaded in-universe by Olympia in "A Job Well Undone", and is exploited by Orson himself in-universe as well.
• What Could Have Been: The show has quite a few examples of this, as it has been in production from as far back as 2012.
  • According to an article regarding the pilot for the show, the show was initially going to be set in "small-town anywhere America", and while still being an Edutainment Show, it was going to be a "funny, fast-paced" drama rather than a comedy. Filming for the show was also going to take place in New York rather than Toronto.
  • Olive and Otto were going to be respectively portrayed by Isabela Moner and Jaden Michael before show staff brought Dalila Bela and Filip Geljo on board to play the roles. Ms. O and Oscar, as well as Polly Graph, were also cast with different actors, although it's currently unknown who.
  • Inner Dog Productions (whose creator, Koyalee Chanda, is known for directing episodes of Blue's Clues) and 400th Town Productions originally were the go-to studios for the show before it fell into the hands of Sinking Ship Entertainment and Fred Rogers Productions.
  • The show was set to center on Olive and Otto exclusively, rather than a core cast of four characters.
  • A few months after the show officially premiered, the pilot, named "Zero Effect", was released onto YouTube by Jaden Michael, Otto's original actor. It has numerous stark contrasts to the actual episode, including a shift in tone ^note Due to veering into the genre of drama rather than comedy, the pilot has quite a few dark moments, the Mathroom looking more high-tech ^note The Mathroom as viewers know it today is made of paper fortune tellers, and a lack of Tube Travel ^note Olive and Otto use their badges which they then place on boxes around town to teleport to various places, including Headquarters, among other things.
  • The show was originally going to air on the PBS Kids GO! block, since it was catered to older audiences. After the block was discontinued in 2013, it premiered on the regular PBS Kids block instead.
  • Per the wishes of PBS Kids, the show was set to be animated to fit in with most of the other shows on the block's lineup. However, in order to keep the realism of the concept of kid agents fighting odd crime, the creators insisted it be a live-action/animation hybrid show.
• Word of Dante: Since Tim McKeon and Mark DeAngelis (who have personal Twitter accounts) aren't necessarily open to questions from fans (especially older ones) regarding what is canon and what is not, a lot of things regarded as canon are determined by the fans.
• Written by Cast Member: "Safe House in the Woods" is written by Ashley Botting, who plays Delivery Debbie.
• You Might Remember Me from...: Gavin McIver-Wright, who plays Oswald, may sound familiar to those who watch Max and Ruby — he voices the eponymous younger brother in Season 6 and onward.
  • Filip Geljo, who plays Otto, got a bit of a resurgence when fans found out he also played Aonung in Avatar: The Way of Water. Many people who saw the movie realized that both Otto and Aonung were played by the same actor, with some commenting on how they had seen him on Odd Squad in the past.
  • Anna Cathcart got the same treatment in regards to her appearance in XO, Kitty, as people were quick to voice their nostalgia on seeing her playing Olympia on Odd Squad.

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