History Series / Pinwheel

* Season 1 episodes opened and closed with a quiet, lullaby-style tune that would segue into the better-known "Pinwheel, Pinwheel" theme song.

** The human and puppet casts were also much smaller in season one. The human cast only featured Franci, Coco, and Jake. The puppet cast featured only Aurelia, Ebenezer, Luigi O'Brien and his vegetables, Plus, Minus, the Wonkles, and Spiderbelle.

''Pinwheel'' is an educational preschool series. It was the first show on {{Creator/Nickelodeon}}, as well as the first show to air during the network's [[Creator/NickJr Nick Jr. block]]. The show aired from 1977 to 1984, with reruns until 1990.

* CloudCuckooLander: Minus.

* {{Expy}}: One could consider Ebenezer an expy of Oscar the Grouch from ''Series/SesameStreet'', though Ebenezer explicitly calls himself "the villain" of Pinwheel House whereas Oscar is just a grumpy character. Plus and Minus could be seen as expies of Ernie and Bert, since they are both duos of male puppets, but while Ernie and Bert are adult characters, Plus and Minus are immature children whose segments center on childhood experiences.
* {{Irony}}: Minus is the more cheerful and energetic one, while Plus is the more thoughtful and serious (relatively speaking) one.

* PolarOppositeSiblings: Plus and Minus are brothers, and are as different as their names imply.

%% ZCE * CloudCuckooLander: Minus.
%% ZCE * CuteMute: Coco the Mime.

* CloudCuckooLander: Minus.
* CuteMute: Coco the Mime.

** In the show's first season (filmed in Ohio from 1977-79), there were several main characters who didn't return for the later Nickelodeon episodes. They were all played by Franci Anderson: the human storyteller Franci, a group of alien marionettes called the Wonkles, and a spider marionette named Spiderbelle. When filming moved from Ohio to New York for the show's second season, Franci decided to stay in Ohio, so her characters were retired.

** The human and puppet casts were also much smaller in season oe. The human cast only featured Franci, Coco, and Jake. The puppet cast featured only Aurelia, Ebenezer, Luigi O'Brien and his vegetables, Plus, Minus, the Wonkles, and Spiderbelle.

In 1988, Nickelodeon launched Nick Jr., its weekday morning block for preschoolers. Reruns of ''Pinwheel'' were the first show to air during the block, and for a time, ''Pinwheel'' was Nick Jr.'s flagship show. Since 1988, ''Pinwheel'' has been exclusively part of the Nick Jr. brand. Whenever the show is acknowledged by Nickelodeon, they categorize it as a Nick Jr. series, and the [[https://twitter.com/nickjr/status/1322194491374260229 social media pages for Nick Jr.]] feature ''Pinwheel'' every once in a while.

[[quoteright:160:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pinwheellogo1_2237.gif]]
[[caption-width-right:160:''Pinwheel, pinwheel, spinning around. Look at my Pinwheel and see what I've found.'']]

''Pinwheel'' was the flagship program for the then-new {{Creator/Nickelodeon}} network back in 1979. In fact, the show actually predates the network itself. Premiering in 1977, it was first seen on Warner Cable's experimental QUBE cable system on channel slot C3, which was dedicated to this one show[[note]]Contrary to popular belief, the network was always called Nickelodeon. Pinwheel was never the network's name. It was just the name of the show.[[/note]]. It was a program similar to ''Series/SesameStreet'' in many ways, having a standard human cast with numerous puppet friends, and various in-between segments. Not really surprising, however, as creator and executive producer Vivian Horner previously worked for ''Sesame Street''[='=]s production company, the Children's Television Workshop, as director of research for one of ''Sesame Street''[='=]s sister programs, ''Series/TheElectricCompany1971''.

One of the interesting things about ''Pinwheel'' was that it exposed American and Canadian children to otherwise-unavailable European short subjects like ''Miximetric'', ''WesternAnimation/ChapiChapo'', ''WesternAnimation/{{Bod}}'', and ''Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings''.

''Pinwheel'' usually aired in three- to five-hour blocks in the mornings, and eventually became part of the Nick Jr. block of programming. The series ended in 1990, when it was replaced with newer Nick Jr. shows.

* CloudCuckooLander: Minus
* CuteMute: Coco, the female mime.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The very earliest episodes from the QUBE era (1977-79) only featured Jake, Coco, and Franci (who left the series after the move from QUBE to Nickelodeon) as the human characters. The puppet cast was likewise much smaller, featuring only Plus, Minus, Ebenezer, Aurelia, Luigi O'Brien and his vegetables, and a few characters who didn't make the transition to Nickelodeon, and the puppets themselves were more visibly cheaply made (this was especially noticeable with Plus and Minus). The biggest difference, however, was that the QUBE episodes featured no animated segments, relying more heavily on musical performances.

* {{Expy}}: For some ''Series/SesameStreet'' characters: Plus and Minus for Ernie and Bert, Ebenezer for Oscar the Grouch, Admiral Bird for Snuffy the Snuffleupagus, Silas the Snail for Big Bird, Smitty for Mr. Hooper.
* {{Irony}}: Minus is the more cheerful and energetic one while Plus is the more thoughtful and serious (relatively speaking) one.
* LethalChef: During a cooking competition, Ebenezer tries to enter in one of his pancakes, but it's so tough, Coco, who's severing as the judge, can't even chew it. Needless to say Ebenezer doesn't win, but it isn't a total loss. The Hobo Bugs end up using the pancake as a trampoline.

* MissedHimByThatMuch: Smitty is always trying to get a picture of the elusive Admiral Bird, which seemed to enjoy teasing him by being right behind him and leaving when he turns around.

** Smitty is always looking for the Admiral Bird, a strange, goofy-looking bird that only appeared when he was out of the room and couldn't take a picture of him.

One of the interesting things about ''Pinwheel'' was that it exposed American and Canadian children to otherwise-unavailable European short subjects like ''Miximetric'', ''WesternAnimation/ChapiChapo'', ''Bod'', and ''Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings''.