Dress-up is a game we play, each and every single day. We can be most anything, fairy, doctor, dancer, king.
Chloe's Closet is a preschool edutainment series produced by Splash Entertainment (then known as Mike Young Productions / Moonscoop). It aired on PBS Kids Sprout in the United States from July 2010 to May 2018. The show focuses on 4-year-old Chloe, who has an amazing imagination. Along with her friends and her security blanket, Lovely Carrot, Chloe regularly plays dress-up, using various costumes to go into Chloe's world and have all kinds of adventures, while solving problems or issues they have along the way.
The series was conceptualized by Sarah Finn (daughter of Splash's founder Mike Young) in 2005
which was inspired by her eldest daughter. Production began in mid-2008 (the series first aired in some channels from late 2009 to early 2010) and ceased in late 2013.
The main cast are:
- Chloe Corbin: A young girl with a big imagination. She's created her own imaginary world that she and her friends regularly use when playing dress-up and having adventures. Chloe has a kind heart and is always up for adventure.
- Lovely Carrot: Chloe's security blanket/Imaginary Friend. He's a small yellow blanket, with a toy duck head attached. In Chloe's imaginary world, Lovely Carrot comes to life. He's always trying to help Chloe out and look after her, but he can be a bit of a klutz.
- Tara Jansen: Tara is Chloe's best friend. Being half a year older than her friends, she considers herself to be older and wiser. Tara can be a bit bossy and usually tries to take charge on adventures. She never quite seems to get that that's Chloe's job, though.
- James 'Jet' Horton: A boy who often plays with Chloe. He usually tries to turn play time towards more boyish games, but is always there to help her out.
- Riley: Another boy who plays with Chloe. Riley tends to have his own way of doing things and it usually works for him. Occasionally Riley can dive into things before getting the full picture and it can lead him into trouble.
- Daniela 'Danny' Rylant: Another of Chloe's friends. Danny is a tomboy who prefers puddle jumping to playing with dolls. She's always up for an adventure, but can be a bit too competitive for her own good at times.
- Lillian 'Lil' Mc Gwire: Lil is a gentle girl, who loves more girly activities. She tends to criticize herself and sometimes needs to be convinced to give new things a try.
- Marcus 'Mac' Mc Gwire: Lil's younger brother. He's still learning to talk, but usually manages to get the point across. Mac looks up to his sister and the two tend to get along fairly well.
- Carys: Another of Chloe's friends who only appeared in season 2. She likes ponies, as seen in her attire.
Chloe's Closet contains examples of:
- 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: A lot of the backgrounds shown while Chloe and her friends are imagining are very obvious CGI. For example, in the episode "Smoke Alarmed" where Chloe and her friends become firefighters, basically the whole background is CGI, including their fire truck!
- Anachronism Stew: Chloe was taught that cave people and dinosaurs didn't live at the same time, but they do in her world.
- Ambiguously Brown: Jet, but he pales in comparison to Danny, who has brown skin and hair, black eyes and, supposedly, Scottish heritage.
- Artistic Licence – Biology: In "Clock a Doodle Doo", Lovely Carrot feeds a cow strawberries and Jet instantly milks out strawberry milk from it. Justified because it's their imagination.
- Bamboo Technology: Vehicles in Chloe's imaginary world tend to be made out of arts and crafts supplies, such as buttons, cardboard boxes, paper towel tubes and paper plates.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Chloe (blonde), Danny and Lil (brunettes), and Tara (redhead).
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: In the finale episode of season 1 ("Pre-School Musical"), the kids dressed up as pop stars and sang a rock version of the theme song!
- Butt-Monkey: Lovely Carrot, who is usually the subject of misfortune when trying to protect Chloe and her friends, or his clumsiness getting in the way Once per Episode.
- Catchphrase: Chloe is quick to remind people that anything can happen in her world. The kids often say, "Pickles!" when something goes wrong, though Tara and Chloe prefer "Oh, Crumbs!" and "Lollipops!", respectively.
- Cartoon Penguin: The penguins in this show are black with white faces and bellies, as well as orange bills and feet.
- Flying Brick: Chloe becomes one when the kids dress up as super heroes.
- Four-Fingered Hands: Everyone (other than the nonhumans) have four fingers on each hand, but this is averted in the end of the episode 'For Love of Monet', where Chloe counts five fingers on each hand when she tells her mom that she learned to count to ten.
- Four-Girl Ensemble: Chloe is the sweet one, Tara is the wise one, Danny is the tomboyish one, and Lil is the girly one.
- Alternately, Chloe is the girly one and Lil is the sweet one.
- Imaginary Friend: Lovely Carrot, of course. Though Chloe also has Soggy the Frog, Hootie-hoo the owl, and Wiz the toy Robot Dog.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Chloe has blond hair and is very kind to everyone.
- Literal Genie: The kids run into one in one episode. Though he's really just a kid, who's still learning.
- Living Toys: In the episode 'Nobody's Perfect', Chloe, Lil and Mac were doctors and nurses in a doll hospital where the toys were alive. Including a doll receptionist with only one eye.
- Also Lovely Carrot, but you knew that already.
- Master Actor: Chloe, Jet, and Tara can play well with whatever role that Chloe's adventures might take them. These include "Mermaids or Deep-Sea Divers."
- Mother Nature: The kids runs into her in "In The Fix".
- Mr. Imagination: Chloe, as well as Jet, Tara, Riley, Danny, Lily, and Mac.
- Our Fairies Are Different: There have been at least two different kinds. Normally the girls dress up as standard fairies living in a forest, but at least once they were tooth fairies instead.
- Our Mermaids Are Different: The girls dress up as fairly standard mermaids, though they're not petty or jealous.
- Papa Wolf: Lovely Carrot tends to be this toward Chloe. He doesn't quite get that nothing is actually dangerous in her world.
- Pink Means Feminine: Chloe.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The episode "Pre-School Musical" is a parody of the title High School Musical.
- Pun-Based Title: The episode titles tend to be this.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Chloe is often calm and patient, compared to Tara's aggressiveness.
- Redhead In Green: Tara.
- Shout-Out: Once Chloe and her superhero friends had to deal with a giant gorilla rampaging through a city. Several of the titles are shout-outs as well.
- Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: Tara.
- Third-Person Person: Mac tends to talk like this.
- To the Tune of...: Chloe sings a small song to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star"/"The Alphabet Song" when she starts to play dress-up and gets to open her wardrobe to know what she and her friends will pretend to be. They even sing to the tune of different children's songs while on adventure (e.g. in "Easy as Cake", "Try Away Home", "Race for Fun" and "Sinnie's Boo-Boo" they sung to the tune of "If You're Happy and You Know It")
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Danni and Tara lean more toward the Tomboy end, whereas Chloe and Lily tend to be more Girly.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Chloe's world is littered with these, though none quite stands up to the full-sized T. rex on in-line skates.
- World Tour: In season 2, there were more episodes where Chloe and her friends travel to various countries such as Japan, China and India. The episode "Sinnie's Boo-Boo" features Chloe, Jet and Danny as veterinarians in Scotland.
- Yellow Duck: Lovely Carrot is a yellow duck.
