Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum / YMMV

Adorkable: Brad is really shy, nervous, and loves comics and butterflies.
Anvilicious: Each episode carries a moral, and they're approached with all the subtlety of throwing a cinder block at someone's head. Then again, that's probably the point, and the lessons are good for kids anyways.
Award Snub: The show got nominated at the 2020 Annies, but lost in its 2 categories to Ask the StoryBots and Tuca & Bertie.
Awesome Art:
- The art style is clearly a tribute to such comic strips as Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes, and the animation is pretty fluid.
- "I Am Maya Angelou" includes powerful, colorful visuals to accompany Maya's poem. The colors stand out. Yellow is used for positivity, like when the kids are protected from the rain. Red is used for negativity when the memories of Xavier and Yadina's hurtful comments towards each other come flooding back. Towards the start, a silhouette of a king is shown. Someone whispers something mean into his ear, and he literally shatters, showing that no one is immune to unkind words, not even mighty kings.
- The backgrounds look gorgeous. The sunset in "I Am Sacagawea" deserves a special mention for its stunning mix of colors.
Awesome Music:
- The theme song is extremely catchy and manages to explain the premise of the show and get you excited for it.
- "It's You" is a sweet little song about friendship that is played in between some episodes of the show. It features Berby and Dr. Zoom.
- In "I Am Ella Fitzgerald", Ella performs a great rendition of "A Tisket, A Tasket". Kudos to Delia Chambers, the voice for her.
- Celia Cruz's short but catchy salsa song "La vida es un canto de amor" in "I Am Celia Cruz". Many people wish it was a real song.
- "I Am Ibn Battuta" has catchy, pleasant-sounding Arabic-style background music throughout the episode, fitting the episode's setting of Morocco.
Broken Base: "I Am Jackie Robinson" is a point of contention for the fanbase. It gets praise for tackling racism (something rarely done in modern preschool shows), but it also gets criticized for comparing serious issues like systemic racism to minor disagreements between kids; Yadina wasn't allowed to play on the swings because of her red coat, which is something she can change, unlike skin color. Jackie befriending Sarah, who was racist to him, was also criticized for teaching kids to befriend bigots, which can have disastrous consequences. As such, the episode was banned from PBS along with its sister episode, "I Am Anna Pavlova".
Can't Un-Hear It: Just try to read George Washington's Ordinary People Change the World book without hearing Maxim Lutterotti's voice. Or Jackie Robinson's book without Jazz Stewart's voice. Or Amelia Earhart's book without Markeda McKay's voice. You get the idea.
Critical Dissonance: Joyce Slaton of Common Sense Media bashed the show for containing "historical inaccuracies", but the show has managed to score a decent-sized fandom, not minding the reviews on the page left by obvious Trolls.^note
Crosses the Line Twice: Children dying? Not funny. Xavier pretending to kick the bucket in "I Am Mary Shelley"? Hilarious.
Diagnosed by the Audience: According to the fandom, all three of the kids are neurodivergent. Specifically, Xavier has ADHD, Yadina has OCD, and Brad is autistic.
Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Helen Keller is the most popular of the historical heroes due to her adorable design and inspirational, heartwarming story.
- Sally Ride is the most popular of the heroes featured in "I Am Madam President", thanks to being the first LGBTQ+ hero featured in the series and due to her segment being the most dramatic and inspiring. Great-Great Grandma Riddle has developed quite the fanbase as well.
- Jamie, the new kid at school who debuted in "I Am Arthur Ashe", is already popular because of her sweet personality and adorable design.
- Harper doesn't appear much, but is loved by the fandom because of her love for dinosaurs.
- Yadina's friend Ben has fans even outside the fandom due to being good autistic representation.
Fanon Welding: Fans believe that the show takes place in the same universe as Gravity Falls, since a Freeze-Frame Bonus, whenever the kids are in the Secret Museum, shows that Journal 3 is located in one of the cubbies.
Friendly Fandoms:
- With the Ready Jet Go!, Molly of Denali, and Let's Go Luna! fandoms, thanks to them all being well-written and educational modern PBS cartoons. It helps that Yadina from Xavier and Honey from Luna have the same VA - Zoe Hatz. Also, Brad is somewhat similar to Sean from Jet.
- With Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, since the show featured Fred Rogers as the historical hero in the final regular episode of Season 1.
Heartwarming Moments: Now with its own page.
Moe: Thanks to the Super-Deformed art style and Black Bead Eyes that everyone has, all the child characters can come off as this. Shout out to Xavier, Yadina, and Brad, for having cute personalities to match their cute appearances.
Nightmare Fuel:
- In "I Am Madam President", Berby dies due to her batteries running low, and drifts off into space.
- "I Am Harriet Tubman" is equally terrifying, especially due to its subject matter of slavery. Harriet and her family were enslaved and treated cruelly all because of their skin color, something they have no control over. Harriet risks her life to escape from slavery and rescue her family from the clutches of the slavemaster.
Periphery Demographic: The show already has a loyal teen and adult fanbase thanks to its clever writing and use of historical heroes.
Signature Line:
- "Thank you for joining our awesome adventure to meet ____"
- "I wonder who the secret museum will send us to meet."
Squick: In "I Am George Washington", Yadina gets a crush on Kid!George Washington, but it comes off as somewhat cringeworthy rather than cute because George Washington eventually grew up, married someone else, and died, so essentially Yadina is crushing on a dead person.
Tear Jerker: Now with its own page.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Once the online shorts were released, the fandom, particularly on TikTok had negative reactions towards Xavier's new voice (in season 2, he was replaced again by Ian Ho). They even started a hashtag to get Aidan Vissers to come back; he's just that iconic.
Toy Ship:
- Some people ship Yadina/Brad, due to Opposites Attract.
- Harper/Xavier is gaining traction, helped by their interactions in "I Am Sir Arthur Conan Doyle".
- On Wattpad, people ship Brad with Brian. This consequently makes Brian an Armoured Closet Gay in fanfiction. Others ship Brian with Yadina, his victim.
Visual Effects of Awesome: The effects used when the kids travel through time are well-done and have a great color palette.
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The show and its accompanying book series Ordinary People Change the World can slip into this territory at times due to covering topics not a lot of other preschool shows/books do such as racism^note, slavery^note"I Am Harriet Tubman" again, sexism^note, war,^note etc, to the point where Moral Guardians and Heteronormative Crusaders deemed the series inappropriate for kids. Also, in the I Am Madam President special, Berby dies and drifts off into space. You read that right, a PBS Kids show killed off one of its main characters. She did come back though.
The Woobie: It's pretty hard to not feel bad for Brad. He has very low self-esteem despite all his talents and accomplishments, has many allergies, and is always apprehensive to go back in time. Special mention to "I Am Susan B. Anthony" and "I Am Alexander Graham Bell". In the former, Xavier and Yadina won't let him have a vote on what will go where in the Secret Museum, and in the latter, he loses his voice, and Xavier and Yadina won't listen to him.

YMMV / Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum

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