Carl the Collector

[NovaSquirrel]

There's a PBS Kids show named Carl the Collector (episodes here) which is set in a world of anthropomorphic characters, and it actually plays into that and acknowledges it instead of having it be an art style thing like Arthur does. Characters talk about fur, there's an episode that prominently focuses on characters' tails, the beaver characters gnaw on wood, and stuff like that. The show's educational content comes from having two autistic characters, including Carl (a raccoon that the show is named after) and Lotta (who's a fox) and it both teaches autistic kids about interacting with other people and navigating life and teaches neurotypical kids about understanding and accepting autistic kids.

The team clearly did their research and the autistic characters are very believable; I was watching it with my partner and she kept talking about how something Carl did was something she did as a kid, and it was actually a little hard to watch myself at first because I related so strongly and he made mistakes I made. That tells me that this show is a very good resource and I wish I would have had it when I was a kid; it would have given me a bit of a head start with learning how to interact with people instead of having to learn everything through making mistakes on IRC as a teen.

Carl and Lotta present very different approaches on how autism can look and work, with Carl being really into collecting stuff and having very strong feelings about his collection being just right, and Lotta having sensory sensitivities which I really relate to. There's a whole episode dedicated to Lotta navigating sensory overload and I thought it was depicted well. And Lotta stims by twirling the tip of her tail and it's soooo cute.

A lot of the appeal for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic for me is how a lot of the characters are written in a way that makes them seem neurodivergent and it's really cool to have a show where it's both on purpose and actually done right.