Stanley

Stanley was a Playhouse Disney series by Cartoon Pizza. It featured many of the same major crew of the program, PB&J Otter. The program featured the adventures of Stanley Griff, his family and friends. Stanley Griff possessed the Dr. Dolittle-like capability to talk to animals. In fact, all of the children on the program that are approximately Stanley's age freely talk with the animals. Most other adults, with the exception of Stanley's Grandma Griff, are capable of talking to and understanding the animals, but simply don't talk to them. If they ever hear the animals talking, they tend to dismiss it as a dream or hallucination. Grandma Griff freely talks with the talking animals. Both Stanley and his grandmother owned a copy of The Great Big Book of Everything (In fact, Grandma Griff was the one who gave Stanley that book for his fourth birthday), which Stanley and his friends often used to look up animals, including lions, bald eagles, sharks, butterflies and much more. The show's title theme is performed by the Baha Men, creators of the popular hits "Who Let the Dogs Out?" and "Best Years of Our Lives" (Shrek).

PB&J Otter and Stanley - Notable Similarities and Differences

 * While almost every PB&J Otter story featured at least one original song, most Stanley stories featured "The Great Big Book of Everything" song, but no other song. Songs were used only occasionally on Stanley, but like Otter tunes, were generally catchy and written by professional songwriters. Dan Sawyer, who songwrote regularly for Otter also wrote for Stanley.
 * When Peanut and Jelly draw fish for pretend fishing towards the start of "Bye Bye PB&J", the designs of the fish are extremely similar to the look of the animals in Stanley.
 * Each story of both programs is specifically written with the intention of teaching some sort of life lesson in mind. Stanley stories both teach about a particular animal and about some problem that Stanley and his friends are trying to solve.
 * Characters on Stanley are shown attending school in most stories of the program, whereas characters on PBJ Otter are never shown attending school.
 * Both programs feature anthropomorphism. However, in Stanley, the talking animals look much more like animals and behave generally like animals, while coexisting with humans. There are no human characters in PB&J Otter. The only animals that talk and have human-like desires on Stanley are Stanley's pets Harry, Elsie and Dennis. All other animals seen on the program generally behave like normal animals.
 * Stanley is based on a series of books by Griff, whereas PB&J Otter was made for television and is not based on a book series.
 * Stanley has several DVD releases, whereas PB&J Otter has never been officially released on commercial DVD or even VHS.
 * Stanley employs the concept of "breaking the fourth wall," with Dennis regularly talking to viewers in order to quiz them or to review learned material. Characters on PB&J Otter never break the fourth wall.
 * The plot of the film Stanley's Dinosaur Round-Up revolved around a character named Rockin' Rory wanting to clear away the dude ranch of Stanley's Great Uncle Stew to expand his amusement park business. This is extremely similar to the plot of the final episode written for PB&J Otter, "Goodbye Lake Hoohaw." However, Rockin' Rory was portrayed as a mustache-twirling villain, whereas Mr. Bigdog was presented as being a nice guy who was simply misguided.

Limited List of Known Crew Shared Between the Two Programs

 * Jeff Buckland - Writer
 * Jess Nelson - Director
 * David Campbell - Creator
 * Kathy O'Rourke Parker - Developer
 * Dennis Deshazer - Executive Producer
 * My Chatterton - Storyboard Slugging
 * Robert David - Writer
 * Jim Rowley - Script Coordinator
 * Bill Gross - Executive Consultant
 * Jim Jinkins - Creator
 * Mark S. Bernthal - Developer
 * Shreyl Shamps Leach - Executive Producer
 * Susan Kim - Writer
 * Jeff Kindley - Writer
 * Jeff Gittle - Executive Story Editor
 * Kent Meredith - Voice Director
 * Daniel J. Rosen - Editor
 * Jim Rubin - Writer
 * Dan Sawyer - Songwriter
 * John Schnall - Assistant Director
 * Reed Shelly - Writer
 * Jack Spillum - Supervising Producer
 * Bruce Deck - Production Supervisor
 * Eric Weiner - Writer

More to Explore

 * Stanley at Wikipedia
 * Stanley at Playhouse Disney (Now redirects to Disney Junior website)
 * Stanley at TV.com
 * Stanley at IMDb
 * Charles Shaughnessy's Page for Stanley (Voice of Dennis)
 * Stanley at Disney in the Morning
 * Stanley at EPinions
 * Stanley at Zap2It