The Friar (Kids’ Show on EWTN)

I’m pretty sure they’ve run this show on EWTN before, but I’ve never actually watched it.

As with a lot of Catholic kids’ shows on EWTN, it’s apparently a redubbed Spanish or Italian TV show. The format is that “Friar John” is an adult host interacting with a puppet child, frog, and mouse to explain Bible stories. First they set up a frame story. Then the Bible story itself is presented as a puppet story with independent characters and sets. Then the friar discusses the Bible study with the kid and animal puppets, which leads into more frame story. Then there’s a “music box” with a picture recapping the Bible story, followed by a song recapping the Bible story with a cartoon video. Then there’s more frame story, following the theme of the Bible story. (In the episode I saw, this included Marian prayer. Prayer and action were shown to interact.) Then there’s a saint story, presented with painted slideshow pictures, which also relates to the Bible story. Then the framing story is resolved happily. Finally, they recap the story puppets and song with new verses, with the friar and the puppets singing along. (Recaps are good for kids’ memory.) In the episode I saw, the story puppets even show up in the “real world” of the framing story, singing through the window of the friar’s house.

The episode I saw was about the Good Shepherd, and was apparently the pilot episode. It was strikingly done. First off, most retellings don’t talk about the sheep’s motivations for wandering off! Second, most don’t show a sheepfold keeping the other 99 sheep safe. (Or one of the safe sheep suggesting that the Shepherd not go after such a bad sheep as the straying one.) Third, most don’t assume that the wolf was engaged in a deeplaid plot to catch and eat the sheep through both deception and undermining the sheep’s faith in the shepherd. Fourth, most retellings don’t end with a life or death puppet struggle between the Good Shepherd and the bad wolf! (“Take that! And that!”) But all this goes along with various sheep/shepherd stories and verses in the NT, and was also full of charming details. The song video did more of the same. They even included and explained a statue of Mary as a shepherdess, helping find lost sheep (very popular in Spain).