Trivia / The Backyardigans

• Acting for Two: In the UK dub, Uniqua and Austin are both voiced by Lizzie Waterworth, while Maria Darling voices both Tyrone and Tasha.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: Pablo never says "Why aren't we alive?" in the episode "It's Great to Be a Ghost" contrary to a lot of the memes shown circulating throughout the internet. The image associated with the quote is actually of him saying "Let's see what kind of spooky stuff is inside the haunted house!".
• Children Voicing Children: Austin's voice actor recorded lines for early episodes when he was only seven years old. The other voice actors ranged between ten and twelve, with a few staying into their teens.
• Completely Different Title: In Italian, the show is titled Zonzoli (an Italian word literally meaning "loiter").
• Crossdressing Voices: Most foreign language dubs have the male characters voiced by adult women, rather than actual young boys like the original US version.
• Dawson Casting: Most of the time, the actors were a few years older than their characters.
  • It got pretty ridiculous in the final season, when only three of the cast members from Season 1 remained: 13 year old Jonah Bobo, 15 year old Sean Curley, and 16 year old LaShawn Jefferies as 5-7 year olds Austin, Pablo, and Uniqua, respectively.
  • Multiple foreign dubs have the characters voiced by full grown adults. In the Czech dub, Austin's voice actor was in his forties… and it shows.
• Fandom Nod: The production team did the viewership a favor by getting the show's least original example of Genre-Busting out of the way in the form of the hip-hop-western adventure "Riding the Range" early in season 1.
• International Co Production: Produced and recorded in America, but animated by Nelvana in Toronto, Canada.
• The Merch: Tons, including plushies, books, and clothing.
• Non-Singing Voice: Each character has two voice actors; one for speaking and one for singing.
• The Other Darrin:
  • As of season four, the only remaining cast members from season one are Uniqua's speaking voice, Austin's speaking voice, and Pablo's singing voice. The other characters have had at least one replacement. Tyrone is the biggest victim of this, as he gets a new actor/singer every season. ^note  Well, Jordan Coleman and Tyrel Jackson Williams stuck around for two seasons, but that's it.
  • For the Latin Spanish dub, Abraham Vega was replaced by Alejandro Orozco as Tyrone in season three due to the former hitting puberty. Orozco also grew out of the role by season four, and was replaced by Omar Hernández. Manuel Díaz, who voiced Austin in the first two seasons, was replaced by Héctor Ireta De Alba in season three for the same reason as Abraham and Alejandro. However, he quit from the project with his mother's support after that season as the director Eduardo Tejedo refused to pay the money he owed Héctor for his work. Elsa Covián (Pablo), Annie Rojas (Uniqua) and Claudia Bramnfsette (Tasha) were the only original cast members (at least all female) whose characters weren't recast. For the songs, Austin was sung by Iván Filio in the first two episodes, before being replaced by Maggie Vera, starting from the eighth episode.
• Out of Order: No two networks seem able to agree to an episode sequence. In the US, Nick Jr. used "Knights Are Brave and Strong" as the premiere. Sometimes, episodes would be pushed back and worked into a theme. For instance, "Match on Mt. Olympus" was held back in America, and aired during the 2008 Olympics. This does not mess up any of the aforementioned Call Backs, though.
• Production Posse: When creator Janice Burgess started working on Nickelodeon's revival of Winx Club, lots of her co-workers from Backyardigans joined the production team too.^note Backyardigans writers Jeff Borkin, Adam Peltzman and Carin Greenberg all carried over to Winx, plus the script coordinator Jonathan Foss. The show's lyricist McPaul Smith also wrote the Winx specials' theme song.
• Real-Life Relative: Boinga, the baby alien from "Mission to Mars", is voiced by the niece of Alicia Keys. Boinga's mother was voiced by Keys herself.
• Referenced by...:
  • The song "Secret Agent" was sung by Suzanne in the Orange Is the New Black episode "Who Knows Better Than I".
  • In Don't Cry For Me, I've Already Wilted, Pegitan and Chiyu run through Pablo's Freak Out routine, where Pegitan (who also happens to be a blue penguin) loses his cool over something small, and Chiyu has to yell his name three times to get his attention.
  • In PreCure in a Nutshell, Yuni gets the parody name of Uniqua.
  • In CATE Academy, Uniqua is one of the students at the academy.
• Saved from Development Hell: Its earliest form dates back to the late 1990s, with a live action pilot being filmed all the way back in 1998.
• Similarly Named Works:
  • "Mission to Mars" shares its name with an episode of Ready Jet Go!.
  • "Surf's Up" is not to be confused with an animated movie from 2007 (also starring a penguin).
• So My Kids Can Watch: Alicia Keys took the Mommy Martian role in the episode "Mission to Mars" because her niece was a fan of the show, and even let her tag along to voice the baby.
  • Adam Pascal took up the role as the Dragon in "Tale of the Mighty Knights" for the same reason.
• What Could Have Been:
  • One episode was supposed to use the avant-garde jazz of Sun Ra as a music genre, but the show's producers thought it would scare parents and decided not to go through with it.
  • As of the 1998 pilot, the series was going to be a live-action show called "Me and My Friends." Austin was not present in this pilot, or the 2001 animated pilot. See here for more on the pilot. The character's designs mainly stated stationary, except Uniqua's body was more purple, Tasha had a tiny bow on her head, and Tyrone has blonder hair and a different color sweater.

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