Spin and shout, till you find yourself on Zula!
Let's take off!
We're all ready to roll!
It's fun to learn with the Zula Patrol!"
—- The theme tune
3D/CG animated television series aimed at preschoolers to 2nd Graders that started airing on PBS Kids in 2005 and now runs on Qubo. Created by Deb Manchester in 1998, Zula Patrol was originally a set of characters on cast covers, then a children's book series. The TV series was designed to entertain while promoting an understanding of science and astronomy through engaging character-driven stories, which focus on specific educational science learning objectives. In every episode of The Zula Patrol, the characters demonstrate inquiry-based learning and critical thinking skills. They also model inquisitiveness, observation, self-reflection, and social experiences that encourage collaboration, teamwork, and an excitement for scientific exploration and problem solving.
Despite its target audience, the show has a small Periphery Demographic, but you won't hear a lot of people talking about it, since the show's somewhat obscure.
Of course, in every new episode, they do learn something new and science-y. However, the show breaks the laws of science about once per new idea they teach.
Tropes:
- And Knowing Is Half the Battle: Every episode ends in a recap of what they learned.
- Animation Evolution: The newer episodes apply copious amounts of squash and stretch to characters, which didn't happen in the older seasons. This is most obvious in the intro, where Multo now appears more like an inflated balloon float in his part of the theme song.
- As the Good Book Says...: The versions of the episodes that aired on Smile of a Child had Christian values blatantly shoehorned in.
- Catchphrase:
- Bula: "This is a job for the Zula Patrol!"
- Multo: "Oh my stars!"
- Did Not Think This Through: Dark Truder would succeed in his plans if he'd bother to do his research first.
- Everything Talks: Every single object in outer space can talk. Except for the main characters' homeworld.
- Episode Title Card: Every episode opens with a title card that is surrounded by the main characters.
- Extendable Arms: Deliria stretches her arms pretty far sometimes, such as in "Birds of a Feather" where she stretches her arms to turn on her robot's flying bird wings.
- The Face of the Sun: The sun, just like several objects in the show, is portrayed with a face, complete with lipstick and eyelashes.
- Great Big Book of Everything: The Multopedia. Every principle taught is in here, somewhere. And it IS a Door Stopper. Then on top of that it can project a hologram of a principle, and people are routinely shown going inside the book to "physically" see the stuff inside.
- Humanoid Aliens: If you were supposed to be a living creature, expect to appear like a humanoid version of your related species, and possibly with alien features too.
- Intelligent Gerbil: Wizzy and Wigg are based off of bees/lightning bugs.
- It's All About Me: Deliria, the galaxy's resident spoiled heiress. It's rare when she does anything for others.
- Lethal Chef: Multo. Several episodes depict him making food with all sorts of things, most of them bugs, which the other members of the Zula Patrol aren't exactly fond of eating. His status is known throughout the galaxy, as even planets, including the Sun herself in 'Sun Day', refused to eat his food. 'Chili Cook-Off' shows what happens when it's left to cool, in which it becomes a massive whirlwind that nearly demolishes their kitchen. 'Time Out' and 'Blue Moon' are also good examples of this trope.
- Male Sun, Female Moon: Gender-inverted. The sun is a female character while the moon is a male character.
- Origins Episode: "Three Ringed Gorga" reveals that Gorga was formerly the most famous performer at Umbra and Penumbra's Flying Circus. He later started getting tired of it, and tried to go with the moon for adventures. The greedy ringmaster then tried to capture him, but Gorga escaped and launched the circus to nowhere. After saying his goodbyes to the moon, Gorga accepted Bula's offer to be on the Zula Patrol.
- Our Werebeasts Are Different: "Going Through A Phase" has Bula turn into a weremouse after encountering a strange plant.
- Paper-Thin Disguise:
- Dark Truder's signature fallback plan. Also expect Traxie, his talking hairpiece, as part of it.
- Deliria herself has this problem. She can shape shift to avoid capture, but part of her disguise will always show some part of her face in it. Expect her hapless robot servant, Cloid, to be part of the disguise, mainly as a distraction to thrown the team off guard.
- Translator Collar: Buzzy is a ferret from Earth given this collar by the Zula Patrol so he could communicate with them.
