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Abracadabra Childrens' TV Series
Abracadabra is an American children’s television series, produced by Mike and Joey Productions,LLC and the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine It was created by Michael Adelman, D.O., D.P.M., J.D., the past President and now President Emeritus of the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine (WVSOM). The program focuses on health, nutrition, safety, and science and utilizes ventriloquism, magic, and original songs to reinforce the educational content. The series premiered on West Virginia Public Broadcasting on July 2, 2012

Genre
Elementary Education; Sketch Comedy; Magic; Ventriloquism; Puppets; Healthy Living; Science Experiments; Children's Music; Healthy Snacks; Child Safety

History
The current version of Abracadabra was conceived in 2011 by executive producer, and then President of WVSOM, Michael Adelman, after a chance meeting with West Virginia PBS executives. Adelman had produced and hosted earlier local versions of Abracadabra in Des Moines, Iowa and Toledo, Ohio and one of the PBS executives had remembered viewing the old series. He requested that Adelman and WVSOM create a similar series that was more focused on Health. The statistics show that West Virginia ranks 50th (the highest) in Obesity for 2018, 50th in smoking; and 50th in Drug Deaths. It also has one of the highest rates of heart disease.

The original goal was to find a way to improve the health of West Virginians. Many of the educational materials about health focused on the adults. Adelman, brainstormed with his administrative team, which consisted of James Nemitz, Ph.D, who was Vice President of Administration and External Relations; Marilea Butcher, Associate Vice President of Administrative Affairs; Leslie Bicksler, Associate Vice President of Human Resources; and Larry Ware, Vice President for Finance and Facilities. They decided to focus on the children through a Healthy Children’s Initiative, which included the Abracadabra PBS television series and brought the idea of the series to the WVSOM Board, which totally supported the concept. . (Jim Nemitz succeeded Michael Adelman, who retired as President of WVSOM, beginning on July 1, 2018. Dr. Adelman remains as President Emeritus and continues as the executive producer and host of Abracadabra. Marilea Butcher was promoted to Vice President of Communications and Administrative Affairs in April of 2018. Leslie Bicksler was promoted to Vice President of Human Resources also in April 2018.)

By the Spring of 2011, arrangements had been worked out for West Virginia Public Broadcasting to produce the series at their Beckley, WV studios. Producer Debra Warmuth, from the Walkabout Company was selected to produce the first season and Larry Dowling, from WVPBS was selected to Direct and Aaron Shackelford, also of WVPBS would edit.

In July and August of 2011, 13- 30 minute episodes of Abracadabra were recorded and Season one premiered on July 2, 2012 on WVPBS. The series originally aired weekdays at 1pm and Saturday and Sunday at 8:30am. Thirteen new episodes of Abracadabra were recorded for season two in July 2012, airing in the Summer of 2013 Season Three, consisting of 14 new episodes, was produced in the Summer of 2013, airing in the early Winter of 2015. Dowling continued to Direct the series, but Deb Warmouth had left and Marilea Butcher had takine over as Producer. No new episodes were recorded in 2014 due to other commitments of cast and producers.

Season four was produced in the summer of 2015 and included 13 regular new episodes and an hour Thanksgiving special. Season four aired in the Winter 2016. An episode from season four, “Joey Rides Again”, was nominated for a Regional EMMY award (Ohio Valley NATAS Chapter)

Season five included only eight new episodes and was produced in the Summer of 2016, airing in the Spring of 2017. An episode from season five, “Joey’s Time Machine” won a regional* EMMY award, and another episode, “Abralot” was also nominated for a Regional* EMMY. (Ohio Valley NATAS Chapter) ;

Season six, consisting of 10 new episodes, was produced in the Summer of 2018 and is currently in post-production, with a tentative release for airing in the Fall of 2019.

Season seven, consisting of eight episodes was produced in July and August,2019 and is about to begin post-production.

Seasons 1 through 5 were all recorded at the WVPBS studio in Beckley, WV. WVPBS closed the Beckley studio after season 5 due to state budget cuts. Arrangements were made to partner with Concord University in Athens, WV and all of the sets and props were moved to Concord University. The sets were reconstructed and season 6 and 7 were produced and recorded on the Concord University theater stage in July and part of August 2018, and 2019. .  Marliea Butcher continued to produce the series and both Rob Hoffman and Mike Adelman Directed. James Caplinger, who plays Salty on the series also directed an episode that he wrote for Season 6.

Educational Goals of the Series
The objectives of the WVSOM Healthy Children Initative’s Abracadabra Television Series are to:
 * 1) Modify the lifestyle of our children so that they will focus on taking care of their health.
 * 2) Provide role models for school children, to reinforce the importance of health, nutrition, exercise, science and safety
 * 3) Ultimately, to improve the health of the nation, by starting with the children.

The goals of the Healthy Children Initative’s Abracadabra Television Series are to:
 * 1) Educate children that, when they have a choice of what to eat, they should choose healthy alternatives.
 * 2) Show children that healthy foods taste good and can still be fun to eat!
 * 3) Expose children to a variety of fruits and vegetables, so that they can become familiar with them and, thus, when given the opportunity, will eat them.
 * 4) Get children to exercise daily.
 * 5) Excite children about science, through fun, easy to do science experiments performed by Professor Science.
 * 6) Teach children important life lessons, such as the importance of being a friend; the best person you can be is yourself, and it’s important to keep trying. Even though you may fail, if you keep trying, you can succeed.

Format, Set, and Characters
The main set of Abracadabra is a magic shop, where Mike (Mike Adelman), the owner of the shop, plays host to a variety of eclectic characters. These include: In addition to the above main characters, an average of 16 child and teen singers and actors are cast each year and four to six of them appear in each episode, usually as themselves. For the first season, almost all of the segments were shot around the magic counter in the shop, with the exception of Professor Science, who had his own set.
 * Joey, a ventriloqual 8-year-old boy puppet who is always inventing things that don’t always work the way he wants them to.
 * Daisy (Desire Davis Christian, who owns the garden shop next door to the magic shop and loves to make healthy snacks
 * DUK the duck, a talking magical ventriloquial puppet who can disappear when he says “illusion!”
 * Salty (James Caplinger), the tall-tale telling pirate who lives in an urn on Mikes magic shelf.
 * Professor Science (Jim Nemitz), who demonstrates science experiments that viewers can do at home or at school.
 * Nastini (Brook Bibb), the mean, villain, magician who wants everyone to eat lots of chocolate and candy
 * Nastini-2 (Will Davis), Nastini’s younger brother, who has the same goals as Nastini. (Nastini-2 was added in season four due to the pending exit of Brook Bibb at the end of that season due to other commitments.)
 * Mr. Oops ((Robert Fisk) an eccentric inventor of magic tricks that always seem to disappear.
 * Tim (Tim Walker), Mr. Oops Apprentice. (Tim, originally an "Abrakid" on the series, was brought on as a regular in season 6 due to the retirement of Bob Fisk, who played Mr. Oops)

In season two, Daisy’s garden shop set was added as well as a healthy snack kitchen.

By Season three, a 20 foot green screen set was added and now scenes were recorded on Salty’s ship, Joey’s room, the sidewalk in front of the magic and garden shops, and graphic backgrounds were added for the music videos that were part of every episode.

In season six, an alleyway set was added to view visitors coming into the magic shop.

The format focuses on a theme for each episode. These include social-emotional issues such as making friends, going to the doctor or dentist, taking care of pets, and teamwork;  STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) issues; episodes about the fun of reading, and more serious episodes having to do with Bullying, cyber predators, and saying “NO” to drugs. Each of the episodes has at least one original song. These were almost all written and scored by Musical Director Jeff Kerscher**, which reinforces the theme of the episode. (**The “Bully song” in season one was written by Musical Talent Coordinator Travis Riddle. In addition, Mr. Riddle also writes a lot of the background music for the illusions.)

Each episode shows viewers how to make a healthy snack and has a science experiment with Professor Science. Interspersed throughout episodes are healthy games about nutrition, such as: •	The “Make A Healthy Choice Game”, which shows three products and the viewers have to decide which one is the healthiest; •	The “More or Less Game”, where viewers have to decide which of two foods have more sugar or fat; and •	The “My Plate Game”, which has one item missing from the “MY Plate” food plate and viewers have to decide which of three foods is the one that is missing. Additionally, during the episode, Mike performs several magic tricks. Each episode also has a “Quick Trick” segment, where Mike teaches viewers how to perform a magic trick. It is unique, in that the segment also includes a “commercial”, which has Joey talking about a fruit or vegetable. Finally, at the end of each episode, Mike and Joey talk about what Joey is going to write in his computer journal that day. This provides an opportunity to reiterate the main educational concepts presented in that episode. Each episode ends with Joey telling Mike a joke and Mike reminding the viewers that, ''“The real magic is in you!” ''

Social Media
Abracadabra has a website: www.abracadabra.org, where games, healthy snacks, science experiments and magic tricks can be found; a Facebook page: www.Facebook.com/abracadabrapbs; and a YouTube channel: YouTube.com/abratv1.