Ventriloquist and Sesame Street puppeteer Megan (Piphus) Baptist has a sweet new show. Megan and Cupcake Ready for Preschool is a new hybrid live-action/puppet/animation series for preschoolers that pairs Megan with a puppet sidekick (Cupcake) and other puppet friends in the “WOW Workshop”, a space that’s equal parts invention lab and playhouse. The series launched as ten-minute shorts on Disney Jr.’s YouTube channel in August, followed by longer episodes on Disney Jr. and Disney+ this fall.
Each episode is built around a simple preschool concept like the alphabet, sharing, shapes or numbers and wraps around preexisting animated shorts from Disney Jr.’s Ready For Preschool series. The format is a delightful throwback to the wrap-around host segments that were a staple of preschool and kids TV before the advent of streaming, but also appear designed to provide preschoolers with a gentle introduction to other Disney properties like Muppet Babies, Spidey and His Amazing Friends, and Doc McStuffins. Depending on how parents feel about their kids being exposed to those other shows, that’s either a bonus or a drawback, but what Megan and Cupcake does, it does exceptionally well.
The show is stacked with puppetry talent. In addition to Megan, it was co-developed by puppetry veterans Brian Clark (Team Smithereen, Puppet Up! Uncensored) and Jason Hopley (Nanalan’, Mr. Meaty), and Cupcake is puppeteered by Emmy-winning writer/puppeteer/puppet builder Liz Hara (Megan supplies Cupcake’s voice). The show’s puppet cast was fabricated by The Puppet Kitchen in New York City.
While the show’s puppetry is fun and Cupcake is adorable, the real magic that makes this resonate with young children is Megan herself. She began performing as a ventriloquist at the age of ten, and by the time she was in college she was making appearances on popular U.S. television shows like America’s Got Talent and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. She went on to make history as the first Black woman ever hired as a full-time puppeteer on Sesame Street, where she plays Gabrielle, a 6-year-old Black girl Muppet. Megan has also released children’s music under the name May & Them Pups, and co-created Sunday School, a Christian children’s series that combines music and puppetry, with her husband Sir the Baptist (a Grammy-winning recording artist in his own right).
Megan and Cupcake Ready for Preschool can be seen on Disney Jr. and Disney+.
