Nick Jr.’s Kinetic LazyTown Renewed for a Second Season

I’m not sure there is a more bizarre show on television than LazyTown, Nick Jr.’s kinetic preschool hit that features an 8 year-old girl with pink hair who appears to live alone and perpetually be on the verge of a cheerleading routine; a remarkably energetic villain (given that his raison d’etre is to suppress physical activity) and disguise artist in Robbie Rotten; an acrobatic and amiable hero, Sportacus, who bounds about in a dashing French moustache inspiring the formerly lazy denizens of LazyTown to be active, eat well, and meet life head on; zippy techno music, random puppet characters, and CGI; and, of yeah, it’s shot in English in Iceland with an international cast and crew (which explains some of the strange accents).

Nick Jr. just announced that it has ordered 18 new episodes of LazyTown for a second season that that will begin airing in May. The comic-action series airs weekdays on Nick Jr. at noon (ET/PT) and weekends on Viacom corporate cousin CBS.

LazyTown was created in Iceland by professional athlete and aerobic champion Magnus Scheving (Sportacus), two-time European Champion and silver medalist in the World Championship of Aerobics. During his travels around the world lecturing on health and fitness, parents often asked Scheving about exercise and nutrition for children. As a response, he created LazyTown in 1991 with the book Go, Go Lazy Town!. The property was built into a multimedia powerhouse in Iceland with businesses including publishing, live theatrical performances and a radio station. LazyTown made its debut as a television show on Nick Jr. — the commercial-free preschool programming block airing on Nickelodeon weekdays from 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. — in August, 2004.

Supporting the show’s vivid, hyperreal look, LazyTown is shot in Iceland in an extremely advanced HDTV 24P digital cinematography environment which produces finished movie quality results in real-time.