Mole Miner

 is an animated television series currently produced by Jazz Television Media,, Berker Entertainment Group, Latikuu Edacra Entertainment North America, Morkel & Associates, , , and  in association with  member station.

The series premiered on November 5, 2001 on PBS as part of the block, and almost immediately garnered attention for being one of the first PBS Kids shows with a TV-Y7 rating.

Mole Miner has received widespread praise from critics throughout its run, proving to be an extremely popular draw for PBS upon its debut. The series received multiple nominations for, Sylvania Television Awards, , , Michael Awards and Jupiter Awards. Currently, the copyrights for the Mole Miner franchise are owned by Mole Miner Partnership L.P. (a partnership of Latikuu Edacra, Berker Entertainment Group, Nexstar Studios and Phelan Morkel and his associates' company Morkel & Associates).

Along with Sesame Street (which now airs first-run on, and second-run on PBS) and Arthur (which ended in February 2022 after 253 episodes), Mole Miner is one of ' longest running series.

Synopsis
Darren, an anthropomorphic mole miner, works the mines in the Rockies, a fictional mineral-rich mountain region in the state of  (based on the real-life ). He works alongside other moles and at the same time teaches the audience middle school-level knowledge about geology, engineering, history of mining, and industrial uses of different minerals.

Origin and development
Creator Phelan Morkel was only a 17-year old high schooler when his comic Darren the Mole Miner was featured in the school newspaper of in  in 1993. The comic gained national attention for its teaching of geology and the history of mining and Morkel soon signed a deal with to release collections of the comic. The first collection, Hey, It's Me, Darren!, made Morkel one of the youngest authors to have a title on the. In 1999, Morkel was approached by to produce a television series adapted from the comic. Lear had noticed that one of his grand-nephews had outgrown Arthur and felt there was no educational kids program that could appeal to him or other kids of his age range, and thought Morkel's comic would work great as a TV series. Lear and Morkel produced a pilot and pitched the series to of  in 2000. WNET producer Kristin Laskas Martin thought the show could have appeal since the titular character, Darren, "wasn't as divisive as Barney and wasn't as neurotic as Arthur".

Lear's Act III Productions worked with -based, Latikuu Holdings USA (who also took interest in the original pitch), Berker Entertainment Group (another company that took interest in the pitch) and -based Jazz Television Media (a division of advertising agency HRV Advertising, who helped fund PBS programming through their charitable arm The Harry R. Voskanyan Foundation and served as Latikuu Holdings USA/Latikuu Edacra Entertainment North America's advertising agency for many years) to produce a pilot for the series. Several animation firms from Japan, South Korea and Canada, Linkhouse Animation and being among them, were contracted to animate the pilot, with the -based  providing the voice recording and casting. The pilot was screened to WNET and PBS executives and a test audience of local children at a private event in August 2000. The children "fell in love with the characters", and the executives agreed that a Mole Miner show would be successful for PBS. WNET & PBS immediately greenlit the series for a initial season of 40 episodes, which debuted on November 5, 2001. The aforementioned firms returned to produce the series, being joined by WNET. At age 25, Phelan Morkel was, at the time, the youngest creator of a daytime television series.

As part of the show's development, Dr. Samuel G. Jenson PhD and a team at the of  developed a curriculum for the show that emphasized teaching not only the history of mining and facts about geology and engineering, but also social values and moral lessions. Writers consult with a panel of "educators, psychologists, social scientists, humanities scholars, theologians and other experts" led by Jenson on how to incorporate lessons into the story.

Animation
Most of the pre-production work is split between Baker Animation in, founded and run by former Disney animator Matthew C. Baker, and various Canadian and American firms. The animation is done by multiple studios in and, with Linkhouse Animation being the longest-tenured studio working on the show.

Episodes
The following seasons have aired:
 * Season 1 (2001-02) — 40 episodes
 * Season 2 (2002-03) — 25 episodes
 * Season 3 (2003-04) — 30 episodes
 * Season 4 (2004) — 15 episodes
 * Season 5 (2005) — 40 episodes
 * Season 6 (2006-07) — 30 episodes
 * Season 7 (2007-08) — 30 episodes
 * Season 8 (2008-09) — 30 episodes
 * Season 9 (2009-10) — 30 episodes
 * Season 10 (2010-11) — 30 episodes
 * Season 11 (2011-12) — 30 episodes
 * Season 12 (2012-13) — 30 episodes
 * Season 13 (2013-14) — 30 episodes
 * Season 14 (2014-15) — 30 episodes
 * Season 15 (2015-16) — 30 episodes
 * Season 16 (2016-17) — 30 episodes
 * Season 17 (2017-18) — 30 episodes
 * Season 18 (2018-19) — 30 episodes
 * Season 19 (2019-20) — 30 episodes
 * Season 20 (2020-21) — 30 episodes
 * Season 21 (2021-22) — 30 episodes
 * Season 22 (2022-23) — 30 episodes
 * Season 23 (2023-24) (upcoming)

United States

 * November 5, 2001 – present
 * Original version: November 7, 2001 – September 26, 2005
 * 2017 version: 2017 – present
 * 2017 version: 2017 – present

Japan
A Japanese dub titled モル鉱夫 (moru kōfu) airs in Japan.
 * (November 8, 2001 – present)
 * (2003 - 2009)
 * (September – October 9, 2011; April 2021 - present)

South Korea
A Korean dub titled 두더지 광부 (dudeoji gwangbu) airs in South Korea.
 * (November 2001 - present)

Canada

 * (November 18, 2001 – present)
 * (November 8, 2001 – present)
 * New episodes: November 11, 2001 – 2007)
 * Reruns: 2001 – June 2013
 * As SCN: November 12, 2001 – reruns until May 2010
 * As Citytv Saskatchewan: Reruns: June 2015 – May 2017
 * (November 8, 2001 – August 15, 2008)
 * (November 8, 2001 – present) (dubbed in French as Le mineur taupe)
 * (November 2001 – December 2009) (dubbed in French as Le mineur taupe)
 * (November 8, 2001 – present) (dubbed in French as Le mineur taupe)
 * (November 2001 – December 2009) (dubbed in French as Le mineur taupe)

Critical reception
Mole Miner received widespread praise from critics throughout its run and proved to be an extremely popular draw for PBS. Most of this praise was aimed at its animation, voice acting, educational value, and themes of diversity. Season one holds a score of 95 out of 100, indicating "universal acclaim"; subsequent seasons saw very similar ratings on the website. Lookbook users gave Mole Miner an overall score of 93%, indicating an "A−" grade.

In the 2005 book Everything I Know I Learned from PBS, author Drake Benitez calls it "simply marvelous" and "the best way to teach me what the hell a mineral is" (p. 26). Ian Connors provided similar praise in his 2011 book Kiddie Cartoons and Everything in Between, writing "PBS's Mole Miner is a fantastic example of a kiddie [preschool] cartoon that manages to educate children while at the same time feeling real. Even with its cast consisting of animal characters, it still feels much more real than much of PBS's live-action children's programming." (p. 43)

The show was named the fifth greatest PBS Kids show of all time by The Worcester Beacon in 2016. In 2010, it was ranked no. 2 on MoonJump's "Top 10 Kids' Cartoons of the 2000s". Teletele's 2022 list "Top 25 Cartoons of the 2000s" ranks it no. 1 and says, "Doing an outstanding job at teaching kids about nature, science, and diversity, this early pioneer of TV-Y7 PBS Kids shows has managed to please parents and their kids."

In a 2019 episode of the review web series Luke Watches Content centered around the series, host Lucas Ferino calls it "boring, slow-paced storytelling written by the same people who use the 'it's made for kids' excuse when negative criticisms arise". A 2021 book written by Felix and Logan Cortez, PBS Is Dead, both praises and criticizes the show, as it calls the show's first ten seasons "some of [Phelan] Morkel's best work yet", but goes on to say, "However—and that's a big however—its later seasons feel like a cheap attempt at keeping an otherwise dead show alive by cramming diversity down the audience's collective throat instead of being subtle about it like previous seasons." (p. 57) In response, Phelan Morkel made the decision to rely less on meme references in season 19 and decided to make the content of that season match the TV-Y7 rating more, along with using more subtle morals. Fan reception towards more recent seasons is also notably more divisive (although they arguably accept said seasons more warmly than critics).

Trivia

 * The series was originally cel-animated for the first season, but switched to digital ink-and-paint in the second season.
 * It was the third most watched program on the Eruowoodian children's television channel TechEruo Kids in 2002, behind House of Mouse (2nd) and SpongeBob SquarePants (1st).