Mole Miner

 is an American-Canadian animated television series produced by, Jazz Television Media, Latikuu Edacra Entertainment North America, , (seasons 3-7), Les Films Botrel (season 8-present), American Leftovers, Inc. (season 8-present) and  in association with , with animation produced by Linkhouse Animation (seasons 1–6, 8-present), The Roelandts Group (season 7),  (seasons 1-5),  (seasons 6-7),  (season 8-present) and YES Somni Asia (season 8-present).

The series premiered on November 5, 2001 on, and almost immediately garnered attention for being one of the first PBS Kids shows with a TV-Y7 rating. The series originally ran for seven seasons from 2001 to 2007 and initially ran for 200 episodes, being one of the longest-running PBS Kids series, before being cancelled due to low ratings and production delays. A revival, with animation produced by Linkhouse Animation, and YES Somni Asia, was ordered in 2020 for an eighth season.

Mole Miner received widespread praise from critics throughout its run, proving to be an extremely popular draw for PBS. The series received multiple nominations for, Sylvania Television Awards, , , Michael Awards and and Jupiter Awards. Currently, the Mole Miner franchise is owned by Canadian-based Seagrounds Financial Group, who acquired the series in 2014 after original distributor Alfred Haber Distribution Co. wrote the series off for tax purposes. Seagrounds would later acquire the rights to the albums from in January 2016.

In August 2019, the characters were featured in a CGI-animated online video, Mole Miner: Strike It Richer, with the aim of increasing "self-esteem and general confidence" in youth. After its success, PBS, Latikuu Edacra and Seagrounds all confirmed they were exploring the idea of putting Mole Miner back into production. In May 2020, PBS confirmed the series' revival for a eighth season, set to premiere on December 24, 2020 with the Christmas special "It's Yet Another Mole Miner Christmas!". Much of the 8th season was produced, written, voiced and animated remotely from the production crew members and actors' homes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with YES Somni Asia using a small skeleton crew of four which remained working at their studio. The show was renewed for a ninth season in August 2021, which premiered in January 2022.

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 15-year old high schooler when his comic Darren the Mole Miner was featured in the school newspaper of in  in 1996. 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) 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 20 episodes, which debuted on November 5, 2001. The aforementioned firms returned to produce the series, being joined by WNET. At age 20, Phelan Morkel was, at the time, the youngest creator of a daytime television series.

Episodes
The following seasons were aired:
 * Season 1 (2001-2002) — 40 episodes
 * Season 2 (2002-2003) — 25 episodes
 * Season 3 (2003-2004) — 30 episodes
 * Season 4 (2004) — 15 episodes
 * Season 5 (2004-2005) — 30 episodes
 * Season 6 (2006-2007) — 30 episodes
 * Season 7 (2007) — 30 episodes
 * Season 8 (2020-2021) — 30 episodes
 * Season 9 (2022) — 20 episodes

United States

 * New episodes: November 5, 2001 – February 14, 2007
 * Reruns: 2001 – August 2, 2009 (national feed)
 * Original version: November 7, 2001 – September 26, 2005
 * 2017 version: June 2, 2020 – present
 * (reruns from August 2012 – May 2014)
 * 2017 version: June 2, 2020 – present
 * (reruns from August 2012 – May 2014)

Japan
A Japanese dub titled モル鉱夫 (moru kōfu) aired in Japan.
 * (November 8, 2001 – Spring 2007)
 * (September – October 9, 2011)

South Korea
A Korean dub titled 두더지 광부 (dudeoji gwangbu) aired in South Korea.
 * (January 2001 - February 2008; January 2021 - present)

Canada

 * (November 18, 2001 – 2007) (reruns until May 3, 2011)
 * (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. YouLook users gave Mole Miner an overall score of 93%, giving it 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 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 Dying, both praises and criticizes the show, as it calls the show's first seven seasons "some of [Phelan] Morkel's best work yet", but goes on to say, "However—and that's a big however—its eighth season feels 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)

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).