Pitchfork

Cue the cartoon face mouth-trumpeting a fanfare! On August 20, Nickelodeon's young children's annex Nick Jr. will premiere "Yo Gabba Gabba!", a music series with an formidable slew of tuneful guest stars. The Shins, Cornelius, Smoosh, the Postmarks (as previously-reported), Rahzel, R&B stars Mya and Sean Kingston, and a mess of others will, according to a press release, help teach "simple life lessons for preschoolers." Non-musical guest stars include Elijah Wood, Laila Ali,and Tony Hawk.

Each episode will feature Biz Markie in a recurring instructional segment entitled "Biz's Beat of the Day", and Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh will also contribute a feature dubbed "Mark's Magic Pictures". Sub Pop singer-songwriter Chad VanGaalen is one of the show's featured animators.

Additionally, "musical character segments on the premiere episode feature songs 'Party in My Tummy', 'Snacky Snack Snack', and 'Try It, You'll Like It' which teach viewers that it is fun to eat healthy foods, and 'Clean It Up', which shows preschoolers how to have fun while cleaning up a mess." All I ever learned from "Sesame Street" was some damn thing about how many nuts there are in peanut butter. No duh.

Videos from the show will be airing on various Nickelodeon channels and their website in the run-up to the August 20 premiere.