Omba Mokomba

Omba Mokomba is an American wildlife documentary television series that aired on Disney Channel from 1997 to 1999. The series was described as "The station for animal information!", and its stated intent was to answer viewer questions about animals and wildlife.[1][2][3][4] The show was generally well-received for its educational value and positivity.

Omba Mokomba
Original series title card for Omba Mokomba
GenreWildlife documentary
Written byMack Anderson
Kevin Indigaro
Murray Valeriano
Directed byPeter Foldy
Presented byBenjamin Brown
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
No. of episodes27
Production
Executive producersBradley Anderson
Mack Anderson
ProducersBrad Bishop
R.P. Sekon
Running time30 minutes
Production companyPopular Arts Entertainment
Release
Original networkDisney Channel
Original release1997 (1997) –
1999 (1999)

History

The show was first announced in an August 1997, as "part of a one-hour wildlife themed block" with another nature-oriented new Disney show, Going Wild with Jeff Corwin.[4][5] and was featured at that time in an article in the Disney Channel's Behind the Ears magazine.[6] It was part of a "makeover" of Disney Channel premium service original programming designed to "provide families with more shared-viewing opportunities and to give them 'creative properties that are meaningful and relevant to their lives'".[7] The title is Swahili for "Ask Mokomba", and the Disney Channel was noted to be "surely the only channel this side of public access to title a program in Swahili".[3] Disney Channel executive Rich Ross commented on the Swahili title that "If we can have 'Hakuna Matata', we can have 'Omba Mokomba'", referencing the popularity of the song from The Lion King, which had been released three years earlier.[1]

The cast of Omba Mokomba included three main characters: the title character Mokomba ("an African broadcaster and zoological expert"; portrayed by Benjamin Brown),[2] Candace, (show producer; Natasha Pearce), and Mr. Plunkett (a Capuchin monkey, added in the second season).[1][8] The show-within-a-show motif depicted Mokomba as broadcasting from a hut in Africa, answering viewer questions about a wide variety of animal life, while navigating occasional subplots such as being forced to share the space with another show (a fictional Hut Improvement), or playing pranks on his co-worker. Other segments included fake commercials and "parodies of adult television", such as a segment on cats in the style of the reality TV show, Cops.[1][2]

Reception

A critique of the show found it to be cheerful and educational, but very fast-paced, with an excessive number of segments, which the reviewer found made the information difficult to fully take in.[2]

In 1999, the Annenberg Public Policy Center deemed Omba Mokomba "high quality" children's programming, and expressed disappointment that it was one of only a handful of shows of this kind shown during prime time television hours.[9] A 2001 scholarly piece found it to be one of several examples of "prosocial" programming "designed to foster intellectual activity, tolerance, friendliness, and so on".[10] In 2020, the show was among a number of shows that fans petitioned Disney to make available on Disney+.[11]

Characters

References
  1. Laurel Graeber, "No More Pencils, No More Books? Try TV", The New York Times (July 5, 1998) ISSN 0362-4331.
  2. Evan Lavine, "Omba Mokomba delights and teaches viewers", The Star Democrat (July 6, 1998), p. 10; "Disney's 'Omba Mokomba' Delights", Billings Gazette (September 4, 1998), p. 6D.
  3. Debra Goldman, "All You, All The Time", Mother Jones, Vol. 23, No. 3 (May–June 1998), p. 37: "And it is surely the only channel this side of public access to title a program in Swahili: "Omba Mokomba," or 'Ask Mokomba," another ecofriendly entry, in which the host of a fictional African television call-in show answers questions about animals".
  4. Winnie Bonelli, "Animals Take Over Sunday Programming", Herald News (August 7, 1997), p. D5.
  5. "Disney starts new shows", The Coos Bay World (August 9, 1997), "TV Times", p. 9.
  6. Disney Channel, Behind the Ears (August 1997), p. 5.
  7. Moore, Scott (June 7, 1998). "Basic Makeover for Mickey Mouse". The Washington Post. "On Sundays, prime time includes original animal shows 'Going Wild With Jeff Corwin' and 'Omba Mokomba'... The latter, whose title means "Ask Mokomba" in Swahili, allows animal enthusiast Benjamin Brown to introduce creatures from all over the world and answer viewers' questions".
  8. "Family Picks", TV Week (via The Moline Dispatch; June 14, 1998), p. 5.
  9. Emory H. Woodard IV, The 1999 State of Children's Television Report: Programming for Children over Broadcast and Cable Television, Annenberg Public Policy Center (June 28, 1999), p. 24, 31.
  10. Mary Louise Mares and Emory H. Woodward, "Prosocial Effects on Children's Social Interactions", in Dorothy G. Singer and Jerome L. Singer, Handbook of Children and the Media (2001), p. 192: "More recently, Nickelodeon and Disney have produced programming designed to meet the social and emotional needs of children, including Blue's Clues, The Journey of Allen Strange, and Omba Mokomba.
  11. Eker, Nathanial (November 30, 2020). "Fans Demand for 'Missing' Content to Be Added to Disney+" – via insidethemagic.net.
  12. Vincent Terrace, Encyclopedia of Television Subjects, Themes and Settings (2007), p. 37.
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