Welcome to Fred Penner’s Place

Fred Penner’s Place was a children’s edutainment show that featured music, puppets, and guest stars. It aired from 1985 to 1997 in Canada on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) Television and in the US on Nickelodeon and Odyssey Network.

The show was named after its host, Fred Penner, who became a professional musician in the early 1970s, performing folk music around Winnipeg, Canada. In ’77, he and future wife Odette Graziella Heyn created a children’s dance theater company, which led to recording The Cat Came Back album and Penner becoming a pioneering figure in children’s music in Canada.

The show is memorable for its opening sequence in which Penner walked along a beach and into a forest where he crawled through a hollow log to emerge onto the show’s set. Being a musician, Penner put a lot of emphasis on music, playing his acoustic guitar and singing to his audience. He also entertained kids with the puppet characters and educated them on things like the French language and on being a part of nature.

Fred Penner’s Place came about when CBC’s long-running children’s show The Friendly Giant was wrapping production. Dodi Robb, the head of CBC Kids, reached out to Penner to see if he was interested in hosting a new series. He asked what CBC had in mind and they suggested that he pitch them his ideas. Penner came up with the idea of a gentle style program in the wilderness in response to the violence and advertisement heavy shows that he saw on television.