Comment by c22

I really enjoyed watching episodes of The Busy World of Richard Scarry with my small children. The characters are all animals, but the kids in the show solve most of their own problems and defer to adults for appropriately serious matters. They still do whimsical things like going to outer space or back in time in one of Mr. Fix-it's contraptions, but the solutions to their problems are not magical. I found any programming I selected had to have some amount of whimsy in order to retain my kid's focus. The Magic Schoolbus was another good one. Both of these shows seem to have modern sequels now, but they don't appear to be as charming as the originals.