Northern Tails - TV Tropes

Title Card for the series featuring Scout Perry.

Northern Tails is a Canadian children's edutainment mockumentary puppet series focusing on the wildlife of the Boreal Forest in northern Canada. The show is produced by Little Brown Bird Entertainment. The show premiered on YouTube in January 2025 with a total of six episodes releasing weekly.

Northern Tails focuses on a film crew of ground squirrels documenting the lives of the animals of the Boreal Forest, with each episode having a different focal character (or characters), host Scout Perry will narrate information and facts about these animals and what role they play in the Yukon ecosystem.

You can find the shows website here.

The shows YouTube channel can be found here. A trailer for the series is viewable here.

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Tropes:

• Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Many of the animal characters wear hats, glasses or other accessories; Michael Jay the fox wears a tie for example.
• Art Shift: After the focal plot has wrapped, Scout will transition to a 2D animated segment highlighting the lifestyles of the focal animals.
• Bad Influencer: Subverted with Isabelle, who starts out relatively shallow until she finds out her species are endangered.
• Busy Beaver: Lou the beaver is definitely one of these.
• Call-Back: The first episode features Winston the raven helping out the wolf pups by pointing out a caribou to eat. In episode 3 we see the same scene play out from the pups' perspective.
  • Episode 3 also sees the wolf pups being scared off by Jackie the wolverine. Episode 5 shows the same event from her perspective.
• Decoy Protagonist: Bruno the wolf is listed as the focal character of Episode 3, but the main plot is more focused on the first hunt of his two pups.
• Edutainment Show: A puppet based children's show focused on teaching the audience about native Canadian wildlife.
• Endangered Species: Discussed regarding the Caribou in episode 2. Isabelle rallies for protection of her fellow Caribou through social media, and their declining population is represented by her decreasing follower count at the start of the episode.
• Erudite Stoner: Winston the raven appears to be one, of the G-Rated variety.
• Funny Background Event: Every episode opens on a corkboard with a photo of the week's subject and a ton of sticky notes. The ones closest to the photo are usually notes on the species in question, but on the edges (Which are harder to read, as the background unfocuses as the camera zooms out) are less related notes between staff (ie; the notes on the far left in the Wolves episode read "I ate all the cheetos" and the reply "Hire new Kenny?").
• Green Aesop: Human impact on the environment such as habitat destruction is a recurring topic in the animated segments.
• Meaningful Name: Scout Perry, the host who scouts out the subject of each episode.
• Mockumentary: The show is hosted by a film crew of ground squirrels and features a fox named Michael Jay who interviews humans living in the Yukon territory.
• Nerdy Nasalness: Zoe the wolf pup has a nasal voice and is shown to be much smarter than her brother, Jared.
• Rotating Protagonist: Each episode focuses on a different animal of the Boreal forest, and their role in the local ecosystem.
• Running Gag: Both played for laughs;
  • Ground Squirrels getting carried off by birds of prey.
  • Background Caribou being injured or eaten.
• Shout-Out: Some of the episode titles are puns based on literature, usually related to the animal featured in that episode; such as To Chill a Mockingbird, or Great Excavations.
• Simpleton Voice: Jared the wolf pup speaks in a dopey voice to contrast with his smarter sister, Zoe.
• The Teaser: Each episode begins with the ground squirrel film crew preparing for the days film shoot before the opening titles have appeared.

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