Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks

Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks (or Jakers in Europe) is an American-British computer-animated children's television series. The series was broadcast in the United States on PBS Kids from September 1, 2003 to January 24, 2007.

The show chronicles the boyhood adventures of Piggley Winks, an anthropomorphic pig from Ireland, and how he relates these stories to his grandchildren as a grandfather in the present day.

The word "jakers" was originally a euphemism for "Jesus" in much of Ireland during the 1950s and 1960s and was an exclamation of surprise, delight, dismay, or alarm. Piggley and his father use it to express their delight when they discover something on their adventures.

Notably, the show contains voice work by both Joan Rivers and Mel Brooks.

Plot

Jakers! takes place in two different settings, in two different time periods.

In the present time (the frame story), Piggley Winks lives in the United States of America (or Great Britain, according to different versions) and tells stories of his childhood in a rural area in the south of Ireland to his three grandchildren. In flashback, he is seen as a child, playing with his friends and going to school in rural Ireland in the mid-1950s. Most of the main characters are anthropomorphic animals—including Piggley and his family, who are all pigs. However, there are normal, non-anthropomorphic animals in the show as well.