Listen Now

Hi everybody! It's no secret that we love hearing from our listeners, or that we get really excited when you send in questions about things going on in The Imagine Neighborhood™, because then we get to do a Q&A episode! So, if you’ve ever wondered how Dr. Apocalypso got her name, what species of dinosaur Princess Donnasaurus is, or how many relatives Count Vacula has (lemme tell ya, that family cookout requires a LOT of crumbs!), this week’s episode has all the answers you’re looking for! If you have a question for us, you can email it, or leave it in the reviews section of your podcast platform (where you can also let us know what you think about the show). Come back next week for a new episode of The Imagine Neighborhood when I take a pirate internSHIP (see what I did there?) aboard the Burn Voyage, and help a very distracted Captain Marion learn to focus on the important things she needs to do, like mainsail-hoistin’, timber-shiverin’, and of course, dishes. In the meantime, some important things YOU can to do are to keep sending us your terrific questions and your amazing artwork for our #InfiniteRefrigerator, and of course we should all remember to do something kind today! I hope you and your loved ones are staying safe, happy, healthy, and kind. Scotty

Hey, everybody . . . guess who? It's me again, your pal Count Vacula! That's right—I get to bring you a new No Filter with Count Vacula for the second week in a ROW! How amazing is THAT? And it's extra good news because my guest this week is the amazing Carly Ciarrocchi. You might know her from her Emmy-nominated work hosting The Big Fun Crafty Show and Snug's House for Universal Kids, or as host of Sprout's The Sunny Side Up Show, or from Weird But True! on Disney+, or from her terrific podcast HEY STORY GO! Even though Carly likes to get up early and I'm nocturnal (I just learned that word!), it turns out we both like construction cranes, and bumblebees, and cardboard creations. In fact, Carly has a whole show JUST about making things out of cardboard. You know, every time I meet someone new, I find out that even though we have differences, we also have a lot of things in common. That’s a really fun thing about making new friends! If there’s someone you think would be a good new friend for me, let me know. In the meantime, thanks for listening to No Filter. See you next week in The Imagine Neighborhood™! Love, Vac  

Hi again, friends! It’s me . . . your pal, Count Vacula! I’m really excited because this week I get to share with you a brand new episode of my brand new show, No Filter with Count Vacula! On No Filter I get to practice making new friends and getting to know all kinds of people.  This week I got to meet a very smart and kind person named Brittany Murlas.  She's a mom who started a really cool book club called Little Feminist.  They find terrific stories with all different sorts of heroes in them, and send the books out to families all over the world! Brittany and I talked about a lot of very important things, like bedtime monsters, and feminism, and macaroni and cheese! She also taught me a cool new way to listen to music, and even gave me some great ideas for my next Cardboard Creation. I had a great time getting to know Brittany, and I think you'll like her too.   After you listen to the episode, you can let me know what you thought at kind@imagineneighborhood.org., or you can also follow me on Twitter and send me a message there! And hey - if you’ve made a new friend that you think everyone should know about, or if there’s someone interesting that you'd like to hear on No Filter with Count Vacula!, let me know that too.  I really like hearing from you, and seeing your drawings, and reading your questions about me and about The Imagine Neighborhood ™! Well - thanks for hanging out with me today! Come back next week for a special BONUS episode of No Filter, and the week after that for a new episode of The Imagine Neighborhood. Until then, remember to be kind.  And if YOU have a robot vacuum friend, be sure to drop some crumbs on the floor for them. Or some macaroni and cheese. Either way. Love,   Vac

  This week in The Imagine Neighborhood™, our own magical maven Alakazambra Tyesha Morganis is getting ready to hold the world’s biggest wizarding festival! But planning something as amazing as the San Diego Conjure-Con isn’t easy... The bat wings are missing, the cauldrons are filthy, no one has any idea when the Port-O-Whiz delivery will happen, and the Wizards are getting restless. Alakazambra’s feeling overwhelmed, anxious, and she might even be about to throw a tantrum! What’s the greatest wizard in the multiverse to do?... By The Eye of Greldar, she’ll cast the Calmulor spell on everyone to calm them down, and that will fix everything! Or - will it just create more problems?...   Handling frustration can be challenging for everyone, not just wizards. In this episode we’ll explore what happens when we cover up our real feelings, and talk about effective ways to deal with difficulties. Get episode discussion questions and activity ideas for kids and grown-ups in our newsletter – and keep sharing your family’s ideas, drawings, and creations with us - we love seeing what you come up with, and your contribution might get featured on our Infinite Refrigerator! See you around the Neighborhood!

This month we got some very important questions for our friends in The Imagine Neighborhood™, and it’s time to answer them with a Q&A episode! Stay tuned next week for a new episode of The Imagine Neighborhood. And keep listening the week after that for more No Filter with Count Vacula! If you have a question for us, or a suggestion for someone for Vac to interview, you can ask it in a review (and while you’re there, tell us what you think of the show)! Or you can email your questions to kind@imagineneighborhood.org. Thanks for sending us your questions, your ideas, and your amazing drawings. Keep writing to us, and follow our Infinite Refrigerator to see creations from listeners like you!

This week in the The Imagine Neighborhood™, Scotty and Vac can’t wait for the All-Town Hand-Me-Down! Everybody in the Neighborhood collects clothes and toys they’re not using anymore, and they send them all down a chute so that someone new can use them. It’s a really fun way to be kind—plus, everyone gets a new hand-me-down in return! But this year, something’s not right. The chute is malfunctioning, and all the toys are piling up outside Princess Donnasaurus’s castle. Princess Donnasaurus has been bitten by a gimme bug, and it’s making her want everything for herself! It’s up to Scotty and Vac to help Princess Donnasaurus find the generosity inside her and defeat the gimme bug—and get the All-Town Hand-Me-Down rocking again. If you want even more of The Imagine Neighborhood, sign up for our newsletter. Each week, you’ll get additional discussion questions and activity ideas for kids and grown-ups. Keep sharing your ideas, drawings, and creations with us—we love seeing what you come up with, and you might see it featured on our Infinite Refrigerator!

Hi, listeners! It’s me again . . . your pal, Count Vacula! As you may have noticed, we’re now bringing you a new episode of The Imagine Neighborhood™ every other week. And on some of those in-between weeks, you can hear me, Count Vacula, on my very own show! It’s called No Filter with Count Vacula. On No Filter, I’ll practice making new friends and getting to know all kinds of people. This week, I’m chatting with Biz Ellis from the podcast One Bad Mother. Biz and I talk about how being “bad” can sometimes be a good thing, how to find buried treasure in your own backyard, and how to be kind to teachers—with donuts! Biz sure was a lot of fun to talk to. We even made up our own theme song! Anyway, I’m still figuring out how to host my own show, and I really want to get better at it. So go to our website and let me know what you think. And stay tuned for a new episode of The Imagine Neighborhood next week, and for more episodes of No Filter with Count Vacula! Do you have a question for us? Or can you think of someone I should talk to on a future episode of No Filter? You can put your questions and ideas into a review (and while you’re there, let us know what you think of the show)! You can also email them to kind@imagineneighborhood.org. We always love seeing your notes and drawings. Keep writing to us, and follow our Infinite Refrigerator to see creations from listeners like you! We’ll see you again soon in The Imagine Neighborhood. Love,   Vac

This week in the Neighborhood, it’s Count Vacula’s 1,000th birthday! For his big day, Vac gets a visit from his Great-Uncle Vacstradamus (or “Gruncle Vaxie”), and an official Seven-Day Trial Period. With big birthdays come big new responsibilities: Gruncle Vaxie gives Vac one week to tackle cooking eggs for breakfast, and doing the laundry. Vac is feeling overwhelmed by his new tasks, and Scotty is swimming in dirty laundry.  How will Vac deal with an interdimensional portal and an eggy mess? It’s time for Vac to level up, and time to team up to level up! Because helping around the house isn’t just a chore—it’s a great way to be kind.   Q: Why does Vac need to learn to make breakfast and do the laundry? A: Getting older means that Vac can start to help Scotty with some tasks around the house. Q: Why is it kind to help your grown-ups with chores? A: Taking care of you and your home is a lot of work for your grown-ups.  If you help your grown-ups out, it makes things a little easier for them.  And it will make them happy to know that you care. Brainstorm Together: Talk to the other people in your home about how you can team up to level up. What are some ways you can help out? How does it feel when things change and you take on new tasks? Are there ways you can make doing housework together fun? And if your grown-ups have more time to spend with you, what would you like to spend time doing with them? Create: In this week’s episode, Vac invented a new way to do the laundry! Invent a new way that you can do the laundry, or another household task, and draw or write about it. We love getting messages from you! Keep sharing your drawings, your ideas, and your cardboard creations with us and follow our Infinite Refrigerator to see creations from listeners like you.

This month we got some very important questions for our friends in The Imagine Neighborhood™, and it’s time to answer them with a Q&A episode! We’ll answer questions about Vac’s digestive system and what inspires Doctor Apocalypso. Plus, we’ve got special guest Dr. Jasmine with us! She’ll talk with us about the food on her spaceship and about the best ways to stay kind to everyone, even when someone like Rick Fryer is being unkind or unjust. Stay tuned next week for a new episode of The Imagine Neighborhood. And keep listening the week after that for more No Filter with Count Vacula! If you have a question for us, or a suggestion for someone for Vac to interview, you can ask it in a review (and while you’re there, tell us what you think of the show)! Or you can email your questions to kind@imagineneighborhood.org. Thanks for sending us your questions, your ideas, and your amazing drawings. Keep writing to us, and follow our Infinite Refrigerator to see creations from listeners like you!   I hope you and your loved ones are staying safe, happy, healthy, and kind.

Oh, hey.  Hey, listeners?  It’s me!  It’s your friend, Count Vacula. This season, we’re switching things up in The Imagine Neighborhood™. We’re going to keep bringing you new episodes every other week for the whole rest of the year!  And on some of those in-between weeks, I’ll be filling in with a little project I like to call: No Filter with Count Vacula. No Filter features me, Count Vacula, chatting with all sorts of interesting people.  And this week is our very first episode!  To help me get started, today I’m talking to my good friend, Macho Supreme.  We’ll talk about making friends with monsters, space squids, and how to prepare for disco emergencies!  Macho was such a terrific guest.  I really hope you listen. Stay tuned for a new episode of The Imagine Neighborhood next week, and stay tuned for more episodes of No Filter with Count Vacula!  Oh, and don’t forget to go to our website to vote on a new name for the Space Marines!  Macho wanted to make sure I reminded you. Do you have a question for us?  Or a person you think I should talk to on a future episode of No Filter?  You can put your questions and ideas into a review (and while you’re there, let us know what you think of the show)! Or you can email them to kind@imagineneighborhood.org. I love seeing all the drawings and notes you’ve sent in.  Especially all your drawings of me!  Some really great likenesses there.  Keep writing to us, and follow our Infinite Refrigerator to see creations from listeners like you! We’ll see you again soon in The Imagine Neighborhood. Love,   Vac

This week in the Neighborhood, Macho Supreme is off to the Space Marines’ Space-Cademy summer camp. To keep the Pixie Pandemic at bay, the camp has made a whole lot of changes—but Macho liked things better the old way! Luckily, I’m around to help him learn to “get bendy.” “Getting bendy” means using your imagination to think about something in a different way. When Macho learns about the safety changes at the Space-Cademy, he expects a disaster. But then when Macho “gets bendy,” he manages to think of ways those changes might be okay . . . or even fun. This week, Macho learned about lots of new changes at the Space-Cademy—including a change to the Space Marines’ name. And listeners, YOU get to decide what the new name will be! Head over to ImagineNeighborhood.org to cast your vote.

Helloooooooo, listeners! It’s me, Doctor Apocalypso, live from the Wasteland! My buddy Scotty is busy rounding up stories for a new season of The Imagine Neighborhood™. He’ll be back with new episodes next month, so keep your ear to the feed! Some of you out there in Imagine Neighborhoodland sent in questions for me. So today, Cyclopia and I are rollin’ up to answer them in a Q&A episode! I’ll talk about how it feels to still miss Giganticus, and how to get out of bed like a rock star. And Scotty will answer questions about his house, new Imagine Neighborhood episodes, and even about sushi! Take a listen, and get ready to have your FACE rocked off! If you have a question for us, you can put your question into a review (and while you’re there, let us know what you think of the show)! Or you can email your questions to kind@imagineneighborhood.org. I love seeing all of your awesome ideas and rad drawings. So keep writing to us, and follow our Infinite Refrigerator to see creations from listeners like you! We’ll see you again soon in The Imagine Neighborhood. Until then, don’t stop rockin’! Love,   Doctor Apocalypso

Bonus Episode.  Dr Aisha White from the University of Pittsburgh's P.R.I.D.E. program joins us to talk about different ways to discuss racial identity with kids.   She mentions some great resources in the interview which can be found below.   Raising Race Conscious Children   Embrace Race   PBS Kids: Talking About Race

We have a special episode for the grown-ups this week—it’s a little different, but a lot of fun!   Have you ever wondered who comes up with a dinosaur princess, Cardboard Boxing Day, pirate food fights, or Big Bot Burgers? Well, here’s your chance to find out! We gathered the team members who helped create our latest series, Imagine Equity: Six New Stories About Race, Identity, and Making Things Right, for a candid conversation about what happens behind the scenes. In this episode, you’ll get a chance to meet the people who make the magic happen in The Imagine Neighborhood. We talk about our backgrounds and identities, and how we each brought our own unique perspectives to the Imagine Equity series. We also discuss what excited us about this series, some uncomfortable moments in the process, how we work together, and our hopes for the future. We’re a quirky, fun, and wicked-smart group, if I do say so myself! I hope you’ll take a listen and get to know us a little better. This show is supported by a generous grant from The Allstate Foundation. The Allstate Foundation works to empower youth to reach their full potential and build the just, equitable, and healthy world we all deserve. To learn more, visit AllstateFoundation.org <https://email.imagineneighborhood.org/NzYzLVdWWi0zOTMAAAF71ntFlFZEbYjbgCwkVDP9K8ZHp7PLTHVzIw3UDZKNvLu2RBTubyq20Sr13ZIPzkBPXTKS7FY=>.

Today in The Imagine Neighborhood™, Scotty and Vac visit a robot wrestling championship. Vac is so excited that he decides to be exactly like his new hero, the intergalactic robot wrestling champion Destructivir! It sounds like fun . . . until things get a little out of hand.       Vac decides to switch his robot code to change how he acts, and he builds himself a new robot body to change how he looks. But it turns out that being just like his favorite battling robot makes Vac miserable! It takes a visit from Destructivir to show Vac that the way you look is just one part of being a robot, but it’s not the most important part.       Destructivir reminds us that the way you look is only one little part of who you are. Being kind—and being yourself—is the best way to be a robot. (Or a person.)   If you want even more of The Imagine Neighborhood, sign up for our newsletter. Every week, you’ll get additional discussion questions and activity ideas for kids and grown-ups. And you can share your drawings and reflections with us—we love seeing what you come up with, and you might see it featured on our Infinite Refrigerator!

This is the last episode in our series Imagine Equity: Six New Stories About Race, Identity, and Making Things Right. It picks up where the previous episode left off and addresses the big topics of discrimination, injustice, and activism. It might be a good idea for you to listen together with your child (or your grown-up). When we last left our heroes, Scotty and Doc were on a mission to stop discrimination at Big Bot Burger. But it turns out the injustice isn’t just at one location—it’s at ALL the Big Bot Burger locations. This week, they’re enlisting the help of everyone in the Neighborhood to get some justice! The robots at Big Bot still won’t let anyone from the Wasteland into their restaurants. Even the intervention of Macho Supreme, Princess Donnasaurus, and Alakazambra Tyesha Morganis isn’t helping. In fact, the injustice is growing: when customers don’t pay attention to the discrimination at Big Bot, it grows more and more burger restaurants. It’s going to take the whole Neighborhood team using their voices, their friendships, their art, and their wisdom to make things right. Last week, we sent you our list of songs by musicians who used their voices and instruments to speak out against injustice, just like Doctor Apocalypso. This week, we’ve added more songs to that list! Grown-ups, choose a few songs that work for your family to listen to together. Talk about the injustices those musicians were writing about and about how to make things right and get some justice. You can also refer to our interview with Dr. Jasmine or our list of resources for starting the conversation about race and injustice. In this week’s episode, we talk about what it means to be an activist. There are lots of ways to support causes that are important to you. Even if you’ve talked to your child about injustice before, it’s always a good idea to talk about what’s important to you, and make a plan for how you’ll take action. What can you do as a family to “get some justice”? How can you make the world a kinder place? If you want even more of The Imagine Neighborhood, sign up for our newsletter. Each week, you’ll get additional discussion questions and activity ideas for kids and grown-ups. Keep sharing your ideas, drawings, and creations with us—we love seeing what you come up with, and you might see it featured on our Infinite Refrigerator! This show is supported by a generous grant from The Allstate Foundation. The Allstate Foundation works to empower youth to reach their full potential and build the just, equitable, and healthy world we all deserve. To learn more, visit AllstateFoundation.org.  

This episode is the fifth in our series Imagine Equity: Six New Stories About Race, Identity, and Making Things Right. This episode starts to address the big topics of discrimination, injustice, and activism, so it might be a good idea for you to listen together with your child (or your grown-up). This week, a new restaurant called Big Bot Burger is coming to The Imagine Neighborhood™.  Doc and Scotty are super excited to try it . . . until they find out that Big Bot won’t take Doc’s order. It turns out that Big Bot Burger has a company rule to not serve people from the Wasteland. Being a Wastelander is part of Doc’s identity—and not letting someone do something because of their identity is a super-wrong type of unfairness called discrimination. When rules discriminate against someone, or against a whole group of people, that’s called injustice. And those kinds of rules need to change. Doc and Scotty set out to make things right and get some justice. Doc uses her music and her voice to get people’s attention and start a peaceful protest. When the neighborhood learns that Big Bot discriminates against Wastelanders, they decide to leave and patronize Justice Burgers instead. But that doesn’t put an end to the injustice. Big Bot has locations everywhere, and it’s up to our heroes to stop them! To be continued next week! This week, Doctor Apocalypso used her voice and her music to speak up against injustice.  There's a long history of musicians who have used songs to talk about injustices they see in the world—just like Doc. We've put together a list of some of those songs. Grown-ups, you could choose a few songs that would work for your family to listen to together, and then talk about the injustices those musicians wrote about. If you want even more of The Imagine Neighborhood, sign up for our newsletter. Each week, you’ll get additional discussion questions and activity ideas for kids and grown-ups. Keep sharing your ideas, drawings, and creations with us—we love seeing what you come up with, and you might see it featured on our Infinite Refrigerator! This show is supported by a generous grant from The Allstate Foundation. The Allstate Foundation works to empower youth to reach their full potential and build the just, equitable, and healthy world we all deserve. To learn more, visit AllstateFoundation.org.  

This episode is the fourth in our series Imagine Equity: Six New Stories About Race, Identity, and Making Things Right. This week in The Imagine Neighborhood™, Macho Supreme and Count Vacula are using their imaginations to turn a cardboard box into the spaceship from their favorite movie, Nebula Trek! But every time Vac tries to jump in and help Macho save the galaxy, Macho won’t let him play. Macho thinks that Vac can’t play as his favorite characters from Nebula Trek—because in the movie, those characters are white, and Vac is Asian. Scotty explains to Macho that he has excluded Vac, and that is not okay. To exclude means to leave someone out, or tell them they can’t play. When you exclude, you get stuck: the game is less fun, the story is less interesting, and people’s feelings are hurt. Instead, the kind thing to do is to use your imagination to make room in the story for everyone. Make it okay for everyone to play! If you want even more of The Imagine Neighborhood™, sign up for our newsletter. Each week, you’ll get additional discussion questions and activity ideas for kids and grown-ups. Keep sharing your ideas, drawings, and creations with us—we love seeing what you come up with, and you might see it featured on our Infinite Refrigerator! This show is supported by a generous grant from The Allstate Foundation. The Allstate Foundation works to empower youth to reach their full potential and build the just, equitable, and healthy world we all deserve. To learn more, visit AllstateFoundation.org.  

This episode is the third in our series Imagine Equity: Six New Stories About Race, Identity, and Making Things Right.   Today, The Imagine Neighborhood™ gets a surprise visitor from Alakazambra’s past! The young wizard Preston Changeo arrives, played by our very special guest star Tom Lenk, ready to learn all of Alakazambra’s tricks and spells for battling monsters . . . and is upset to learn that Alakazambra and her old nemesis Count Vacula are now good friends.   Preston doesn’t think that wizards and monsters are allowed to be friends.  But when he accidentally summons a messy rainbow sherbet monster, everyone has to work together to solve the problem. It turns out that having friends and neighbors with all kinds of different identities is not only fun, it helps you learn new skills and be a better friend. Welcoming new wizards and monsters (and even people) into your neighborhood can help you, your new neighbors, and your whole community.   If you want even more of The Imagine Neighborhood, sign up for our newsletter. Each week, you’ll get additional discussion questions and activity ideas for kids and grown-ups. Keep sharing your ideas, drawings, and creations with us—we love seeing what you come up with, and you might see it featured on our Infinite Refrigerator!  Grown-ups, if you want to learn more about our special guest star Tom Lenk, you can find more info here.   This show is supported by a generous grant from The Allstate Foundation. The Allstate Foundation works to empower youth to reach their full potential and build the just, equitable, and healthy world we all deserve. To learn more, visit AllstateFoundation.org.  

This episode is a collaboration with the Stoopkid Stories podcast. It’s the second episode in our series Imagine Equity: Six New Stories About Race, Identity, and Making Things Right. Today, Princess Donnasaurus stumbles out of The Imagine Neighborhood™ and into the neighborhood of Princess Tia from the Stoopkid Stories podcast!  At first, neither princess thinks the other looks the way a princess should, but Princess Tia and Princess Donnasaurus talk it out and team up. Together, they embark on a quest to open an enchanted backpack and defeat the evil identity-stealing Erazor! Along the way, Princess Tia and Princess Donnasaurus meet Princess Slime Monster, Princess DottyPotty, and Mister Princess. They learn that a true princess is kind, brave, and proud of who they are—and takes care of their neighborhood. All princesses have that in common, but they also each have their own identity. Your identity is made up of all the things about you that make you who you are, and it’s special to you; no Erazor can ever take it away. If you want even more of The Imagine Neighborhood, sign up for our newsletter. Each week, you’ll get additional discussion questions and activity ideas for kids and grown-ups. And keep sharing your ideas, drawings, and creations with us—we love seeing what you come up with, and you might see it featured on our Infinite Refrigerator!   This show is supported by a generous grant from The Allstate Foundation. The Allstate Foundation works to empower youth to reach their full potential and build the just, equitable, and healthy world we all deserve. To learn more, visit AllstateFoundation.org.