Nanalan

Nanalan is a Canadian children televion series created by Jamie Shannon and Jason Hopley for Nickelodeon and on its sister channel Noggin. It began in 1999 as a series of three minute shorts and later ran for a season of full length episodes spanning 21 minutes each. It chronicles the small scaled adventures and discoveries of a three year old puppet girl named Mona in her grandmother Nana Bea's backyard. The title is a contraction of the phrase Nana Land,refering to the setting.

Hopley and Shannon,who continued to work with Nickelodeon afterwards on their creation Mr Meaty,produced the series through their puppetry group the Grogs in association with Lenz Entertainment and Nickelodeon's parent company,MTV Network. The show use a blend of hand puppetry and the manipulation of cardboard cutouts,particularly in the opening theme. While the shorts do not follow a structure,the half hour episodes a loose format that include at least one song and reading an original story to the viewers.

The show received three nominations at the 2004 Gemini awards and was fairly well received by Canadian and U.S. press,with some critics calling attention to the show's surreal presentation and genuine approach to its concept. It was short-lived,as Nickelodeon did not pick up a second season. In 2004,selected episodes were released across several DVDs in the United States. In 2006,the series went viral with a resurgence in popularity on websites such as Tumblr and Youtube for its bizarre nature.

The plot focuses on Mona,a three year old with a big imagination and a tendency to repeat short words or phrases while also pronouncing them incorrectly. Each episode begins with Mona's mother dropping her daughter off at Nana's house and ends with her picking Mona up. Mona,Nana and Nana's dog Russell spend the day exploring,learning and visiting Nana's next door neighbour Mr.Wooka.