Joshua Selig (born May 12, 1964) is an American television producer and director. He won ten Daytime Emmy Awards for his work as a writer on Sesame Street.^[2] After leaving Sesame Street, Selig partnered with Lori Shaer to create a studio called Little Airplane Productions. Through Little Airplane, Selig produced Oobi for Noggin, Wonder Pets! for Nickelodeon, and 3rd & Bird for the BBC.^[3]

Josh Selig left Little Airplane in 2020.^[4]

Early life

Josh Selig was born on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.^[5] He began his career as a child actor on Sesame Street during its first two seasons.^[6][7] As a young adult, Selig attended Sarah Lawrence College, where he studied theater and poetry.^[8] He returned to Sesame Street in 1988 as a writer.^[9] He also worked on the Israeli-Palestinian^[10] and Polish^[11] adaptations of the show during the 1990s.^[12]

Career

In 1998, he conceived the idea for Little Airplane Productions.^[13] The company was initially a joint effort between Selig and Lori Shaer (née Sherman).^[14] Until 2006, the studio's works were solely live-action. Oobi was the first original series produced by the company; it began as a series of interstitials in 2000 and later ran for two seasons of half-hour episodes.^[15] The series was heavily inspired by Selig's time as a Sesame Street writer; he based its puppet characters on a training method used by Muppet performers learning to lip-sync, in which they use their bare hands and a pair of ping pong balls instead of a puppet.^[15] In 2003, Selig wrote and directed a short film titled The Time-Out Chair. Written and directed by Selig, the film premiered at the 2003 Tribeca Film Festival^[16][17] and was later acquired by the Museum of Modern Art.^[18][19][20] Profits from Oobi allowed Selig to create an animation division at Little Airplane, leading it to shift to an animation-based studio.^[21]

Selig, formerly a member of the Writers Guild of America, East, left and maintained financial core status.^[22]

Selig created Go, Baby! in 2004 as a series for Playhouse Disney.^[23] In 2005, he directed two pilots for the Wonder Pets! series along with Jennifer Oxley.^[24] The show premiered in the United States on March 3, 2006 on Nickelodeon and Noggin.^[25][26] Selig opened two new branches of Little Airplane in London and Abu Dhabi in 2007.^[27] Josh Selig's first international co-production, 3rd & Bird, debuted on CBeebies in June 2008.^[28] He continued to produce short-form series throughout the 2010s. Small Potatoes, commissioned by Disney Junior, spawned a television movie that Selig directed in 2013.^[29] In the same year, he pitched a pilot titled The Jo B. & G. Raff Show! to Amazon Studios, which was not picked up.^[30][31] He is currently the creator and executive producer of Disney's P. King Duckling and of the South Korean series Super Wings.^[32][33]

Filmography

Awards and nominations