The Fresh Beat Band (originally known as The JumpArounds) is an American live-actionmusicalchildren's television series created by the husband-and-wife duo of Scott Kraft and Nadine van der Velde and developed by Alice Prodanou for Nickelodeon. The show stars Yvette Gonzalez-Nacer, Thomas Hobson, Shayna Rose (later Tara Perry), and Jon Beavers as the "Fresh Beats" (Kiki, Shout, Marina, and Twist), described as four best friends in a band who are determined to follow their dreams.
Kraft and van der Velde additionally serve as executive producers of the series. During the first season, Prodanou, Dan Danko, Tom Mason, and Kerri Grant served as the primary writers, with additional contributions from Tom Saunders, Matt Sheppo, Bradley Zweig, Laurie Israel, Rachel Ruderman, John Ritchie, and Amy Keating Rogers. Beginning with the second season, Kraft and van der Velde took over the writing positions, and co-wrote most of the episodes for that season alongside Carla Banks Waddles, Kim Duran, Heather MacGillvray, and Linda Mathious, with an additional one-episode contribution from Ursula Ziegler-Sullivan. Kraft, van der Velde, Duran, MacGillvray, and Mathious returned to write the episodes for the third season, and were briefly rejoined by Banks Waddles, who co-wrote several more episodes before departing to work on other projects. Calvin Leung, who additionally serves as script supervisor alongside Grant, also co-wrote an episode alongside Kraft, van der Velde, Duran, MacGillvray, and Mathious. Additionally, MacGillvray and Mathious serve as consulting producers with Grant as executive consultant. Jim Kukucka and Susan Nessanbaum-Goldberg serve as producers, and Chris Robinson serves as line producer. Kraft also directed several of the episodes; other directors include James Wahlberg, Jonathan Judge, Linda Mendoza, Henry Chan, Neal Israel, Savage Steve Holland, and Jody Margolin Hahn.
The series aired from August 24, 2009 to December 7, 2013. In 2015, an animated television series, Fresh Beat Band of Spies, premiered on Nickelodeon. All four members of the band lend their voices to their respective characters in the spin-off.
Also, they appeared in the Nickelodeon Mega Music Fest.
Premise
All episodes follow the same basic structure:
Each episode begins with a song that foreshadows a problem that the band will solve.
The band works together to solve the problem.
When the problem is solved they perform a song with the problem and solution incorporated into the lyrics.
Each episode concludes with a version of The Fresh Beat Band's closing song, "Great Day".
During the buildup to the show's debut, the band was initially advertised as The JumpArounds. Commercials promoting the band under that name were in heavy rotation on Nickelodeon prior to the series debut. The change occurred approximately in mid July 2009. The name was revealed on NickJr.com, then made its debut on television.[3]
Reed the Guitar Player – occasional guitar player and supplier of the Fresh Beats' instruments, played by Hadley Fraser (season 1) and Patrick Levis (seasons 2–3)
There are also four children known as "The Junior Beats" who are essentially the child equivalent of their grown-up counterparts. They sing, dance, and dress as a corresponding character.
Music
The Fresh Beat Band: Music From the Hit TV Show was released on January 31, 2012.[5] The album sold 189,000 copies in the US in 2012.[6] A second collection, Vol 2.0: More Music From The Hit TV Show, was released later that year on October 9, 2012.[7] The soundtracks contain songs from multiple episodes of the series, as well as songs that did not get performed in the episodes. Most of these songs, including the opening and closing themes, were written by the series' creators and executive producers Scott Kraft and Nadine van der Velde, as well as the trio of Ric Markmann, Dan Pinnella, and Christopher Wagner (collectively known as Matter Music). Other composers and producers included Matthew Gerrard, Elizabeth Ashley Saunig-Gerrard, Chip Whitewood, Peter Zizzo, Andrew Schlesinger, Shelley Rosenberg, Michael Smith, Matthew Tishler, and Phil Galdston.
Singles
Four singles were released to iTunes; "Great Day" was released on February 2, 2010, "Here We Go" was released on June 28, 2011, "A Friend Like You" was released on September 13, 2011, and "Just Like a Rockstar" was released on November 29, 2011.[8][9][10][11]
