The Backyardigans - Setting

Setting

The characters live in houses adjoining a large backyard common to the three central houses (Pablo's, Tyrone's and Uniqua's) that is transformed by imagination into various adventure settings. While the Backyardigans' adventures take place all around the world, the Backyardigans reside in Southern Ontario. Each house roughly corresponds to the color scheme of the character: Pablo lives in a blue house, Uniqua in a pink one, and Tyrone in an orange one. Tasha's house, which is to the left of the three central houses, is yellow and Austin's, to the right, is partially obscured by a fence but what is visible is purple. The fence, which surrounds the combined properties of the three main characters (Pablo, Tyrone and Uniqua), has a gate in it which leads to Austin's house. The curve of the street allows the play area to be roughly equal in distance from each house's back door.

Not everything that appears in the imaginary world has a real-world counterpart. Often trees, boulders, brickwork, or similar objects appear where nothing originally existed. By the same token, even large trees in the real garden disappear completely when the imagination part of the story commences.

When playing in their imaginations, the characters often pull items out of thin air, from behind their backs or from something clearly not large enough to hold them; a technique known in animation as hammerspace. The episode "Eureka!" had a running gag in which Pablo would search for certain items on his saddlebag, pulling out enormous objects in the process (e.g. a tuba, a surfboard and a fully inflated rubber raft.)

Other examples include occasions in "Riding the Range", where Tyrone could produce a seemingly inexhaustible supply of apples, "The Snow Fort", where Tasha and Uniqua each have a rucksack that contains a rescue kit, including shovels, hooks, and suction cups, "Race Around the World", where Austin has a racing pack in which he keeps numerous items, such as a hook, rope, Band-Aids, a water bottle, and a pair of scissors, and "High Tea", in which Tasha manages to store tea-leaves, a teapot and four cups and saucers in a small purse.