Janice Burgess, Creator of ‘The Backyardigans,’ Dies at 72

Mike Barnes
·3 min read

Janice Burgess, the two-time Daytime Emmy winner who created the beloved animated musical series The Backyardigans for Nickelodeon, has died. She was 72.

Burgess died Saturday in hospice care in Manhattan of breast cancer, her former Nickelodeon colleague Brown Johnson told The New York Times.

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The Backyardigans ran for four seasons on Nick Jr. from 2004-13 and was a big hit with preschoolers. It centered on five animal neighbors — Uniqua, Pablo, Tyrone, Tasha and Austin — who meet in their shared backyard and embark on imaginary and magical adventures, often visiting different parts of the world or traveling back or forward in time.

Burgess was a production executive at Nick Jr. when she came up with the idea for a live-action show called Me and My Friends, with the characters wearing full-body puppet costumes. When execs didn’t go for that, she suggested computer animation to get The Backyardigans greenlighted.

“Making The Backyardigans has become sort of like an adventure that I go on with my friends,” she once said. “Of course, we get paid, but we do get to be carefree in our work, enjoy each other, hang around a lot, travel a little bit and make up stuff.”

Uniqua, she said, “is me. Or at least who I was as a kid. She’s a ringleader,” she told Investor’s Business Daily in 2009. “Out of the five, Uniqua is the main character, and we use her in every story. I think most preschoolers have a sense of their own specialness, and that’s what Uniqua is about.”

Burgess shared six Daytime Emmy noms for her work on the show, winning in 2008.

Born on March 1, 1952, Burgess was raised in Pittsburgh. She graduated from Brandeis University in 1974 with a degree in art history and began her TV career as a volunteer at Pittsburgh PBS station WQED-TV, working craft service.

“I got to know about the schedules and made sure the caterer came at the right time and the table was set up,” she said. “That’s how I got started.”

She moved to Children’s Television Workshop and worked as a project manager for the 1992 series Ghostwriter before joining Nickelodeon that year. She became an executive in charge of production on shows including Gullah Gullah Island and Blues Clues and, later, a vice president at Nick Jr.

Burgess was a producer on the Bill Cosby-created Little Bill — she won her first Daytime Emmy in 2004 for that — before launching The Backyardigans. Later, she was a story editor, writer and creative director on Nickelodeon’s Winx Club and from 2014-16 an executive consultant for DreamWorks Animation Television.

Survivors include her brother, Jack.

Burgess was mourned online, with many celebrating her life and legacy in kids TV. “I learned how to care deeply about telling stories to kids from #JaniceBurgess,” producer Chris Nee wrote on X. “And how to make myself laugh while doing it.”

Another colleague, Fracaswell Hyman, a writer for several Nick Jr. shows, recalled when Burgess was sent from the C-suite to work with the creatives on Gullah Gullah Island.

“Janice swept in with her acid-tongued wit, flowing Hermes scarves and omnipresent cigarettes. Instead of an overseer, she became a friend,” he wrote on Instagram. “Her script/story critiques were astute, clear and constructive — and I really thank her for that. … Janice, Maria Perez-Brown and I developed shows together, gossiped together and oh, how we laughed!”

Kevin Dolak contributed to this report.

12:50 p.m. A previous version of this obituary included an incorrect photo of Burgess.

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