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Business

Kids Viral Sensation 'Baby Shark' Hitting the Road for 100-Date Tour

By Dave Brooks
6/12/2019
By Dave Brooks
6/12/2019

Created by South Korean firm Pinkfong, Baby Shark Live is being produced by Round Room Live

If you haven't heard the infectiously catchy kids song "Baby Shark," you likely don't have children or haven't been anywhere near YouTube in the last year, do do do do do do do.

The track from South Korean firm SmartStudy, the entertainment company behind children’s content brand Pinkfong, peaked at No. 32 on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, but that only tells part of the story about the viral earworm that has ammassed 2.9 billion views on YouTube, been covered by James Corden and John Legend and is crossing over into IRL (in real life) territory with a live show that will visit more than 100 North American markets starting this fall.

Baby Shark Live is being produced by Round Room Live, the live entertainment production company that produced the live show for Disney Jr.'s popular PJ Masks series and the ice skating series Rock the Rink. The company's co-president Stephen Shaw is a former colleague of legendary producer Michael Cohl of S2BN Entertaiment, where Shaw worked before leaving to launch Round Room with partner Jonathan Linden in 2016. Round Room was acquired by Canadian media conglomerate EntertainmentOne in 2018.

"There's obviously something incredible there with Baby Shark and the toughest part for us is taking the three minute viral video and being able to produce a live show for the stage," Shaw tells Billboard. "Thankfully Pinkfong has a large catalog of songs that we have acccess to, with more than 400 titles."

That includes tracks like "Five Little Monkeys," "Wheels on the Bus," "Jungle Boogie," and "Monkey Banana Dance," compiled for the show that's part concert and part dance party. Baby Shark Live will be based around the Baby Shark character and a young fox named Pinkfong, who also serves as the mascot for the popular web series.

"They will be on an adventure to find new friends, both by land and by sea, taking families in the audience on that journey with them," Shaw says. The show is aimed at preschool age kids as young as two years old and will feature a ten person cast and a large video component." 

"There's also an educational element that includes counting, colors and the ABCs as well as a lot of singing and dancing elements with kids running up and down the aisles and having a good time," Shaw says.

Baby Shark Live! will visit more than 100 U.S. and Canadian markets starting in the fall, with a partial tour schedule to be announced July 9.

Fans can sign up for updates now at babysharklive.com.

By Dave Brooks
6/12/2019