Stanley

Stanley was a Playhouse Disney series by Cartoon Pizza. It featured many of the same major crew of the program, PB&J Otter. The program featured the adventures of Stanley Griff, his family and friends. Stanley Griff possessed the Dr. Dolittle-like capability to talk to animals. In fact, all of the children on the program that are approximately Stanley's age freely talk with the animals. Most other adults, with the exception of Stanley's Grandma Griff, are capable of talking to and understanding the animals, but simply don't talk to them. If they ever hear the animals talking, they tend to dismiss it as a dream or hallucination. Grandma Griff freely talks with the talking animals. Both Stanley and his grandmother owned a copy of The Great Big Book of Everything (In fact, Grandma Griff was the one who gave Stanley that book for his fourth birthday), which Stanley and his friends often used to look up animals, including lions, bald eagles, sharks, butterflies and much more. The show's title theme is performed by the Baha Men, creators of the popular hits "Who Let the Dogs Out?" and "Best Years of Our Lives" (Shrek).

PB&J Otter and Stanley - Notable Similarities and Differences[]

While almost every PB&J Otter story featured at least one original song, most Stanley stories featured "The Great Big Book of Everything" song, but no other song. Songs were used only occasionally on Stanley, but like Otter tunes, were generally catchy and written by professional songwriters. Dan Sawyer, who songwrote regularly for Otter also wrote for Stanley.
When Peanut and Jelly draw fish for pretend fishing towards the start of "Bye Bye PB&J", the designs of the fish are extremely similar to the look of the animals in Stanley.
PB&J Otter has slapstick humour and more cartoony while Stanley rely on education value on animals
Each story of both programs is specifically written with the intention of teaching some sort of life lesson in mind. Stanley stories both teach about a particular animal and about some problem that Stanley and his friends are trying to solve.
Characters on Stanley are shown attending school in most stories of the program, whereas characters on PB&J Otter are never shown attending school.
Both programs feature anthropomorphism. However, in Stanley, the talking animals look much more like animals and behave generally like animals, while coexisting with humans. There are no human characters in PB&J Otter. The only animals that talk and have human-like desires on Stanley are Stanley's pets Harry, Elsie and Dennis. All other animals seen on the program generally behave like normal animals.
Stanley is based on a series of books by Griff, whereas PB&J Otter was made for television and is not based on a book series.
Stanley has several DVD releases, whereas PB&J Otter has never been officially released on commercial DVD or even VHS.
Stanley employs the concept of "breaking the fourth wall", with Dennis regularly talking to viewers in order to quiz them or to review learned material. Characters on PB&J Otter never break the fourth wall.
The plot of the film Stanley's Dinosaur Round-Up revolved around a character named Rockin' Rory wanting to clear away the dude ranch of Stanley's Great Uncle Stew to expand his amusement park business. This is extremely similar to the plot of the final episode written for PB&J Otter, "Goodbye Lake Hoohaw." However, Rockin' Rory was portrayed as a mustache-twirling villain, whereas Mr. Bigdog was presented as being a nice guy who was simply misguided.
PB&J Otter had some of its episodes that used to be lost, but is completely found on Disney+. Stanley also had some of the episodes that were used to be lost, but it'll also be completely found on the Disney+ streaming service.
Dennis reads the title display at the beginning of each episode of Stanley. On PB&J Otter, different characters (usually adults) read the title display at the start of each episode.