"Ring Around the Planet" is the series premiere of Little Einsteins. It premiered on Disney Channel in primetime on October 9, 2005. The episode follows the Einsteins traveling to space to return Saturn's Ring to its planet after it fell loose from it.
Plot[]
One evening, June is stargazing with her telescope. She sees Saturn and dances to its music. Suddenly, as the music begins playing faster, one of Saturn's rings flies off and lands in June's garden. Though scared at first, Ring greets June and begins dancing with her. Their music catches the attention of Leo, Annie, and Quincy, who come to June's house to see what's going on. After greeting Ring, the Einsteins hear Saturn calling for its missing ring. Knowing that Ring should go back to Saturn where it belongs, Leo declares a mission to return Ring to Saturn and the team head to the Rocket Room to get Rocket to fly them to space. After doing the pat sequence to power Rocket, they blast off into space using Rocket's boosters.
After entering space, the Einsteins float in zero-gravity and observe the view until Ring notices meteors heading towards them. Quincy tells Rocket to use his drum thumper to drum the meteors away while the rest of the team assist by drumming on their laps. The drumming works well until they encounter the biggest meteor, when Rocket's thumper gets tangled. Using Ring as a tether, June does a super spin to untangle the thumper, allowing the team to successfully drum the rest of the meteors away. Hearing Saturn calling for Ring again, the Einsteins do another pat sequence to blast off again.
After flying past Mars and Jupiter, the Einsteins ride a slippery star shortcut, but then get caught in space goo. They then encounter alien creatures called Meeps, who help Ring pull Rocket out of the goo using their song. After the team pat to the beat, Rocket gets free from the goo.
The Einsteins make it to Saturn, who Ring tries to fit around, but is too small to do so. Realizing that Ring's size depends on the loudness of its music, Leo conducts the song to get it to fit onto Saturn. After getting Ring to the proper size, it places itself onto Saturn, reuniting Ring with its planet. After the Einsteins sing that Ring is home, Leo declares the mission complete.
Art[]
- Tree of Life by Gustav Klimt
Music[]
- New World Symphony No. 9 by Antonín Dvořák
Trivia[]
- If the Little Einsteins were to travel to Saturn in real-time, it would take them approximately 3 years and 2 months to do so. (If they were to correspond with Voyager 1's speed)[1]
- The space shortcut may be a reference to science fiction's concept of hyper jumping.
- Saturn may be visible in the night sky on some occasions, but of course, not as easy as shown in the show.
- In the show, Saturn's smallest ring was about as tall as June (about a metre), but in reality, the rings are about "282,000 km across and ~metre thick". In other words, the rings are much bigger than Earth itself.[2]
