It’s creature power suit activation time with ‘Wild Kratts Live’ at the FICA

Kids, it’s time to activate your creature power suits. Chris and Martin Kratt will be in town Tuesday for “Wild Kratts Live 2.0.”

The show brings “Wild Kratts” adventures to the stage. “Chris and I are in real life doing our ‘Wild Kratts’ thing,” said Martin Kratt, who co-hosts the popular PBS Kids nature show with his brother. The brothers’ other shows include “Zoboomafoo” and “Kratts’ Creatures.”

“There will be four creature power suit activations, and one of the villains shows up,” he said. “It’s a story that nobody’s seen on TV, but it’s a story like a ‘Wild Kratts’ episode.”

But, no, there won’t be live animals onstage.

“It’s really fun, the kids are very involved, and they’re very interactive and very vocal,” he said. “We have a good time.”

When Kratt spoke to The Spokesman-Review by phone from Ottawa, where the animation studio is for “Wild Kratts,” he was quick to identify himself as “the blue brother.” But he has no regrets about the color. “Blue truly is my favorite color.”

And, yes, his closet is pretty much just blue shirts. “If we ever wear any other color and we meet kids, it really confuses them. And I definitely can’t wear green anymore.”

And while he wouldn’t share which animals will be involved with the live show, or how they activate their creature power suits (“We can’t give away our secrets!”), he did talk about animals he’d still like to work with, what it’s like having so much together time with his brother and advice for young scientists.

Here are some excerpts from the conversation.

Animals he has yet to meet: Oh, there are so many. You know, that’s the amazing thing about “Wild Kratts.” We’ve done about 150 episodes now with different animals in real life. We were just down in the Amazon doing shows on pink river dolphins, giant river otters, different kinds of monkeys. But no matter how many episodes we do, there’s always new animals to meet and to do episodes on.

For example, (when) we were in the Amazon, I wanted to do a show on the Amazon bush dog, which is a tiny little dog that somehow survives in the Amazon jungle. But we couldn’t do it, so we’ll have to wait until season 7, but that’s definitely on the list.

(Also on the list: ravens, snow leopards and gorillas.)

On working with his brother: We do make a good team. You know it’s not always perfect, of course, we’re brothers. But we do have a lot of fun, and we enjoy the same things.

We have so much work to do, too. Sometimes when we’re out filming, I’ll go film with the giant otters, and Chris goes to try to find the pink river dolphin. And then we meet up back at camp.

Advice for young scientists: Learn as much as you can. Chris and I read a lot of books, but we also went on our own explorations and tried to observe things on our own. Also, try to find some zoo programs or conservation programs that you can intern at and get involved with and get some hands-on experience.