AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
The "Pokemon" company is now the highest grossing media franchise of all time, even bigger than Mickey Mouse in terms of total profits over time across its video games, trading cards and other licensed merchandise. A new exhibit at the Field Museum in Chicago is drawing huge crowds by hitching its star to the Poke-verse, using fossil Pokemon to teach about hunting and collecting fossils in the real world. Jessica Pupovac has the story.
JESSICA PUPOVAC, BYLINE: In 1998, Arjan Mann was 6 years old when kids across North America caught their first glimpse of the "Pokemon" cartoon.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN LOEFFLER SONG, "POKEMON THEME")
ARJAN MANN: And I remember coming home every day, the most excited kid in the world to see the next episode.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "POKEMON THEME")
JASON PAIGE: (Singing) I want to be the very best.
MANN: I think it's Season 1 - they go underground to this, like, haven where there are fossil Pokemon still living.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "POKEMON: INDIGO LEAGUE")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character, screaming).
MANN: And they run into this big bad, Aerodactyl.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "POKEMON: INDIGO LEAGUE")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As the Pokedex) Aerodactyl, an extinct flying Pokemon.
MANN: I was already interested in dinosaurs and fossils from a very young age. But that episode really called to me, and that's why I was like, oh, man, like, this stuff is, like, really cool.
PUPOVAC: He still thinks so. And today, as an assistant curator at the Field Museum, he studies fossils and prehistoric creatures for a living. After traveling around Japan for five years, the Pokemon Fossil Museum made its U.S. debut in May. It displays real-life fossils alongside Pokemon with similar features.
(CROSSTALK)
PUPOVAC: Arjan was on the team of field scientists who adapted it for U.S. audiences. He says the Pokemon Company chose the Field Museum in part because of its vast fossil collection. The Field's crown jewel, an Archaeopteryx fossil that is considered the most complete specimen in the world, sits next to a sculpture of the Archeops Pokemon, the same one from that cartoon. I met 13-year-old Deacon Woodard inside the exhibit.
DEACON WOODARD: You're really seeing the comparisons between these fictional creatures and these once alive, large creatures. And it's really something.
PUPOVAC: And next to the skull of Sue the T. rex, a model of a Tyrantrum Pokemon.
DEACON: And you can kind of see where the inspiration from the real animal went into the Pokemon, and I really recommend it to anyone.
PUPOVAC: Deacon said he loves Pokemon and dinosaurs, so his family traveled all the way from D.C. on their Pokemon pilgrimage. But 8-year-old Talia Papali'i from Galesburg, Illinois - she's all about the Pokemon.
What was your favorite part of the exhibit?
TALIA PAPALI'I: Seeing all the Pokemon. I just like how they have tons to different colors, and they're - some of them are cute, and some of them are fierce.
PUPOVAC: A very cute excavator Pikachu guides visitors through the exhibit, sporting a brown fedora and a red bandana around his neck. Little excavator Pikachu plushies are kept behind the counter at the exhibit store, where there was a huge line the day I visited and a woman in a headset running crowd control.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: This is a part of your five-item limit. Coolio.
PUPOVAC: Because it's Pokemon, there's no shortage of exclusive merch. But Arjan Mann and his scientist colleagues hope that the exhibit inspires visitors to collect more than plushies, hoodies and cards.
MANN: The kind of take-home message in this exhibit is to get you to get out in nature and start collecting and engage in natural history and hopefully engage with science.
PUPOVAC: The final section of the exhibit has information on the joys of not just fossil hunting, but also bird watching and collecting insects.
MANN: Interestingly, the whole Pokemon genre was founded by a collector of insects, like, an amateur entomologist. So really, those roots are built into the genre.
PUPOVAC: He says it's part of the reason the exhibit makes sense and was so fun.
MANN: Working on this exhibit was definitely like a dream job. If I was kid me and I knew that I'd have the opportunity to do this, I would have, like, jumped through the roof or something like that.
PUPOVAC: However, he said, he came into this work for the paleontology, which, to adult him, is even cooler than Pokemon. The Pokemon Fossil Museum runs at the Field Museum through April 11 and then is set to travel to another location in North America, TBD. For NPR News, I'm Jessica Pupovac in Chicago. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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