Jakers! takes place in two different settings, in two different time periods. In the present time (the
frame story), Piggley Winks (
Peadar Lamb,
Maile Flanagan as a young boy) lives in the United States and tells stories of his childhood in rural
Ireland to his three grandchildren (
Nika Futterman and
Melissa Disney). In flashbacks, he is seen as a child, playing and adventuring with his friends such as Fernando “Ferny” Toro the
bull (
Russi Taylor) and Dannan O’
Mallard (
Tara Strong) and going to school in the early 1950s. Most of the main characters are
anthropomorphic animals—including Piggley and his family, who are all pigs. However, there are normal, non-anthropomorphic animals in the show as well.
Past Piggley Winks lived with his parents Pádraig and Elly and his younger sister Molly at Raloo Farm in Ireland. His best friends are Dannan O'Mallard, a duck who lives in a hut by a pond with her rarely seen grandmother, and Fernando "Ferny" Toro, a young bull who lives with his widowed father, the Spanish blacksmith Don Toro in the village of Tara. Piggley's rival is the main antagonist, Hector McBadger. Piggley lives his everyday life on the farm as a normal child, going to school, helping his parents, taking care of his sister, and having adventures, almost always followed by his friends. He has always been interested in stories and legends, and his fertile mind and mischievous spirit put him in many unpredictable situations, like believing fairies turned Ferny into a bug, trying to hatch a supposed dragon's egg, using the
Salmon of Knowledge to pass the school exam, and even trying to capture the legendary
Fir Darrig. Each story also features a subplot featuring a sheep named Wiley (voiced by
Mel Brooks), who lives at Raloo Farm with his flock. As the only sheep in the flock who can talk, he believes he is their natural leader, and tries to get the other sheep to do all kinds of different things (singing, racing, playing sports, acting, etc.), with varying degrees of success. He is later assisted by his mate, a female sheep named Shirley (voiced by
Joan Rivers). A running gag on the show is that Wiley's subplot and Piggley's plot would collide (e.g. in "Sheep on the Loose", Wiley runs away and Piggley, as the shepherd, tries to find him). CommonSenseMedia explains that at the end of each episode there is a live-action segment, in which "group of children talk about their own experiences and feelings, reflecting on what the episode has been about".
Present An elderly Piggley lives with his daughter Ciara and her three children, the twins Seán and Séamus, and their older sister Meg. Whenever the children have an issue, Piggley tells them one of his childhood stories as a moral lesson. The grandchildren are able to identify potential exaggerations in his stories. ==Development==