Liberty alumni produce children’s show ‘Torbee’ to spark learning, creativity

Welcoming curious minds to learn, enjoy crafts, sing songs, and explore the outdoors, “Torbee,” a new children’s television program developed in part by Liberty University alumni, is aiming to bring back the calm, educational style of kids programming of past generations.

In late 2020, show creator and Lynchburg resident Tori Garris was watching a lot of children’s television programs with her 2-year-old son and found many of them to be overstimulating. She reminisced about the shows she watched as a kid, which she said were calmer and easier to understand.

“I was working from home, and so I was relying on different television programs and movies, and I just didn’t like a lot of the shows and movies that were out there for kids that were made in today’s day and age,” she said. “I had this idea to make something that was more wholesome, a little bit more rooted in the type of things that I grew up watching.’”

Using the camera on her iPhone and calling on her professional actor training, Garris began filming herself as Torbee, a bubbly and curious friend who does crafts, reads books, sings songs, and enjoys the outdoors. She posted her videos on YouTube and started looking at ways to boost the production quality. That’s when she became acquainted with Bryanna (’14, ’16) and Zach Boyd (’14), a married couple living in Lynchburg. Bryanna studied English and Zach earned a degree in cinematic arts. Bryanna, who has served as a high school English teacher, is now the show’s executive producer, and Zach works as the director of photography and post-production supervisor.

The trio has been leading the show’s production company, Copper & Cast, since early 2023. Copper & Cast is a full-service production company specializing in corporate and commercial projects, reality television, travel documentaries, and children’s content, delivering premium visual storytelling for global audiences

This fall, the show will begin airing on local PBS stations in the Lynchburg area — Blue Ridge PBS and PBS Appalachia.

“We watched some of her YouTube videos at the time, and we both said, ‘She’s really good,’” Bryanna Boyd said. “When Tori heard (about my teaching background), she asked to meet with me too and join the show. I took a lot of the same skills that I have used in teaching, like the organizational skills and planning, and applied them to ‘Torbee.’”

She said the producers don’t consider “Torbee” to be a “teaching show.”

“We try really hard to just inspire kids to want to learn and to be curious,” Bryanna Boyd said. “We don’t want it to turn into Torbee teaching someone’s kids. It’s more like a tool to make them enjoy learning and exploring.”

Described as “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” meets “Sesame Street” meets “Reading Rainbow,” the show aims for a slower pace and healthier content, encouraging young viewers to be creative and inquisitive.

“We try to create a lot of the same feeling of those shows from the ’80s and ’90s, but we make it look nice with the cameras, editing, and overall production quality of today’s standards,” Bryanna Boyd said. “One of our missions is to inspire discovery, creativity, and curiosity in today’s kids. We obviously want them to enjoy watching episodes of ‘Torbee,’ but we also don’t want them to sit there in front of the TV and watch 20 episodes in a row. We’re trying to inspire kids to want to go out in nature, make crafts, read stories, and do things in the real world.”

Through the Boyds’ connections at Liberty, the show’s crew has grown to include 13 additional alumni spanning virtually all departments of production. The show also welcomes current Liberty students to volunteer and earn Christian/Community Service (CSER) hours.

“The show itself is not a Christian show, but it’s kind of like how Mister Rogers was, where it was not preaching the Gospel per se, but we are putting Christian values into the show,” Bryanna Boyd said. “I think that’s something that’s cool that a lot of Liberty grads also believe in and want to help support and contribute to that mission.”

“There are very few kids shows out there nowadays that have those values,” Zach Boyd added. “We saw that there’s a need for good, wholesome content for kids, and that’s why we have started developing more than just ‘Torbee,’ to be able to produce different kids shows that still exemplify those values.”

One new project that Copper & Cast recently released the trailer for “The Mr. Machine Show,” which the team describes as a “blue-collar ‘Bill Nye the Science Guy’” in which the host talks about machines and the trades, interviews professionals, and gives viewers an up-close look at the equipment.

The team sees these ventures as an opportunity to be Christian professionals in the entertainment industry who can live out Liberty’s mission of Training Champions for Christ. Through Torbee and their other prospective projects, they infuse faith-rooted values like being hard-working, kind, honest, and encouraging to others.

“We’re not trying to be a ‘VeggieTales’ program where it’s made mainly for Christians, but we are trying to be a light in the world,” Bryanna Boyd said. “That is something that Liberty does a really good job at training up and encouraging their graduates and students to be. Even though we are not producing specifically Christian shows, we still hope to be a light through the content that we produce.”

“Torbee” is currently available on YouTube, Yippee TV, and more. Visit Torbee.TV to learn more.