Learn all about your Zinghoppers friends - Olo, Coconuts, Penelope and Conductor Jack! Here's where you'll find out where each of your friends are from, the instruments they play, their hobbies, favorite books, sports, foods and more! If you have any questions, just email us and we'll answer them!

Penelope is an adorable possum who is four years old and originally hails from Orlando, Florida.

She is happy to be living at in Zinghopper Land where she is learning to play a gigantic pink bass and loves to wear her pretty yellow dress. Penelope loves to sing, paint beautiful pictures and play outside. She is a very good dancer, and loves going to ballet dance class.

Penelope has three sisters that can be heard singing backup on Zinghopper recordings: The Possumettes. She loves when it's her birthday and gets very excited waiting for her birthday each year. When it's your special day, she gets very happy to wish you a "happy birthday"!

Penelope's favorite foods are: bananas, oranges, apples and grapes. She actually likes all fruits, but those are her favorites!

Name: Penelope The Possum
Instruments: Bass
Hometown: Orlando, Florida
Hobbies: Dancing, playing dress-up
Favorite Shape: I love hearts!
Favorite Fruit: I love ALL fruits!
Favorite Color: Pink
Favorite Holiday: Valentines Day!

Our friend Coconuts is originally from sunny Australia, later moved to beautiful Hawaii, and now lives with the band in Zinghopper Land. She is three years old. She keeps her bright blue guitar in her pouch, along with her favorite book and a coconut or two. She loves drinking coconut juice!

She's a pretty good dancer, but somewhat clumsy. She loves hopping to the beats of the Zinghoppers music. She's also one of the best guitar playing kangaroos you'll ever hear! She can do the hula and enjoys surfing and relaxing on the beach with her family and friends.

When she is in the sun she loves wearing a sun hat with a big wide brim and lots of sunscreen to protect her skin! She also likes to swim with her buddies. Whenever she swims, she likes having adults nearby to watch her and help keep her safe.

Her favorite thing is getting the mail - she loves reading letters, writing letters and getting letters! When she's older she'd love to be a letter carrier.

Coconuts enjoys anything made with coconuts - her favorite food is coconut bran muffins! Yum Yum!

Name: Coconuts The Kangaroo
Instruments: Drums
Hometown: Sydney, Australia and Honolulu, Hawaii
Favorite Fun Activity: I love to get the mail, read and write letters!
When I grow up: I want to be a mail carrier!
Favorite Dance: "Zinghop Hula"

Olo is a very tall donkey from Mexico City in Mexico and immigrated to the United States and now lives with his friends in Zinghopper Land.

He is five years old and has a bright blue guitar that he loves to make music on. He enjoys polkas, tex-mex music and the pretty folk songs of Latin America. He can sing in two languages: Spanish and English! He is also a great dancer and clogger.

He speaks Spanish and English, and is very proud of his heritage (he loves his beautiful red sombrero hat!) and also loves to make people laugh. He also enjoys entertaining his friends by telling exciting stories of his life in Mexico and America!

Olo is teaching the rest of the Zinghoppers how to speak Spanish and soon the group will be performing shows in both languages, pretty fun, huh?

His favorite food is the burrito...a wonderful Mexican treat! He likes tomatoes, black beans, pinto beans, rice, lettuce and onions in his burritos!

Name: Olo The Donkey
Instruments: Guitar
Hometown: Mexico City, Mexico
Hobbies: Painting colorful pictures
Favorite Fun Activity: Dancing
Favorite Dance: Clogging
Favorite Song: "Stomp Your Feet" by the Zinghoppers!
Likes To Help: Teach my friends to speak Spanish

Conductor Jack Norton was born in 1979 and grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The oldest of 2 children, Jack was taught the piano in elementary school and began to play the guitar at age 7. Jack discovered his vaudevillian grandpa’s record collection and grew up listening to the dusty sounds of phonograph records from the 1920s and 1930s - jazz, blues, hillbilly and swing music. While in junior high school he met his mentor Tiny Tim and was taught the ukulele. Jack was in Tim’s third wedding and his funeral.

At age sixteen, he released his first album of original music while still a student at the Arts High School in Minneapolis. As the leader of the very successful bluegrass band The Mullet River Boys, he toured in America, Canada and France. Norton has shared the stage with such greats as: Norah Jones, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, the Squirrel Nut Zippers, Leon Redbone, Dave Van Ronk, Greg Brown and - of course - Tiny Tim.

In 2006, he moved to Nashville and began work as a childrens musician and entertainer and introduced The Zinghoppers to the world. Created by Jack and his wife Kitty, the Zinghoppers are a playful band of animal and human friends that dance and make music to the delight of preschoolers around the world.

He married his high school sweetheart, "Cowgirl Kitty", last year and shares their home with a computer-savvy dog named Doolittle (who is webmaster to this site), seventeen guitars and twenty three ukuleles! He loves to eat tomatoes which he makes into a pasta with garlic, noodles and olive oil. Always friendly, his hobbies include reading, swimming, and he continues his boyhood obsession with model trains.

Jack and Kitty are experienced educators with a background in Early Childhood Education from the University of Minnesota. Jack also has studied English (Creative Writing) and Musicology.

Name: Conductor Jack
Instruments: Ukulele, train whistle
Hometown: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Hobbies: Model trains, reading, writing songs with Kitty
Sports: Taking walks with my wife Kitty and our dog Doolittle
Favorite Vegetable: I love tomatoes!
Favorite Color: Blue
Favorite Fun Activity: Riding on the Happy Train!