| Native Name: | פרפר נחמד |
| Creator: | Shoshana Tzachor |
| Director: | Yael Graf Titi Ax Arie Ben Tzion Bobby Lex |
| Country: | Israel |
| Language: | Hebrew |
| Num Seasons: | 17 |
| Num Episodes: | 212 |
| Executive Producer: | Shoshana Tzachor |
| Producer: | Einat Dekel-Weitzman |
| Runtime: | 25 minutes |
| Network: | Israeli Educational Television |
| Network2: | Kan Educational |
Parpar Nechmad (Hebrew: פרפר נחמד, Nice Butterfly) is a long-running Israeli children's television program, aimed mainly at pre-schoolers. The show premiered in January 1982 and ran until 2004. It was produced by the Israeli Educational Television (IETV), and to this day remains successful in re-runs on the IETV's former home network, Channel 23, and via a reboot to the series that debuted on 5 September 2021 on Kan Educational.
The show was originally produced by Shoshana Tzachor. Its head writer was, who provided scripts for most of the early shows, as well as lyrics and music to many of the featured songs. The puppets were all designed by Yehudit Greenspan. The show's title refers to a then well-known nursery rhyme by Fania Bergstein.
The show consists of interactions between humans and puppets. Each episode presents the young viewers with familiar situations from everyday life, and offers creative ways of solving various problems, as each situation is dealt with through songs and games. Aside from the basic plotline, most episodes also include a story told by one or more of the human actors, and sometimes short cartoon sketches. In the sketches about Pete and Pitagoras (different actors) professor Pitagoras tried to teach the kids but his assistant Pete always ruined everything.
The location for most shows (until 1995) is a room filled with various shapes, such as poles and arches, vaguely resembling a room in a house. This deliberately surreal design is meant to give the impression of seeing the world from an infant's point of view, which is full of imagination and creativity.
In 1995 the show's production was put on a long hiatus following the death of Yoni Chen, one of the puppeteers. It was relaunched in 1998 with a renewed and very different look. It now had a realistic house and backyard as the two main locations. The puppets were redesigned and there were considerable changes in the human cast as well.
Responses for the new version were mostly negative. Original creator Datia Ben Dor said in an interview (translation from Hebrew is non-literal): "The work on the show was no longer done with the proper care and sensitivity... it was no longer "Parpar Nechmad"... the name remained but the essence was gone". The second version aired its final episode in 2004.
On 18 July 2008 it was first revealed that Israeli Educational Television planned to reboot the show again, and that auditions for the new human cast would soon take place. Reportedly, all four puppet characters would appear on the new version, which would focus on teaching children about good nutrition and health. After some time, the new version was cancelled.
In February 2020, it was announced that IPBC planned to reboot the show after 16 years of reruns on Kan Educational.[1]
On 5 April 2021 it was announced that the second reboot will be in Fall 2021 in Kan Educational with four new hosts -,, Ester Rada and .[2] Ami Weinberg and Ayelet Levine will return to perform Batz and Nuli, Shabi will performed by Gilles Ben David instead of Avi Yakir and Uza will performed by Meital Raz instead of Irit Shilo. The puppets were all redesigned by Maria Gurevich.
The revival series premiered on Kan Educational on 5 September 2021.