Former President Barack Obama is the surprise narrator of the upcoming Netflix documentary Our Great National Parks, a five-part series looking at wildlife around the world.
The series was announced last February as part of a slate of programming that Barack and Michelle Obama are producing for Netflix via their Higher Ground Productions company — although the announcement didn’t mention that the former president would serve as host and narrator.
“A fish that can walk. Surfing hippos that want to catch the waves. Species found nowhere else on earth,” Obama says in the trailer for Our Great National Parks.
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“When humanity started to protect these wild places, we did not realize how important they would become: They’re a haven for endangered species, and a hotbed for scientific research.”
An international media outlet reports that the show includes footage from parks in Monterey Bay, California, Tsavo National Park in Kenya, and Gunung Leuser National Park in the rainforests of Indonesia.
The Obamas signed a multi-year agreement with Netflix in 2018, with a stated goal of creating “a diverse mix of content, including the potential for scripted series, unscripted series, docuseries, documentaries, and features” from Higher Ground Productions.
In addition to the national parks series, the company has brought to Netflix the children’s shows Ada Twist, Scientist, and Waffles + Mochi; the Oscar-winning documentary American Factory; the Peabody Award-winning film Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution, and Becoming, based on Michelle Obama’s memoir.
Our Great National Parks debuts on Netflix April 13th.
