Their missions around the neighborhood are not of the super-dangerous variety — one short episode finds them scrambling to keep leaves from falling into the wet cement of a new sidewalk. But the show, created by the editorial cartoonist and children’s-book author Stephen Breen, gives the costumed parakeets a snap, humor and sophistication that you might not expect in a series aimed at preschoolers. That’s especially true with regard to Polly, a plucky dame out of a vintage Hollywood comedy who’s played by the animation veteran Tara Strong, the voice of Bubbles in “The Powerpuff Girls.” (Universal Kids, 10 a.m. Sundays; universalkids.com)

‘It’s Pony’

It’s the story of a girl and her horse, with a few contemporary twists: They live with her parents in a high-rise apartment building and it’s the pony who’s the nosy, needy, irrepressible attention sponge who constantly gets them into jams. (“I’m friendly,” Pony says. “It’s who I am. It’s never been a problem.”) The girl, Annie, and her friends are a wise and patient group who grudgingly accept Pony’s disruptions as the price of adolescence; the highly driven Annie, voiced by Jessica DiCicco (“The Loud House,” “Adventure Time”), is a little like a kinder-gentler version of Kristen Schaal’s Louise in “Bob’s Burgers,” with the snark level adjusted for early-tween viewers.

The full-gallop 15-minute stories, involving Pony’s innocent derailment of school projects or the infinite forbearance of Annie’s parents, are brisk and charming. But the real attraction of this standout show, which was created by the British animator Ant Blades, is the art, with its heavily outlined, scribbled, brightly colored characters moving across lulling, watercolor-like backgrounds. “It’s Pony” is an urban tale and the New York-like cityscapes and apartment interiors are rendered with surprising depth and detail for a Saturday-morning show. And it has an absolutely addictive theme song (“Pony on the sixth floor, pony in the bathroom …”), which, for parents, may or may not be a good thing. (Nickelodeon, 11:30 a.m. Saturdays; nick.com)

‘The Owl House’