children’s television

The State of Children’s Television

· March 7, 2021 · Musings · , , , , · One Comment

It’s been a while since I provided an update on the garbaged landscape of children’s television programming. When last I delved into the realm, my then four-year-old was suffering through the snottiness of Peppa Pig and the learned helplessness of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. She’s now six years old, and while her tastes have refined, she now has the horrific tendency to watch the same damn thing over and over and over again. She doesn’t just binge a particular show, though. She binges the same damned episode. Back to back sometimes! Add in a nascent quarantine Stockholm Syndrome, complete with a distance-learning first-grade teacher who thinks twenty minutes of content per day is plenty, and my kid can damn near recite half the dialogue.

This is allegedly a developmental thing. There’s comfort in familiarity. They’re learning story structure. But I call bullshit, because they also want mac & cheese for every meal. Including at restaurants that are literally just selling blue Kraft box shit. Yet somehow when I’m shilling out eight bucks for something I’ve got a 50-cent box of back home (even worse when its takeout), nobody’s ascribing it to some deep-seeded desire to learn subtle foreshadowing. 

Anyway, if I’ve gotta sit through it, then you’ve gotta hear me bitch about it. 

Gravity Falls. A shit-ton of caveats with this one. It’s far from “new,” having aired for only two seasons from 2014-2016. Plus it shouldn’t really be classified as a kids show. It’s geared more toward the pre-teen crowd, although at least fifty percent of the humor is aimed smack-dab at the parents. The D & D episode references when “it tried to be hip,” then cut to a “commercial” of two kids clad somewhere between MC Hammer and Fresh Prince spray painting a wall. A wizard starts rapping at them. Cue the tagline, “Diggity Dungeons an’ all Dat.” Then Dipper, the kid in the show, shudders and says, “The nineties must’ve been terrible.” That joke certainly flew over my daughter’s head, but I’m guessing it would also fly over half my high school students, too. After all, I actually remember the version two rules!

But we heard about the show from not one, but two of Daughter’s friends, albeit both with older siblings. So one afternoon I sat down with her and we watched the first episode together. At first, we were both skeptical. The plot revolves around pre-teen Mabel, voiced by Kristen Schaal, desperate to get a date. When she finally tricks a guy into dating her, her brother Dipper, voiced by Jason Rittter, thinks the guy’s a zombie. Daughter and I were both skeptical. She was unsure about the zombie content, and I didn’t really want to get into discussions about “practicing kissing” and not throwing yourself at guys that are obviously uninterested.

It turned out the zombie was actually a bunch of gnomes on each other’s shoulders wearing a trenchcoat. She was a little more on board. I was a little less on board since these gnomes clearly weren’t taking no for an answer. A guy throwing himself at an uninterested girl is so, so much worse, and will lead to much longer discussions.

But then one of the gnomes got hit in the “stomach” (nuts, really) and spews out rainbow vomit. We both gave it a thumbs up and proceeded to watch all forty episodes over the next month. Then she watched the entire series a second time. Followed by her “greatest hits,” ten or so episodes that must have been watched ten times each. 

And again, when I say we watched the “Sev’ral Times” episode several times, I don’t mean we skipped around en route through the series each time. She would literally watch the episode, then rewatch the exact same episode, then a third time. The following day, it’d be right back to the beginning. Sev’ral Times was a boy band, and I can still sing you all of their songs. 

In the end, she watched so much, she grew tired of it. Of course she did, because I’d just ordered some of the merch for Christmas. That’ll teach me to plan for a holiday more than a week in advance. 

She’s gone through a few other “binge and purge” watch-throughs. All five seasons of a Madagascar spinofffeaturing King Julien, the lemur voiced by Sacha Baron Cohen in the movies, but voiced by someone else in the TV show. Plus Puss in Boots from Shrek, which again didn’t feature Antonio Banderas, the movie actor. Although props to the voice actor, who plays both Puss in Boots and Fozzie Bear on Muppet Babies. That’s quite a range!

But as far as kids shows on constant loop, I could do a lot worse than a pandemic filled with any of these fun shows. 

To wit…

Abby Hatcher. One day, I randomly decided to have Daughter check out a show on Nick Junior instead of Disney Junior. Like when I branch out and try a new beer, some Hazy Juicy Deep Dank Double Red Brown Black Purple Sour from a brewery that just opened last weekend and will be closed by this time tomorrow. I usually kick myself and go back to the tried-and-true Sierra Nevada or Red Trolley, and so it was with Daughter’s forays into the nether regions of children’s programming. They leave Daddy with a mean hangover.

She had been on a mini-Vampirina kick around Halloween. I think I covered Vampirina in the last review. It’s a solid, if predictable, show. In general, I approve of shows Daughter feels comfortable with WITHOUT having to watch the same episode seventeen times. But alas, if she only watches each new episode twice, the phase only lasts a week or two. Then it was on to Abby Hatcher

The plot involves the titular character whose parents own a hotel that has mystical creatures in it. Unlike almost every other kids show, everyone else is fully aware of these magical creatures. I know Snuffleupagus is out and about now. There’s been an understandable push away from encouraging kids to keep secrets. But maybe if the plot of Abby Hatcher kept the damn creatures in the background, they’d be less annoying. 

They’re called Buzzleys, and they basically look like sentient Koosh balls who sing in eight-part harmony, about an octave above Alvin and the Chipmunks. They’re really freaking annoying and they sing multiple times per episode. It’s always the same song, the Roto Rooter commercial jingle. They change the words based on whatever problem they’re trying to solve, but my hearing ain’t great and I’m usually not paying attention, so all I hear in the background is Alvin, Simon, and Theodore sucking in some helium and then singing “And away go troubles, down the drain.”

In one episode, the Buzzleys were sad and Abby Hatcher had to cheer them up. The song in that episode was the classic five-note blues riff most notably from “Bad to the Bone.” But instead of “From the day I was born,” they sing, “Oh we’re so sad…. And we’re so blue…. We just don’t know… What toooo dooo.”

(And yes, it’s made worse by the last batch only having three syllables)

And if you think childish is bad, wait till they add cat meows in…

Gabby’s Dollhouse. I don’t get this show at all. It’s fine, I’m probably not supposed to. Although kids shows should occasionally keep in mind the parents who sometimes have to tolerate them (see above and below).

Gabby’s Dollhouse starts with a real-life little girl. But unlike the Ryan Kaji, the kid who made 22 fucking million dollars on YouTube before getting a Nick Jr show and shan’t be getting a review from me here (or hopefully ever, as Daughter has blessedly not glommed onto him), “Gabby” isn’t really a Gabby. Ryan, as annoying as he is, is a genuine kid that just started making YouTube videos. Gaby is an actress named Laila. She also plays “Young Bo” on Black-ish, so hopefully she doesn’t need the Dollhouse show and can pull the plug on it soon.

Gabby, or “Gabby,” starts the show by talking to the camera a la Mister Rodgers or the Bubble Guppies or any other variant of pre-school show, during which she establishes the theme of the episode. I kept pointing out to Daughter that this show is clearly designed for kids younger than her. But whatever, it’s got cats. Cats that meow in the middle of every song. Ugh.

After a convoluted, three to five minute “check-in” with the theme of the day (hiccups or school or pirates), “Gabby” stands up next to a giant dollhouse, sings, then pinches some cat ears on her headband and turns into a cartoon. The rest of the episode is her certoon self interacting with the cartoon dolls in her cartoon dollhouse. Or real clubhouse? I can’t tell.

And cats, of course.

She still talks to the audience while in cartoon form. At the end of each episode, instead of turning back into her human self, she makes the cat dolls fight against each other in a death-match from which only one can survive. At least that’s what I wish would happen. Instead she randomly spins a wheel and lets one of them sing. 

Thank God there’ve only been ten episodes of this snoozer. Here’s hoping it’s a one-and-done.

How hard is it to please kids while entertaining adults? After all, the Aussies can do it…

Bluey. Sorry, did that sound harsh toward Australia? They have some wonderful cultural milestones. I call myself the Wombat, after all. But short of their fancy opera house, one normally doesn’t think of pop culture from the Land Down Under unless they’re singing a forty-year-old pop song. 

Plus Kylie Minogue.

But they have a fun kids show called Bluey. It features a family of dogs, one of which is named, oddly enough, Bluey. Guess what color she is!

The titular character is a six-year-old blue dog, but she’s far from the “main” character. Bluey has a younger sister named Bingo. Also with a fair amount of screen time, rare for a kids show, are her parents, who actually have names. Their mom’s name is Chilli. Get it? Chilli Dog? Ha ha! And dad’s name is Bandit, just like… uh, I don’t get this one. Must be an Aussie thing, cause I ain’t never heard John Cougar singing about sucking a Bandit Dog outside a Tastee Freeze.

It’s quite the ensemble cast, despite the entire ensemble being cartoon dogs. Speaking of which, they toe the line between dog behavior and human behavior quite well. When I said Bluey was six years old, I meant in human years. Her parents seem to have been around since the nineties. But just when you are about to forget they’re dogs, Dad talks about the time he had “bum worms.”

I was worried about this show when Daughter first discovered it. It’s only nine-minutes long and named after a child animal who speaks with an accent. Sounded like prime Peppa Pig territory. Maybe that’s on me for not distinguishing between an English and Australian accent, but when I was in England once, they thought my accent was Australian, so I guess it’s fair game. Although honestly, I live in the same state as Hollywood, so California accents should be pretty easy to spot. How can that Brit not distinguish between Crocodile Dundee and American actors like Mel Gibson… or Russel Crowe… or Kylie Minogue? Aussies, y’all need to throw a “crikey” in there every few sentences so we can tell you from the other former colonies. Kinda like I just did with that “y’all.”

So let’s see. Nine minutes long, titular animal character, not great animation, and they drive on the wrong side of the car. Can I be forgiven for fearing Peppa Pig Part Poo? And there is no show Daughter has ever watched that I would trade for Peppa Pig. If you put a gun to my head and made me choose between Peppa Pig and Teletubbies, I’d probably choose the gun.

But Bluey is no Peppa Pig. Unlike the swine, when the character Bluey is being a bratty little diva, they call her on that shit. In fact, a fair amount of the show revolves around the horribleness of childhood narcissism. In one episode, the girls argue over whether grandparents know how to floss dance. Bingo, the younger one, thinks they can, but obviously she’s wrong. After they video call their grandparents and Bluey is proven right, she gloats and Bingo runs off crying. The parents ask Bluey if she’d rather have a sister to play with or if she’d rather be right. After looking down in deep thought while the commensurate “I’ve learned something today” music swells, Bluey looks up and says, “Can it be both?” Both parents yell “no” before the words are even out of her mouth, because they know what’s coming.

That true child behavior is what Bluey gets that most of the other shows don’t. In another episode, they’re sitting at a table outside a Thai takeout restaurant, waiting for the spring rolls, which weren’t included in their original order. They try to play “waiter” with the menus, they play pirates, they play something else while Dad really just wants to check his phone or read the paper or something. Bluey has to pee. While he’s holding her behind a bush, Bingo tries some of the spicy food and starts freaking out. He tells Bluey to hold it while he runs over to turn on a faucet so Bingo can drink. When he returns to Bluey, she’s held it too long and can’t go now. Bingo freaks out and knocks over the food they already got, all while the faucet floods the sidewalk. Bluey finally starts going when the waiter comes out to announce that their spring rolls aren’t quite ready yet. 

If this were a Peppa Pig episode, Peppa would say something stupid and snort, then they’d all fall over laughing. If it were Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, they would’ve sat on their ass and whined for Tootles to microwave the spring rolls and never gotten any comedy out of it. 

There’s one major drawback to watching Bluey, which is feeling like a failure as a parent. Both of the parents play fully vested in their kids’ make-believe. When the kids come up with a magic freeze button or a game where the parents have to dance embarrassingly in public, they play along. They never tell their kids they’re busy or that the game has gone on long enough. Never once has Bandit nor Chilli told Bluey to go watch a few episodes of Bluey while they finish editing this blog post. 

How could they? The damn show’s only nine minutes long. But evidently nine minutes is long enough to make me feel like a failure of a parent. But at least they’re entertaining about it.

WandaVision. This is a late addition to the write-up. Didn’t expect it to be here.

I told Wife that I wanted to watch this show as it came out. Tonight we’re gonna [watch tv] like it’s nineteen ninety-nine.

The problem in our household is keeping both parents awake longer than Daughter. If she wants “snuggles,” then the snuglee is usually down for the count. That’ll be fine when Falcon & Winter Soldier starts, as it’s supposed to be violent, so I can watch it by myself on the nights that Wife is playing good parent. Usually after a bout of Bluey.

But Wife and I both wanted to check out WandaVision, so I came up with a brilliant. Friday night, so let’s let the kid fall asleep on the couch while we’re watching grown-up TV. Nothing put me to sleep quicker when I was her age than five minutes of Hill Street Blues. And that was even in color, whereas the first two episodes of WandaVision were going to be in black and white.

But what the fuck? She actually liked it! And it’s not like she’s seen any of the Marvel movies, beyond Ant-Man, which bored her. But something about the Bewitched-esque magic and jokes that haven’t been funny since 1958 and the kid was WIRED!

Since then, every Friday has been WandaVision night in our household, and it’s the six-year-old who’s reminding us. To be fair, I think she’s been going more on inertia the last few weeks. She claims it’s just the “outside” stuff she isn’t a fan of, but I think even when it’s in the fake sit-com portion, she’s lukewarm. She would’ve been happy with nine straight Leave it to Beaver rip-offs. 

But honestly, if she’s okay watching WandaVision, might there be a light at the end of the children’s programming tunnel? Can I get her to watch some Star Wars? The original movie is a wee too much 1970s pacing, but I’ve heard the Clone Wars and Rebels cartoons are worthwhile? Is it possible to put Schitt’s Creek on before 9:00 PM so we might finally finish it?

Or should we should double down on the tryptophan. Play Bosch, and she’ll be down for the count. I call it the ol’ “Hill Street Blues one-two.”

Children’s TV Review (The Shitty Ones)

· January 23, 2018 · Blog Entries · , , , , , · One Comment

Last week, I gave my account of some of the shows dominating children’s television these days. Some of it’s not too shabby. Some of it’s actually a little bit enjoyable. But for the good shows, you need to look at my last post.

This week, it’s the fun post. Here we focus on the abysmal.

There are two shows currently atop this particular mountain of shit.

(Oh yeah, this is an adult blog. If you are underage and got here through the fiftieth page of Google results, go away.)

1. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Having grown up in Orange County and rooted for sports teams that Michael Eisner only saw as cross-promotions, I might have a certain anti-Disney predisposition. Yes technically, the Angels won the World Series while a Disney property, but that’s only because Disney was looking to sell and hoping to raise the sale value.

So I rage at the hypocritical message embedded in most Disney shows and movies. Be who you want to be! Except if your hairline is a centimeter too long, because then your ass is fired. Hard work will be rewarded! Hey, work ten-hour shifts five days a week in 100-degree heat and then we’ll fire you at the 5 1/2 month mark because you’d get discounted tickets if we let you work six months. Commercialism is bad! But don’t forget to buy some Minnie Mouse tampons on the way out of the park.

So okay, I might not give Mickey a fair shake. But that doesn’t mean this show doesn’t suck.

I actually like most of the characters on “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” and, obviously, I am aware that Disney knows what they’re doing when it comes to children’s shows. This has all of the tropes one expects. The songs are repeated at the same time every episode. The characters find themselves in problems that the viewer has to help with by picking the right number or the right color pattern.

One might expect Disney to come up with something a little more original than a “Blue’s Clues” ripoff. But hey, if they’re able to bring Clarabelle Cow into canon and sell some cow dolls, all is good.

The start of the show is a little skeevy. Mickey is walking alone through the woods. He turns to the camera and asks the little kids if they want to come inside his secret, magical clubhouse. He tells them to say the magic words and his pervy little hideout pops out of nowhere. It’s got a giant slide coming out of the roof, a mini golf course, and all the accouterments one might associate with Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch.

No, I’m not saying Mickey Mouse is a child molester. However, I might think twice before leaving my child alone with the show runners. Hey kid, Say “Meeska, Mooska, Mickey Mouse” and something’s going to pop out of nowhere.

Then again, Steve from “Blue’s Clues” seemed a little off, too.

But the real problem I have with “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” is Toodles, an anthropomorphic, mouse-shaped holding tray.

I guess it’s not mouse shaped, it’s Mickey Mouse shaped. Damn you Disney, for raising three generations of humans to refer to a large circle with two smaller circles on top as “mouse-shaped.”

At the beginning of every episode, they load Toodles up with four tools that they will be able to use to get past obstacles. One of them is a mystery tool and the others range from ladders and balloons to, I think there was one episode that utilized a bologna sandwich.

Then every time they encounter a problem, they whine to the heavens, “Oh, Toodles!” and the little shit comes flying from wherever he’s lazing around. Seriously, they’ve called him from Mars and he put on a space helmet to make it there before his three-second synthesizer theme-song was done. Like a drug dealer afraid that his junkie customers will find a new source or, even worse, sober up.

And when I say they call him for every time they have an obstacle, I mean: Every. Fucking. Time. “Hey, there’s some crumbs across the path. Instead of cleaning them up or stepping over them, lets see if Toodles has a fucking dustpan.”

In other shows, the characters talk though problems and multiple solutions. Some shows even encourage kids to try again if the first one fails. But Disney doesn’t want kids to learn perseverance or patience. If the next generation become critical thinkers, Disney might need a new business model. What they want is a generation of crybabies who think they are incapable of solving life.

It’s called learned helplessness and it’s rampant in the students I teach. “I can’t do it.” Encounter one setback and you might as well give up. “Why haven’t you done the last three homework assignments?” “Well, once I missed one, I figured I couldn’t pass so why try?”

Call for help. Google it. There is no possible way a human being can work their way through anything.

Some say they “just can’t do” history. They’re not good at it, like it’s shooting a three-pointer. How the hell is someone not good at history? Not enough jump? Wrong arc? Poor arm strength? Those are the reasons I am “not good” at three-pointers, although I’m sure I could get better if I tried.

But I don’t see how someone can be “bad at history.”  History is not a particular skill that one does or doesn’t have. You might not be good at reading or writing or listening. But if I ask “Who won the Civil War,” even if the answer is “I don’t know,” that still doesn’t mean you’re bad at history.

In other subjects, maybe that works. “I struggle conjugating a verb” or “I always get stuck on the quadratic equation” make sense. But how can you be bad at history? “Man, everybody else can Stalin much better than I can.”

But, of course, the learned helpless statements are never as focused as conjugating verbs or solving equations. It is perfectly acceptable to just say “I can’t do this so I’m not going to try.” As they argue over who won the 1978 Super Bowl…

Maybe they should just call Toodles.

But at least I had to watch fifty episodes of “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” before I could really pinpoint my problem with it. For the single worst kids’ show on TV these days, it was apparent right from the start.

Peppa Pig. Oh, this shit is horrible. In fact, I hesitate to call this show shit, because Peppa is a pig and pigs like shit. And I don’t want Peppa to enjoy anything about life, as she’s sucked all the enjoyment out of mine.

This show is from England, the same country that, a generation ago, sent us Teletubbies. Have you ever seen Teletubbies? Have you ever watched an episode of Teletubbies and thought, “If only we could understand what the Teletubbies are talking about.” Well, Peppa Pig is that show and, let me tell you, we were better off not knowing.

Peppa is a little girl pig. Her parents, oddly enough, are named Mummy Pig and Daddy Pig. You might think that those are just the names that Peppauses for them. But there are scenes where Daddy Pig is at work and his co-workers refer to him as Daddy Pig. I am called Daddy around my house, but none of the other teachers in my department call me Daddy, or even Mr. Daddy. Four of the other teachers in my department are also fathers. That would be very confusing.

Then again, Daddy Pig works around other animals, so they probably just use their species to distinguish between one father and the next. Maybe he’s in a meeting with Daddy Horse and Bachelor Mouse. Maybe D.I.N.K. Armadillo pays for lunch, while Co-habitating Camel usually shows up late after partying all night.

Maybe I should start referring to all of my co-workers by their ethnicity. I can’t think of any drawback to that.

Oh, and Peppa’s grandparents are Grandma Pig and Grandpa Pig. That must’ve been very awkward when they were growing up.

Come to think of it, Berenstain Bears does the same thing. The first two children are named Brother and Sister. If they were twins, I could maybe see it, but Brother Bear is clearly older by a few years. I know it was the 1970s, when 2.1 children was a foregone conclusion, but it’s pretty ballsy to name an only child, Brother. What if the second child had been another boy? Would his name have been Younger? Or would they just have named him Sister and had a “very special” book about gender identity? And, oh by the way, they had a third child later in the series. They named her Honey. What the hell? Is she not a sister as well? Seriously, Brother, Sister, and Honey are the three Berenstain Bear children. Good thing they’re religious and can pray the counseling away.

Back to Peppa Pig, she has a number of friends who are also alliteratively-named animals. There’s Rebecca Rabbit, Suzy Sheep, and Zoey Zebra, although zebra is pronounced in the (incorrect) British way so that the first syllable rhymes with zed, not zee. One character I feel bad for is Pedro Pony, because he will presumably have to change his first name when he grows into full horse-hood.

Daddy Pig is a fucking trainwreck. He’s not good at anything, but thinks he’s good at everything. He can’t read a map and gets grumpy when they get lost. He’s fat, but whines about being fat. All the while, he’s trying to teach moral lessons to his kids. Great role modeling, Britain! No wonder you lost the empire.

As for the eponymously-named Peppa, she is a whiny little bitch. Or, since she’s English, I guess the proper verbiage would be a whiny little bird. She is mean to people and is constantly complaining about being bored.

In one episode, she’s playing soccer (and errantly calling it football). They do boys versus girls, because of course they do. When the boys score the first goal, she whines that it’s a stupid game and doesn’t want to play anymore. After the girls score the second goal, all of the boys and girls start arguing. Daddy Pig helicopter-parents in to serve as referee. The boys score next, but it’s in their own goal. So now she love soccer, even if she’s still calling it football.

In another episode, she’s riding a bike. Every time she’s on a downhill she brags about what a good bicyclist she is. Then when she goes uphill, she says riding a bike is stupid and wants to quit.

Maybe she should have called Toodles?

I wish I could say there was more meat to that episode, but these synopses pretty much cover the whole thing. The average episode is about six minutes long, so Nick Jr puts five of them in a row to fill a half-hour slot. Every time an episode ends, I wait with baited breath to see if that was the final one, but there’s only a twenty percent chance. I don’t like those odds.

Most episodes end with everybody falling over laughing over something that is very unfunny. The animation for the entire show is very crude, so when I say they fall over laughing, I don’t mean they hunch over and start slapping their thigh and then fall to their knees. No, instead they are all standing upright in one frame and then are completely horizontal on their backs in the next frame. Then they shake, laugh, and snort another second or two until the episode is over.

And again, the thing that caused them all to fall over backward was something hilarious like a whiny child saying she didn’t like biking uphill. Clearly that is enough to cause people to lose their vertical fortitude.

Peppa has a little brother named George. He is one of the few tolerable spots of the show. He can only say a few words, two of which are “Dinosaur, rawr.” Even though he’s barely a toddler, he’s good at all of the things Peppa sucks at, which is pretty much everything. Of course, this just causes her to complain more, which is just what the show needs.

Peppa terrorizes her poor brother. She plays keepaway, she belittles his accomplishments, and I’m pretty sure she’s pushed him a few times. Just the things we want to teach our children.

Nick Jr starts all of its shows with a list of what the kids are learning while they’re watching. “Paw Patrol” says they’re learning about teamwork and community. “Dora the Explorer” highlights problem-solving skills and Spanish language. Most of them are a reach, but at least the intent is there.

According to them, “Peppa Pig” teaches children about emotional development. Bullshit! Peppa never develops emotionally. Peppa is the antithesis of a well-developed child. Unless you want your child to be a rude and entitled quitter.

But I’m here to help. Here ya go, Nick Jr:

When watching “Peppa Pig,” your child is learning about how to bully and not take accountability for their actions. With any luck, they’ll be President of the United States someday.

Children’s TV Review, Part I

· January 17, 2018 · Blog Entries, Musings · , , , , , · One Comment

My daughter is three-and-a-half years old now and well on her way to her proper place as a proud American. What I mean is, she watches a shit-ton of TV.

I know, I know. Screen time is bad and should be limited and blah, blah, blah. You know what else should be limited? Microwaved dinners and me teaching teenagers in my underwear. And if I’m going to have time to cook a wholesome meal and, you know, shower, the kid’s going to suckle on a little of that boob-tube teat.

As a result, I’ve come to experience a sizable cross-section of the current children’s television crop. Both of the Juniors, Nick and Disney, have full lineups. Some of it is enjoyable for young and old, some of it is kinda boring for both. And then there are the demonspawn shows – the ones that my daughter enjoys but that are absolutely horrific for the adults in the house.

I’m going to start with some of the good and mediocre. Come back next week for the shit storms.

Dora the Explorer. I know this isn’t a new show. My students all grew up with it. Even my nieces, who are in their twenties, watched the early seasons.

I assumed I would not like Dora. I’m not sure why. Maybe because it came out during the years of Barney and the Teletubbies, I figured it can’t be good. Or maybe I thought it was an artificial attempt at forced bilingualism. Or maybe I assumed that, if she thought Dora and Explorer rhymed, she must be from Boston.

Quick game: find a Republican and ask him what’s more offensive, a Spanish accent or a Mass-hole accent.

But it’s actually pretty enjoyable to watch. The bilingualism is not forced. As opposed to Sesame Street (or every first-year language class ever), it does not just come up with a word, repeat it multiple time, and then makes an artificial skit designed to illicit the one word of the day. Seriously, how often am I going to ask for milk at the library? Dora talks like a real bilingual person. Sometimes she’ll drop a word or two of Spanish into her normal speak, then she’ll turn to the camera and explain what that word meant. “In Spanish, we say leche and biblioteca.”

Sometimes Dora needs to interpret for people she encounters who are unilingual.

Dora is usually on an adventure. There are always three steps, and she will repeat them over and over again. When one’s been accomplished, she’ll still repeat them,  say “Check,” and write a check on the map. Now when I need to take my daughter on errands, we play like Dora “We need to go through  the pasta aisle, around the dairy fridge, then pay at the cashier. Did we go through the pasta aisle? Check!”

The interactions with the audience, which is a staple in children’s television, seems to work, too. My daughter isn’t very likely to respond when Mickey Mouse or Elmo asks her which direction they should go. But Dora asks with a certain cadence and repetition that gets my daughter to respond. Even in very mangled Spanish sometimes. “Should I take the rojo or the verde path?” Dora asks, and my daughter shouts out “Bair-day!”

And the songs are catchy as hell. My students laugh whenever I pull up maps in history class now, because I sing the “I’m the map” song. Seriously, go look up “Grumpy Old Troll” and see if it’s not stuck in your head later. No? Watch it twenty more times and you’ll know what it’s like having kids.

Goldie and Bear. So, evidently Goldilocks and Baby Bear are friends now. And they live in a land with modern twists on fairy tale characters. Humpty Dumpty’s a nerd who always has his head in a book. The three pigs are makeshift carpenters who fix most of the property damage that tends to occur on a regular basis. Their names are Bailey, Twigs, and Brix. Big Bad Wolf occasionally tries to be good, but is still obsessed with Little Red Riding Hood’s muffins. Fairy Godmother is a trainwreck – half of her spells go awry.

Shows revolve around some extension of fairy tales. In one episode, they have a lottery to see who gets to ride the cow when she jumps over the moon. Goldie wins and Bear wants to feel happy for her but is bummed out. But then the cow is scared by a mouse that is attracted to Big Bad’s cheese sandwich and leaps early with both Goldie and Bear on her back. In another episode, everything in the land falling apart because the pigs are arguing over straw, wood, and brick.  Bear’s father sings about fishing in one show, and in another one, Bear is allergic to Goldie’s new shampoo (another Fairy Godmother screw up) right before a dual pogo stick contest.

The shows are pretty fun to watch. Each episode has two 15-minute shows. Or is it every show has two episodes? Whatever. Each 30-minute block contains two 15-minute subdivisions. Each show has an original song (unlike Dora, these songs are not repeated every episode but are based on the current situation). The songs have varying beats and clever lyrics.

I think there might or might not be a morale or a lesson in most of them. Whatever.

A couple of problems with the show. First, it’s new, so whereas Dora has over a hundred episodes to cycle through, Goldie and Bear had a whopping 22. Let me tell you, 22 episodes ain’t a lot when one’s child watches nothing else for an entire month. You know it’s bad when even a three-year old says, “We already watched that one.”

They finally started a second season about a month ago. My wife and I were ecstatic, but my daughter had almost forgotten about the show by then. So far, the second season seems a little lackluster. Classic “Prison Break” syndrome.

I also have issue with the lack of swag for this show. It’s on Disney. How are they not inundating us with plushes and shirts and toy sets? The Disney Store and Toys R Us both have sections devoted to “Puppy Dog Pals” and “Vampirina,” and those two shows have only been on for a couple of months. “Goldie and Bear” started in 2015, yet by the middle of 2016 there were still no official toys, and even by that Christmas, there were only a couple of items hidden around Toys R Us.

I assume that the lack of toys and the lack of consistency in output means that “Goldie & Bear” is not an official Disney property, but is only airing on Disney channels. I didn’t know that was possible, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. Because Disney not overpromoting a property to the point of ubiquity is like…. is like… the New England Patriots not finding a new way to cheat.

McStuffins the First of Avalor: Okay, these might actually be three different shows. I don’t know. Sometimes I’m blogging when the show is on. One is an African-American girl in a smock, another is a white girl who likes purple, and the last is a Latina in red. They… I don’t know… have problems? That they have to… solve? And maybe they sing? Not sure.

These shows aren’t bad. There have been times it seems like one of them is about to take over my child’s zeitgeist for. (Can one person have a zeitgeist? Hmmm. I’ll have to look that up the next time my child is watching TV.)

She liked “Doc McStuffins” for a week or two, but it never really stuck. She still likes the  characters.

If “Sofia the First” is on, she might pay it some attention, but she’ll never really seek it out. Again, she enjoys dressing up as Sofia and getting Sofia books, just never really cares to watch.

She’s never enjoyed “Elena of Avalor.” It could be that Elena is older than the other two and the show caters to grade-schoolers, not pre-schoolers. But the same argument could be made for the Dora sequel (Did you know Dora has a sequel?), which has Dora as a teenager, and my daughter eats that shit up.

These shows follow a standard sitcom formula. I thought an extended story over a half-hour might account for my daughter’s lack of interest. But, again, the same description could be used for Dora. Seriously, what kind of crack is Dora that makes it successful?

Anyway, not really sure why these shows haven’t really distinguished themselves or caught her imagination.

A potential exception in this genre is Vampirina. It follows in the same vein as the others, but features a little vampire girl who moved to America from Transylvania. We’ve only been watching it for about a week, but so far my daughter likes it better than the others. I like it so far. The parents oscillate between being supportive and creating their own problems – again, very sitcommy.

Of course, as a new show, we will quickly run into the “not enough episodes” problem. But at least Disney is putting Vamprina merch in stores. Too bad my daughter didn’t start watching until the week after Christmas. Actual conversation wife and I had in Toys R Us in mid-December: “Oh, hey, should we get her a Vamprina doll? That shows fun.” “Yeah, but she never asks for it. Not even sure she knows who the characters are.”

Famous last words.

But hey, Vampirina’s not a princess, so that’s a fun twist for a Disney show.  The opening lyrics even go “I may be blue with pointy teeth, but I’m not so different underneath… I’m just like you.” Maybe Disney is finally getting past the… Oh, who am I kidding? That’ll be retconned out.

Paw Patrol. Daughter’s obsession with Paw Patrol was deep but brief. We have a dog and two cats, so she might be naturally inclined toward animal shows. Within a couple days of first viewing, she could rattle off all of the dogs in rapid succession. I was still trying to get past the fact that every musical break was right out of the techno nineties. It even has a Dance, Dance Revolution rip-off!

The dogs all have civil service jobs. I’ve also been told have personalities? Marshall, the fire truck dalmatian, is clumsy. Not sure why they went with firefighters being clumsy, but whatever. The recycling dog is surprisingly not a loadie, so maybe they’re trying to break stereotypes. Although the husky’s owner is a ski instructor that’s a total loadie, so maybe they are into stereotypes after all. The organized, calm police dog and the fact that the only female in the original batch was the small, peppy, compassionate one pretty much solidifies it.

The problem with Paw Patrol is it’s a bit too formulaic. Even the writers know that. The new episodes have them running a Sea Patrol or running off to England to go all James Bond.

My daughter still likes all the characters, but she doesn’t ask for the show very often. This is fine with me, because I found the shows a bit boring. Not that boring is bad, mind you. But none of them are ever going to make a mistake, and Ryder, their “handler,” is way too goody two-shoes. Think Mister Rogers without the acerbic wit.

My daughter’s favorite character is Rubble, the bulldog construction worker. Unfortunately, Rubble isn’t allowed on girl’s clothing. I’m not going to go off on weaponized genderification or anything. I realize there are only so many different combinations of the various characters they can put on clothing. Rubble appearing by himself is rare, even on boy’s clothes. And you can get girl’s clothes with Marshall, and occasionally Chase. So it’s not entirely the fault of genderification. That being said, my daughter’s not a big Skye fan, so sometimes our options are limited.

And yes, I could put her in boys’ clothes, but the underwear doesn’t fit her great.

As a subset of Paw Patrol comes Puppy Dog Pals. This is another show that is still in its infancy. At first, I hated it. I thought it was Disney’s half-hearted attempt at stealing some of Paw Patrol’s mojo (ie merchandising power). The dogs had annoying voices and were always doing stupid things that nobody seemed to notice. One of the child voice actors can NOT carry a tune.

I’m turning around on “Puppy Dog Pals” a little. I now realize that they do all of their shenanigans when their owner is otherwise occupied. All of the humans, including their owner, can’t understand them, and even though they are solving great mysteries, they appear to just be doing typical dog stuff. Bob, their owner, is never aware that they’re the ones who fixed the problem he was whining about at the beginning of the episode. It’s kind of funny to watch the end of the episode. It goes back and forth between them excitedly telling him everything they did, then it switches to his vantage point, and the dogs are just yapping away.

A bit of a “Toy Story” vibe that is fun considering every other cartoon features animals and humans interacting with regularity.

But, ooo, that singing…

I think that’s it for the good and mediocre kids’ shows. I think I need a week or so to work up my vitriol for the remaining couple. Come back later.

The Great Red (Muppet) Menace

· May 12, 2016 · Blog Entries, Musings · , , , · No Comments

Back around Christmas time, I remember talking to some family members and friends who had kids around my daughter’s age (between 14-20 months). Lots of questions about what her favorite TV shows were. I tried to fake some answers but in reality, she didn’t watch much. It’s not like we had actively tried to encourage or discourage TV Time, but there were certainly times that the TV was on, and even times we put on a children’s show in an attempt to actually get something done around the house. But she didn’t seem interested and when confronted by other parents, I wondered if she was an anomaly Were we good parents or were we the bad parents?

I mean, the experts say no screen time until they’re two, right?

Hey experts, you want to come offer some free babysitting while I’m getting ready in the morning?

Because my baby’s aversion/disinterest in television came crashing down right around twenty months. Now she regularly wants to take her place among the American public by plopping her butt right in front of the Boob Tube. And she can binge watch like a motherfucker.

Oh hey, kids? If you just found this blog after googling Sesame Street, this might be a good time to move along to another blog. And maybe stop going to the 117th page of Google results.

My daughter’s tastes are not all that refined, however. In fact, there are really only two shows she watches. The first is Bubble Guppies. I like Bubble Guppies. It features six mermaid-type kids that are in school. Or at least they are enrolled in school despite their best attempts at truancy. Each episode starts with two of them seeing something as they dally, unsupervised, on their way to school. Then they get to school and are excited about what they witnessed, and their teacher, Mr. Grouper, immediately delves into a lesson on the topic.

Really, Mr. Grouper? It’s called a lesson plan. You’re just going to scrap what you were going to teach because some kids come in excited about something? If I did that, every day I’d be teaching about teenagers getting “hella crunked over the weekend.”

To say nothing of the Bubble Guppies’ parents. What the hell are you doing letting your kids randomly walk to school through marathons or loading docks or the train station? Just because their teacher indulges their delinquent behavior doesn’t mean you should!

But I digress. The episode then revolves around this theme. They sing songs, they set up a make-believe shop selling items related to the topic, then they have lunch, then go outside (“Line up, everybody, line up, line up…”) and pretend to be that thing. And through it all they ask the viewers to help them solve problems with budding skills in math and literacy.

As I said, I like Bubble Guppies. But my daughter quickly grew tired of it, and now always tries to push me toward her current addiction. She asks, and I say, “Bubble?” “No Bubble, Daddy.”

Except sometimes she manipulates me. After I say I don’t want to watch the other show, she says “Yes, Bubble.” And I say, “Yay, Bubble,” then I go turn on the TV, and repeat “Bubble?” Then, with the TV on and me already thumbing through the DVR, she magically changes her mind. “No Bubble….”

“Elmo!”

Shit.

“Elmo! Elmo! Elmo!”

I don’t even know how she learned who Elmo was, but she was saying his name before she had watched an episode of Sesame Street. I’m sure it’s just like every other addiction – peer pressure from those other kids at school.

I originally pushed for Sesame Street. Before we discovered Bubble Guppies, Sesame Street was one of the shows we tried to occupy her with back when she wouldn’t watch. I was keen to avoid the likes of Caillou and Barney and the other dregs of children’s television.

I grew up on Sesame Street.

But this ain’t her father’s Sesame Street.

“Can you tell me what they’ve done, what they’ve done to Sesame Street?”

And before I get all “get off my front lawn” about it, I’m not saying they should have always kept things the same. I’m not opposed to change for change’s sake. It wouldn’t really make sense for all of the characters to be wearing disco pants like they were when I was watching the show in the 1970s. And for obvious reasons, Jim Hensen can’t voice a lot of the Muppets that he used to voice.

I like that they encourage kids to get up and move around more than they used to.

And I know that Snuffleupagus can’t be an imaginary friend anymore because we don’t want kids to keep quiet about abuse. I might question how much it’s made a difference. I’d be interested to see if there was an uptick in child abuse reports once Snuffleupagus was revealed to be real. But if that statistic was even one, then it’s worth it.

And truthfully, some of the problems are getting a little better since HBO took over. HBO’s increased the production value immensely. Once you can get past the all the full frontal nudity. (I’ll take “The Obvious Joke” for two hundred, Alex.)

But there are some things about Sesame Street  that still bug me:

  1. Character Voices.

Grover is now voiced by the same person that does Miss Piggy. Grover sounds exactly like Miss Piggy. And Big Bird sounds like Big Dork.

  1. Muppet Lower Torsos.

I assume this is easier with CGI, but just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. It just looks awkward. Check out the closing credits from last year or this year. Awkward. And man, in the latter, Grover needs to do some squats or something. Not sure how he manages to lug that potbelly around on those spindly legs.

  1. Abby.

If you’re as old as me, you might have noticed some new Muppets in those clips. Of course, I pre-date Elmo, but you would have had to be deaf and dead to not know of him. One in particular, the pink one with pigtails and a wand, is Abby. Abby Cadaby, to be exact. She is a magician. Abra Cadabra – Abby Cadaby, get it?

Abby is probably the second-most featured character on Sesame Street these days. She hasn’t infiltrated out amongst the general population as much as Elmo has yet, but among Sesame Street groupies, she’s almost as ubiquitous.

Abby Cadaby, being a magician, actually casts spells and makes things magically appear. Really, Sesame Street? Magic? What a lazy shortcut to storytelling. I mean, stick to the giant talking birds and cookie-obsessed monsters and green dudes that live in trash cans. Why do you need to add something fake, like magic?

  1. Episode structure.

I seem to remember that the interactions between humans and Muppets on Sesame Street (ie the entire point of the show) were spread out over the course of the entire episode, interspersed with various vignettes. A typical episode might go: Introduce Problem/Theme, Video of animals, Continue storyline, Aliens creating compound word, Preview resolution on “The Street,” Different Muppet video, then back to the Street for resolution and lessons learned.

Today’s episodes frontload all of the plot/lesson/Street scenes so they are self-contained, and completely over by the time we hit the ten minute mark. Then it’s on to the vignettes, maybe with Murray and his Little Lamb at a school or Cookie Monster exercising self-control. I will address the last ten minutes in #5 below.

I assume this re-organization is partly because episodes are now only a half-hour instead of an hour. Damn you, Mitt Romney! Oh wait, he lost? But you know what happens. Republicans are elected and they cut funding, then Democrats are elected and they restore the funding but also increase the ability of Muppet Local 2658 to negotiate exorbitant pensions that shoestring the show’s budget.

Or maybe it’s because these whippersnappers can’t pay attention to a storyline once it breaks away. We’re no longer training the TV watchers of tomorrow to remember the plot through a commercial break. Boy, back in my day, we had to watch commercials, uphill both ways, in the snow. You little rats have DVR’s now.

Then again, Bubble Guppies can break up the theme throughout an episode.

“Bubble? Bubble?”

“No, Daddy, no….”

  1. Elmo!

As I mentioned, I was familiar with Elmo going into this rediscovery process. I used to use Tickle Me Elmo as an example of demand and shortages in economics class, up until that particular zeitgeist craze started pre-dating my students. I’ll let that sink in with some of my older readers – current high school seniors were born in 1998.

So yeah, I was aware Elmo existed. What I wasn’t aware of was that Sesame Street had pretty much become the Elmo show. Take Sheldon from Big Bang Theory, multiply it by Cartman in South Park, and raise it to the power of Barney in How I Met Your Mother and you will begin to approach the degree to which the Giant Red Menace has spread his socialist scourge across Sesame Street. And his pinko girlfriend, Abby, too.

I would guess one of those two is on screen about seventy percent of the time. And if you only count the times that a Muppet is on screen, that would rise to over ninety percent. I’m trying to think of a time that any other Muppet shows up without Elmo lurking on the margins like a Mafioso Union Boss. The only time is when Murray and his Little Lamb go to school, and that’s only in the recent HBO shows. By comparison, Big Bird doesn’t even show up in half of the episodes, and Oscar the Grouch might as well be considered a guest star these days.

Oh, and that “last ten minutes of the show” I referenced earlier? That’s “Elmo’s World,” a completely separate entity. No other cast members, puppet or human, are allowed entry into Elmo’s World. Not even Abby. It’s Elmo, his pet goldfish, and a couple of humans named Mr. Noodle. There are two Mr. Noodles and they are both called Mr. Noodle, unless they’re both on the screen at the same time, in which case they are Mr. Noodle and Other Mr. Noodle. Just like a tyrant to not let the dudes each have their own name. But Mr. Noodle(s) are contained in the Sweatshop that is Elmo’s World, and are not allowed to venture out into Sesame Street proper. Elmo needs to keep his empires separate, like when Walter White picked up that second cellphone.

And really, how is Elmo a good role model? He talks about himself in the third person constantly. “Elmo has a question.” “Dance with Elmo.” “Elmo’s gonna fuck you up and Elmo-shit on your Elmo-fucked corpse.”

That last one might be a misquote.

I know no Muppet is perfect. Each has his or her own little foibles. Oscar represents sloth, the Count has certain OCD tendencies, and Big Bird suffers from the deadly sin of dorkiness. Cookie Monster, in addition to some slightly gluttonous persuasions, also uses the word “me” in place of “I.” But a little subject/direct object pronoun confusion is fine next to the megalomaniacal tyrant that is Elmo.

In fact, I expect Elmo to endorse Donald Trump any day now. It’s too bad he’s only been around since the early 1990s, he’s too young to be Donald’s VP pick. They’d make a natural pairing, and Elmo might be able to bring Republicans back to the fold, reminding them of the third-person self-references of the Bob Dole days.

And with Elmo on the campaign trail, maybe I’d finally win the mental tug-of-war with my twenty-three month old daughter.

But until then, it’s another steady dose of…

“Bubble? Bubble?”

“No, Daddy, no… Elmo!”

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