execrable children's programming pox

"my kid is almost 13 now and he likes icarly.

― hhhhhh Bill I juste like ertronic thinges (NZA), Thursday, January 26, 2012 5:57 PM (8 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink"

hell, I like iCarly

My fav shows beats watches are fairly oddparents, danny phantom and spiderman and his amazing friends (the series with firestar and iceman). Henry is strictly yo gabba. Before gabba he just wasn't interested in tv. what a weirdo.

my toddler's super into Twisted Whiskers. It's a whole TV series designed, I guess, to promote a line of greeting cards from American Greetings? Well, here"

)

Twisted Whiskers is a childrens series developed in 2010 for entertainment and American Greeting has used some information for greeting cardsTwisted Whiskers is a design for greeting cards developed and licensed by American Greetings and created by Terrill Bohlar since 2001. It includes digitally modified photos of animals, creating a caricature. The series includes greeting cards, gift items, wrapping paper, notepads and holiday items. Animated e-cards and instant messenger products have been produced as well. In 2011, American Greetings relaunched the line with the release of greeting cards featuring lenticular designs, showing a pet turning into a trademark character of the Twisted Whiskers line.

Oh, here's one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4IGomyth9U&feature=c4-overview&list=UUWTogLTWpjItvnLSKJJUtLA

There's a fuckton of it on Netflix.

Beatrice loves twisted whiskers too. I was amazed they made a series based off of greeting cards. I mean they must be selling a shit ton of those cards to make a tv show cost prohibitive.

We dont watch "TV" much anymore. Its all Netflix. Henry is mad into Oscars Oasis and Pingu. To us these are interesting choices as they have no real dialogue and Henry has delayed speech development. The weird thing about that being he can understand everything he hears but cant say much back too clearly.

fuckton shit ton. what charming parents we are.

Been having total bummer-thoughts about animal cartoons with mixed-species casts and poorly-matched life expectancies. Take Wonder Pets for example. You have a guinea pig (life expectancy 4-5 years), a duck (life expectancy 10-20 years*), and a turtle (life expectancy decades). Realize this is not the programs fault and is really more indicative of my own mental state. Not exclusive to the Wonder Pets, obvs. Could easily transpose to Looney Tunes or whatever. Had to share this with someone though and I'm just adding to my list of things I'm sure as hell not gonna bring up in front of the kids.

*Presuming with the name Ming Ming that she is a Mandarin Duck.

Beatrice loves twisted whiskers too. I was amazed they made a series based off of greeting cards. I mean they must be selling a shit ton of those cards to make a tv show cost prohibitive.

― educate yourself to this reality (sunny successor), Thursday, June 20, 2013 10:03 AM (three years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Just learned recently that American Greetings was also responsible for Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, and (my favorite when I was 4) The Get Along Gang.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Get-Along_Gang_cartoon_group.jpg

Anyway, lately my youngest has been into H20: Mermaid Adventures on Netflix, a cartoon reboot of an Australian live-action show. It's corny as hell but I'm actually enjoying it and try to subtly hint for it instead of another round of Octonauts or whatever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNa_fMQO8R4

i would take the shittiest cheapest narrative cartoon over the youtube videos my kids now watch of people just opening and describing toys

I want to find the guy who came up with this series, lock him up in a room somewhere....

http://i.imgur.com/FnrbFzU.png

hate shimmer & shine, littlest pet shop, the new strawberry shortcake, shopkins, mlp: equestria girls, paw patrol, lalaloopsy, lalaloopsy, i really cannot state enough how much i hate lalaloopsy, bubble guppies, mickey's clubhouse

all of these shows my children love

lazy town is super creepy. luckily my kids don't like it.

We Bare Bears, on the other hand, see also Adventure Time, and to a lesser extent Regular Show, I happily watch them without the kids there.

steven universe and adventure time are both a++ shows that my kids are not half as interested in as i am

i would take the shittiest cheapest narrative cartoon over the youtube videos my kids now watch of people just opening and describing toys

omfg these are THE WORST

there's one of a dude ordering his wife to play with a Thomas toy set a certain way that my kids were playing on repeat for a while that is unberable and had me on the verge of going full Luddite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNaTZV8qS1I

^^^ this OTOH made me laugh really, really loudly

i can't believe how much Thomas i've watched. i think that phase is maybe over. i think we've talked about this before DJP but i feel like the creepy dictatorship of Sodor seems to indicate to me a nazi victory on the mainland and there's sort of "Train in the High Castle" shit that's going on. basing this entirely on my theory of topham hatt being a former Gestapo with sadistic methods, cf walling up Henry as punishment and what not, the constant terror the trains live in of being turned into scrap, etc.

I am 100% down with a "Life Is Beautiful And Really Useful" reading of Thomas and Friends

Bing is sweet, but the impression it gives is of some far-future post-human utopia where genetically engineered "human" animal children are cared for by AIs in the bodies of toys

Bernard, about an accident-prone and bad-tempered polar bear, is quite good, but occasionally horrifyingly sadistic

The Furchester Hotel Christmas special guest-stars the Count and Big Bird 👍

My daughter now loves a show called "Dinosaur Train." It purports to be "Jim Henson's Dinosaur Train," and purporting to be the creation of a dead man should be the first clue that a show is insufferable. The second is that it's called "Dinosaur Train," which feels like the by-committee kids programming equivalent of "Abe and the Babe" from The Big Picture. As advertised, it consists of dinosaurs riding around on a train for 30 minutes. At least I think, because I never can stand to pay attention for an entire episode.

Time tunnel approaching!

our kid loves dinosaurs and had a Dinosaur Train phase. It seemed inoffensively ok to me but it kinda sank into the muddle of all the other shows he watched that didn't leave an impression. Also any shows about lovable dinos are to me weighed down with an impending sense of doom.

p.s. I was annoyed that when trying unsuccessfully to fulfill his wish to dress up as a pterosaur for Halloween, the only mask I could find for a kid on Amazon was a goddamned Dinosaur Train one and I refused to get it.

I've never paid attention to an entire Dinosaur Train episode either, but my daughter went through a pretty big phase with it. I just remember the 4-episode (?) where they went through the Dinosaur ABCs and they'd sing a version of this song every 5 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1O_pZClyrc

My son is 2 now, and we're just letting him watch a little tv. I have no idea what shows are supposed to be good for toddlers (outside of Daniel Tiger.) Maybe this doesn't belong in this thread, but we watched the adaptation of The Snowy Day on Amazon Instant and while it was admirably multi-cultural, it totally messed up what was great about the book. But at least now my son looks at me every few minutes and says, "It's a snowy day."

Dinosaur Train is wholly inoffensive IMO

what do the trains run on

tracks

I've only had to watch one episode of that Dinosaur Train show and it was the one where they met an Elvis dinosaur...? Show makes zero sense and has marginal educational value but idk I've seen worse. Octonauts still the platonic ideal of inoffensive toddler TV shows imo.

That Dinosaur Train song seems hugely inferior to the songs Jim Henson used to write. Henson wrote clever, easily singable songs, which this one ain't. It has no tune, and the lyrics are just a list of names, so they opted for a speedy tempo and big beats to create a sense of fun, but the tempo garbles the dinosaur names, so unless you know them all beforehand, you learn nothing.

"Dinosaur Train" is such a shamelessly-pandering name for a kids show. Why not just call it "Dinosaur Ice Cream Peekaboo Elmo Train?"

been watching Sesame Street with my 2 year old lately, is it just me or is this basically the Elmo show now? weren't there other muppets at one point?

Have any of you seen the Furchester Hotel? Fair enough if I'm the lone UK voice and if it's only available on CBeebies, but imo it has a lot of good old-skool Henson about it, plus the bonus of a Fawlty Towersesque setting.

Sesame Street is 100% The Elmo Show

I guess I shouldn't even mention it in this thread, Sesame Street is good, IMO

some of the stuff on BabyTV though, sheesh. their entire lineup seems to be made on a shoestring budget and the creepiness factor of Tek the Tractor and the Tellitubby-imitating rats is off the charts

omfg Tek the Tractor is pure nightmare fuel

by contrast, I find the sentient crayons weirdly charming

I've had the Harry the Bunny theme song stuck in my head for months now

Octonauts and Wild Kratts are the big ones for us these days.

Furchester Hotel is pretty great. I dubbed off a whole lot of episodes onto audio CD and Ella listens to them most nights when going to sleep.

Go Jettas also very popular round these parts.

That is such a great idea about the audio burning!

octonauts has some weird dynamics I'm not quite sure about

- captain barnacles is clearly not an especially experienced seaman nor is he very well versed in science; I suspect he is a sort of Richard Branson / James Cameron type who came into a very large fortune by some means or another and has decided to follow his passion, with the help of some hangers-on that don't realize (or do, and don't care) how incredibly dangerous he is

- rather disappointing that the kiwi dog got re-dubbed for the american edition. by which I mean profoundly upsetting, every time she talks it feels like the curse word cut-outs in a radio edit, where you're reminded they intentionally ruined something on purpose for the lamest of reasons

- kwazii has no place at sea - he's clearly deranged, a danger to himself and others, the only thing I can figure is that he's barnacles old pal from school who just won't ever go away; he and kwazii have a really problematic co-codependency thing going on and I have to imagine that many eligible and attractive partners approached the wealthy "captain" over the years only to realize that his addled buddy with the questionable hygiene was never going to settle for anything less than 95% of barnacles' time and attention

- professor inkling is a total fraud, as is obvious to every other professional on the ship, but thanks to the credulousness of barnacles, scientific credentialism and the utter failure of meritocracy in the 3d cartoon animal world as well as ours, his paperwork is sufficient to ensure his continued employment on the octopod despite being only slightly less useless than kwazii

- the other crew members are remarkably talented and incredibly chipper, because not being both of those things is how you know you won't last long on the octopod with the aforementioned three idiots running the show. They all seem like sharp, hard working graduates at the top of their respective classes, but none of them went to "name" schools and of course they would jump at the chance to earn what is probably an inflated salary on a "research" expedition which doesn't have to rely on finicky government funding and there's no pressure to publish original work or whatever. Looking at the penguin and the otter in particular I'm guessing they're also carrying a massive amount of student loan debt.

- the fact that the below-decks junior crew are all "vegimals" seems to indicate a pervasive racism / caste system persists in octonaut world, so once again, not that different from real life

I have similar thoughts re Bing: it seems to show a future post-human utopia with evolved-into-anthropomorphic-form animals are cared for by syntehtic AI intelligences in the form of friendly toys

lol tom booming post

That is everything I have wanted to say but could not put into words.

the peppa pig episode where they go on holiday is fucking hilarious

"This is Captain Emergency speaking"

every time Octonauts ends up being the day's viewing pick i think of this:

kwazii has no place at sea - he's clearly deranged, a danger to himself and others

haha well it's fucking true

The first words my son says to me every morning are "I wanna watch Paw Patrol" in a really whiny voice. Cannot wait for this phase to be over.

I love how this thread was started by someone with no kids who just wanted to complain about these shows that are only ever watched by kids or adults with kids

thanks but i posted here on the basis that my idea is execrable!

ah right! there's also the kids should see this which is just where i dump youtubes my kids get into.

everyone is always either angry or crying, and there's never a good lesson anywhere. I get overwhelmingly bad vibes from it

the makers of Wolfoo seem to feel obliged to at least pretend it's good for kids (article is sponsored by SCONNECT, a "Vietnam-based entertainment company" which produces Wolfoo:

At Wolfoo, each episode is more than just entertainment. All the videos impart positive social life lessons and focus on the development of 12 personality traits and skills for children: courage, gratitude, compassion, empathy, humility, integrity, persistence, creativity, curiosity, self-control, teamwork and communication.

https://www.list.co.uk/article/124851-wolfoo-is-dominating-youtube-for-kids/

I think I've figured out what bothers me so much about Wolfoo: it's utterly soulless. Nearly all kids' programming has *some* level of emotional involvement in its characters - it's why the good shows, like Bluey, work so well for the parents (because the emotions and attitudes are so familiar), but even the bad ones have this to some degree. In Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, if a character is frustrated or excited, I can at least understand why - there's a plot, or the dialogue is delivered a certain way. In Wolfoo there are plots, I guess, but the characters themselves have no uhh...emotional continuity. The voice actors deliver their lines as though they have no idea what the plot is. I mean I surmised that the actors probably don't speak English, but they don't even seem to understand a single thing about what the episodes is about. It's as though they just have all their lines written down on a sheet of paper and given to them to record in one take. So you have things like the Mom laughing when her kids get hurt, or characters getting mad at each other and then becoming best friends 5 seconds later. The characters don't register as anything. Like, I probably would not enjoy watching Donald Duck get stabbed to death, but when bad things happen to the Wolfoo characters it's like watching someone drop a GI Joe down the stairs. I get this strange cognitive dissonance watching it. Like it's slowly eating away at your soul.

It's as though they just have all their lines written down on a sheet of paper and given to them to record in one take.

i guarantee you this is what happens

Bing you little shit.

it astonishes me that on netflix alone there are approximately 800 pre school team based cheap cgi shows worse than paw patrol. rainbow rangers this means you.

But low-budget children's media has always been cheap and souless.

Fingerbobs begs to differ!

My toddler is 2. My overton window for what is and isn't crap keeps expanding. Lately she's been into videos where adults play with toys of her favourite characters (Night Garden, Frozen, Peppa, etc) -- in fact she'd rather watch the toy videos than the original cartoons. But! They also seem kinda harmless and maybe even encourage imaginative play, even though I find them infuriatingly dull. I guess the Bluey marathons might have to wait to next year.

Daughter just turned two and a half. Her media diet is probably 80% Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, which, while it basically never winks to adults to offer them something for themselves, is about as unobjectionable as can be. However, there is a battle for her soul going on in the remaining 20%. This morning I gave in and let her watch Peppa Pig -- I know it could be a lot worse but all I can say is WHY WHY WHY do they have to pepper every few seconds of the show with those snorts? It's like nails on a chalkboard to me. Was there some market research or some shit that said kids would like that?! Hard for me to imagine...

We watched Daniel Tigers neighbourhood yesterday, after you mentioned it here – I never would’ve noticed it amongst the thousands of other identikit shows on Netflix otherwise. I wouldn’t say it’s a great show – but I’m glad she’s watching it instead of Peppa Pig toy videos on YouTube now.

I like the snorts! It makes it easier to do impressions. Don’t mind it as much as Morty’s repulsive belches which render that show unwatchable to me

Haha good connection - Rick and Morty definitely took the mantle from Peppa Pig on the curious choice to intersperse bodily noises with dialogue as part of your core aural aesthetic.

Daniel Tiger is not very high on the artistry/creativity scale but the characters all model kindness and are never annoying (ok, the repetitive songs can get annoying). More than a few of the lessons have been great tools in teaching things in our home from emotion regulation to trying new foods to toileting.

“Grownups come back” is a banger.

You’re telling me, i sing it as a bedtime song most nights (by request ofc)

I do like the piano flourish before the final verse.

My kids prefer the extended dance remix

Oh man Daniel Tiger was like a third parent for my kid. Def not meant for adults, but surprisingly effected. Grownups come back for sure. And one about going to the bathroom was big for us.

I still have those songs in my head, "You've got to try new foods cause they might taste good!"

Goo-oo-oo-ood!