execrable children's programming pox

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

"I saw an episode of Doodlebops" hey bud you had literally no reason to resign from the Never Heard Of Doodlebops Club

Paw Patrol is the fucking worst, luckily my son's phase only lasted about 6 months. He's now heavily into Horrible Histories, which really is brilliant.

Seems pretty shitty of Ryder to summon all the pups to the lookout when he already knows which ones he wants.

Not as shitty as his cruel way of forcing them to use expensive military equipment to eg climb trees rather than their l, I dunno, claws. He is crippling their natural skills

Watched a bunch of episodes of Dinotrux with my daughter this afternoon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGiYFOZ-iqs

Holy shit this threadbump led me to read Tom's Octonauts post and yeah. Vegimals are a clear analogue to Potterverse house-elves.

I hate that the boys go adventuring and the girls are in support roles. Hypergendering is already a problem (why are Minions and Penguins of Madagascar all male, don't get me started on Smurfs).

Dinotrux is the same thing as Dinosaur Train and Dino Dan - it's like brainstorming gone stupid: "Hey gang, let's just spitball here: what do kids like?" "Dinosaurs!" "Trucks!" "Trains!" "Great! combine any two of those things and you have a show."

OTOH "Nella the Princess Knight" is trying a bit too hard to check all the boxes, and fails in the other direction. Is a puzzlement.

Have read some new Transformers comics recently, and the writer has made a whole bunch the ostensibly male characters overtly gay, created a bunch of female characters, and also introduced characters who are regendering themselves from male to female, all of which seems a step in the right direction that will no doubt be greeted with howls of rage

transitioning transgender transformers huh

there's more than meets the eye!

Robots in dese guys.

I feel like I'd trade a 3-day marathon of the trolls movie on loop or any of the above shows, no matter how execrable, for never having to watch or overhear a Zach King vine or a Lonnie Dos youtube again for the rest of my life.

"Hey! Heard you preferred the trolls!"

*suddenly turns into troll*

"You better with this? Looks like I'm a troll now!"

MY SON: How does he do it?

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!