Lessons from kids TV shows

[Goatilocks]

Watching a glut of kids DVDs and TV with my near 5-year old, I have learned that:

No matter how may train crashes there are or the devastation caused, 'luckily no one was hurt'.

Incompetent, bumbling postmen are unsackable, despite losing/finding/breaking/fixing your daily mail and involving the entire village.

Thanks to a certain little explorer girl, my son knows more Spanish than he does English, and only last week kept jumping in front of an automatic door shouting 'Abrir!'

If you were a stoner, 'Waybuloo' would be awesome ...

[The Doctor Alt 8]

Well... they are made with a different priority than reality...

Explain what value this has ....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB2VVILeQck&feature=PlayList&p=0D0129ED190C2136&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=2

[Goatilocks]

Well... they are made with a different priority than reality...

Explain what value this has ....

Bet you get asked to babysit *a lot*.

[Jared Katooie]

TMNT is da bomb!

[The Doctor Alt 8]

Well... they are made with a different priority than reality...

Explain what value this has ....

Bet you get asked to babysit *a lot*.

Nobody would dare!

I am less maternal than a dalek....

[Goatilocks]

Nobody would dare!

I am less maternal than a dalek....

[TordelBack]

If you were a stoner, 'Waybuloo' would be awesome ...

I haven't been near a funny ciggie for many a moon, and I think it's awesome.  Both my sprogs are still small enough that we can pick them up and fly them about like the Piplings at the appropriate part of the show.  Ace stuff.

The new Postman Pat 'Special Delivery Service' stuff is terrible - rather than his old schtick of helpfully solving minor problems for customers while on his rounds, the plot now literally revolves around him fecking up each and every delivery so that they all have to help him.  It's basically become The Transporter for kids.  Nice animation though.

I did find the 'Painting with Booty' video to be both misleading and disappointing.

[Dandontdare]

Incompetent, bumbling postmen are unsackable, despite losing/finding/breaking/fixing your daily mail and involving the entire village.

The new Postman Pat 'Special Delivery Service' stuff is terrible - rather than his old schtick of helpfully solving minor problems for customers while on his rounds, the plot now literally revolves around him fecking up each and every delivery so that they all have to help him.

Sounds like subtle anti-union propaganda disguised as kids TV - a portrayal of an incompetent yet unsackable public sector worker causing inconvenience and hardship to society. Just you wait - Privatised Delivery Person Pat will be in production as we speak; in which Pat tries to hang onto his short-term contract delivering a variety of market-based information services, but refuses to rescue cats from trees until the owner sets up a direct debit.


And whilst I've not seen 'Waybuloo', I wondered if someone had spiked my drink when I caught an episode of 'In the Night Garden' - WTF?

[TordelBack]

In The Night Garden is distilled genius of the most crafty and polished kind.  Having watched one sprog fall in love with it, focus on each character/group of characters in turn,  and then grow out of it, I'm now watching my 6-month old become transfixed by the character all over again.  I think the opening sequence is superb, the stars opening into flowers is actually very beautiful and quite affecting.  

I used to object to the complete lack of challenges or adversity for the characters to overcome, but having watched a kid grow out of it hungry for more involving narratives I now think this is a good thing.  

SACCHARINE ANECDOTE:  I take my wee boy walking with me in the hills of a weekend, and in one of the forests we go to there's a rather fine megalithic tomb hidden in the trees (Kilmashogue Wedge Tomb, for the locals here).  It bears a striking resemblance to cuddly stone-polisher Makka Pakka's underground house in ITNG, so we'd often stop there for a snack and a climb and we'd make believe that that's where we were.  Now he's nearly four, and I've dragged him to numerous sites and monuments, on our most recent visit I decided to talk to him about what it really was.  "You know this isn't really Makka Pakka's house?", I said.  "It's actually a tomb built by the first people in Ireland who used metal axes and daggers, four thousand years ago.  When people died back then, their friends would put them in this stone tomb, along with weapons and clay pots and jewellery, to show how important they were and so they'd be remembered for years and years".  

He thought about this for a moment, furrowed brow and all, and then asked:  "Is Makka Pakka dead?".  

[Goatilocks]

Wonderful!

[The Doctor Alt 8]

SACCHARINE ANECDOTE:  I take my wee boy walking with me in the hills of a weekend, and in one of the forests we go to there's a rather fine megalithic tomb hidden in the trees (Kilmashogue Wedge Tomb, for the locals here).  It bears a striking resemblance to cuddly stone-polisher Makka Pakka's underground house in ITNG, so we'd often stop there for a snack and a climb and we'd make believe that that's where we were.  Now he's nearly four, and I've dragged him to numerous sites and monuments, on our most recent visit I decided to talk to him about what it really was.  "You know this isn't really Makka Pakka's house?", I said.  "It's actually a tomb built by the first people in Ireland who used metal axes and daggers, four thousand years ago.  When people died back then, their friends would put them in this stone tomb, along with weapons and clay pots and jewellery, to show how important they were and so they'd be remembered for years and years".  

He thought about this for a moment, furrowed brow and all, and then asked:  "Is Makka Pakka dead?".  

Oh pleasetell us you said "Yes... he died a heroic death, trying to free his fellow mutant kind..."

[TordelBack]

Oh pleasetell us you said "Yes... he died a heroic death, trying to free his fellow mutant kind..."

See Doc, you'd make a much better parent than me!   

[worldshown]

I did find the 'Painting with Booty' video to be both misleading and disappointing.

Not half as misleading and disappointing as "Pancake with Poop" in the related videos section.

[The Doctor Alt 8]

What have I started? 

[pauljholden]

Rob Williams had a couple of solid theories on "In the Night Garden" - Pontipines as Catholic Church/Presbyterian analogues and HaaHoos as Kirby Gods - or great ancient old ones.

-pj