Kid’s Review

There’s a good long list of things I should be up to right now, especially reading for Egypt, but I can’t seem to bring myself to do it. Instead, I’ve been spending far too much time sitting in front of a tv watching some of the worst movies and tv shows. I mean this afternoon I devoted two hours to The Beach a pretty awful movie with Tilda Swilton and Leonardo Dicaprio in it. Normally I never do this, ask former roommates and they’ll pretty much confirm.  It’s beginning to feel a little like a dirty little habit. There’s little satisfaction that comes from any of my tv watching, especially since it comes from a place of pure boredom.

Eh – we all have off weeks. But I do have to say I’ve gotten some new observations on kid’s  tv lately. My cousin John is a huge devotee to Noggin and PBS Kids. I’ve kind of gotten a bit engrossed in it too. Some of the stuff for the little ones is so strange!

A lot of this is about perspective though. Kids really don’t question their tv shows. I know I didn’t. One of my favorite shows was Pete and Pete on Nick as a kid (back when the channel had a soul), and still probably is a favorite. I look at it now and I have no clue why the two sons in the family were given the same name. To my knowledge the show never explains it. Also, what kind of tattoo artist gives an eight year old a tattoo? How did he get it, and why aren’t the parents in jail for that type of thing? But as a kid I just accepted all of this.

Anyway, watching kids shows is rather trippy. Have you ever noticed that in Dora the Explorer or in Go Diego Go they ask the audience questions, and just stand silently waiting for an answer. The characters literally just stand there blinking at you after they ask a question. After a few seconds of this they’ll just go on pretending like you were involved in a conversation. To me the dead air is just awkward, especially when John doesn’t yell some type of answer. This is probably suppose to be stimulating to the young minds of America, but I have no clue what just happened.

Then there’s this one show called Oswald. It’s about an octopus with a hotdog for a pet. The Octopus speaks, wears a hat, and plays the piano, but the pet is treated like a dog, but travels everywhere with them. He’s friends with a snowman that is alive during the summer, and a really trippy looking flower, they can talk too. In the episode I saw he had a pet fish, who didn’t talk, but grew twice its size every single day.  I got into a fight with John when I mentioned that it might not be a regular fish, like it could be a whale that looked like a gold fish. Eventually they decided to move him to the local aquarium. I was very confused why this fish, which was nearly the size of the main character Oswald, would be made to live in the aquarium, while the giant octopus walked around freely wearing a hat and could talk. I guess the point is to not try to comprehend any of this, but just leave it to your kid to watch.

Finally I do have to say that my favorite kid’s show right now is Yo Gabba Gabba. Actually, John really doesn’t like it all that much, but I’ll be watching it in my spare time. Which I’m beginning to think isn’t that strange for college students, as they sell the dolls/action figures at Urban Outfitters. It’s very low level for the youngsters – no one is doing algebra here- but focuses more on life lessons, like not running with sissors and eating your veggies. The show is really bright, and fun, with good music. I personally enjoy dancing, which they strongly encourage.

In fact Biz Markie has  regular segment and the Shins, the Mates of State, the Ting Tings and Shiny Toy Guns have preformed. Also Jack Black got a whole episode on the show. I really love the show, perhaps because it really embraces its trippiness, or maybe I just like the music.

On a final note, I went to go see Monsters vs. Aliens today with John (we hang a lot). It was pretty good, it reminded me of Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks, but for kids.  The Monsters are the good guys by the way, and the Aliens are just downright bad. There’s was a ton of references to old monster movies and the old sci fi movies which was funny. It certainly wasn’t the best kids movie I’ve seen in a while, but it was  a good way to spend the afternoon.

The annoying part was that it was in 3D. Originally I was psyched at this feature, however  in practice  3D  sucks. My glasses got greasy from popcorn/John’s hands, and were nearly impossible to clean, so it was hard for me to watch the movie out of them. John’s glasses didn’t fit on his head, which sucked because this was a kids movie. They stuck out at the end a good 3 inches, so every time he sat back they just fell down, so he just took them off. To watch the movie you really need the glasses on because everything is blurry and out of focus. Poor John just ended up watching a blurry movie, but he still enjoyed himself (5 year olds don’t complain about these things, they just don’t want to be forced to eat dinner) Anyway, I must give a hand to whoever thought of not making children’s size 3D glasses. Brilliant move!

Anyway, I’ll be glad to get back to a land of adult things and less tv. This is getting addictive.