Why beat around the bush here; my kids watch TV. They also play computer. It's hard to tell them they can't be at the computer or watch TV when I'm at the computer and hubs is watching TV, so, really, we just don't want to be hypocrites. This is good parenting, what we're doing; we're teaching them to be true to themselves and always be honest about who you are. Okay, I'm glad we cleared that up straightaway.
I don't watch much TV, I find it mostly annoying (even Lost, you ask? ESPECIALLY Lost, I say!) so I'm usually at the computer while the kids are watching whateverthehell it is they watch, but I'm almost always in the same room. The only thing I insist on is that they watch this crap on a channel that doesn't have commercials. I'm not sure why I've chosen to make a grand parental gesture in the area of commercialism, probably because the commercials are even more annoying than the shows, so they watch their stories on the channels that only show commercials for themselves, like Nick Jr. or Sprout or PBS kids. See? It's better! As a result of all this, I have managed to form an (entirely unbiased, I assure you) opinion about their programming.
Pure evil
They have very annoying songs.
Yeah, that's kind of a cliché reason, especially for my first one, I get that. I think we can all agree that if the show is stupid it's going to have a stupid song involved somehow. The problem with kid show songs, though, is that since they're continually playing in the background, they seep into your subconscious without you actually realizing it; I mean, you're not even listening to it, so how can you learn it? Well, that's the beauty of the thing, I suppose, because later the next day you'll find yourself humming
something, but you can't quite place it, and then if you play it out in your head, you'll realize that this whole time you've been singing
"I'm just a kid who's four and each day I grow some more, I like exploring I'm Caillou." And in a moment of pure terror you ask yourself, "holy shit, did I just say that out loud? Did anybody hear me? Are people looking at me? OH MY GOD MAKE IT STOP." But you can't make it stop. Nothing can make it stop. Even the purest form of Lady Gaga's Bad Romance blasted at full volume cannot remove this worm from your ear. Face it: you're screwed.
They encourage your children to yell at the TV as loudly as possible
Douchey cartoon character: If you want to help the baby Pterodactyl find his prehistoric lair, say "guarida" ! "Guarida" is Spanish for "lair!"
Kid: ¡GUARIDA!
DCC: I can't HEAR YOU.
Kid:
¡GUARIDA!
Really? I mean, why is this necessary? I can understand if this were some live performance and the dude on the stage wanted to get the audience to interact and get into it with him, but it's a goddamn TV show! There IS no interacting with fictional, animated characters, and you know that my kid, being only 4 years old, isn't quite in tune enough to get this, so if you give him an opportunity to yell at the top of his lungs,
he's going to fucking take it. Don't you know WHY they can't hear you, darling child of mine? Have you really not thought this through? Is the purpose of this simply to annoy parents? Is it to alarm the neighbors? "Hey, that kid is yelling in Spanish again. I don't speak Spanish, do you think he's crying for help? Are his parents abusing him? I mean, why else would he be yelling?"
To keep this bird from shitting on that moose's head YELL AS LOUDLY AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN
Repetition
If you watch enough of the same channel, you'll notice that each show has only ever made about 8 unique shows but that doesn't stop the channel from playing the same episodes again and again and again. Kids are okay with this, for some reason, and are thrilled to watch for the 42nd time that one episode where Olivia wants to be a ballerina but can't quite get her footing down, and they root for that spunky underdog pig-girl-thing with the same gusto they had that first time around. Meanwhile, I'm sitting there thinking, "maybe she should consider something easier, like girl-on-girl mud wrestling. Sure, it's messier, but it would make all that falling not only okay, but HOT."
See how much more interesting that is?
Inane, preachy plotlines
Sharing is good! Always be nice to your friends! Clean up after yourself! And, my personal favorite, how do you know you don't like something until you've tried it? Is there some sort of TV rule that if your audience is a child you need to be teaching them a life lesson? Do they think that this would somehow change these shows from being a bunch of dumb characters with squeaky voices running around defying gravity somehow to important learning tools? Now that I think about it, why parent at all when we have DJ Lance around to tell our kids that they shouldn't litter? I'll just leave it all to these guys, because I'm sure these are lessons my kids will carry with them throughout their lives. I can't wait to see them years from now, in college, high as fucking kites and saying "dude, remember what Wubbzy says: if you got a big problem and you don't know what to do, just ask for a little help, man." If only I could actually be there for that.
Don't take the brown acid, Max
There is always the exception to the rule
The only good kid shows are the ones that manage to find the humor that only adults will understand while keeping true to their kid-only themes of good morals and hilarious hijinx.
No. Not them.
If you have kids, and you insist they watch TV on only channels that show commercials for themselves, I recommend the decidedly not evil
The Upside Down Show. There's no song, there's no yelling, there's no life lesson, it's just funny and wacky and makes me laugh. I actually look forward to watching any one of the 13 episodes of the show that were ever made that they play again and again every night of the week. Okay, nobody's perfect.
