Monday, June 4, 2012

Cartoons Are Stranger Than They Used To Be

We're plus two this week Chez Cigar with Niece 1 and Niece 2 visiting for awhile so needless to say, I've been experience more than my fair share of children's television and have watched more Nickolodeon and Nick Jr. this past weekend than I have since the glory days of Doug, Rocko's Modern Life and of course, Rugrats and I've come to the conclusion that cartoons are a lot stranger than they used to be...

Case in point, Little Bear:



Little Bear wears no clothes whatsoever. Everyone else seems to- Mommy and Daddy Bear do, but not Little Bear. Other than that, he's a pretty cool dude.

Next up:



Franny's Feet... Niece 1 and Niece 2 love Franny's Feet. They're entranced by this show which given the love that Niece 2 has for shoes explains a lot. Basically, Franny has a pretty healthy obsession with her feet and her imagination, putting on the shoes that people bring in to her Grandfather's workshop to go have adventures and stuff. If your kid loves this cartoon and turns out to be a foot fetishist later in life, this would probably be why.

It's not all strange though. Sesame Street is going strong and paired up with something called Sid The Science Kid which is pretty cool. Arthur is awesome. (If it wouldn't be like, weird, I'd watch Arthur everyday.) And either the educational aspects of these shows are getting progressively better or I just didn't care about that part of it when I was a kid- because I could have used a dose of the Magic Math Power of Team Umizoomi. The Backyardigans threw me for a loop because I couldn't figure out what the pink one was and it took me a second to realize they were 'introducing kids to the dance and music of the world' (I sat there for awhile and wondered why there were all the sitars jamming out and why these animals were doing Bollywood dance moves. Then I figured it out.)

From Dora The Explorer to Go Diego Go! (Both favorites of the Nieces) there's a huge range of kids programming that just wasn't there when I was a kid. Some of it is mildly entertaining and some of it just weird... but all of it seems to work for the kids today- of any ages.


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