Children's Entertainment Hell

What the Eff, Scooby-Doo?

2010-08-03T11:50:00.000-07:00

So we caught the brand-spankin'-new Scooby-Doo cartoon last night, Scooby-Doo, Mystery Incorporated! on the Cartoon Network last night. It was okay. Not great, but okay, and certainly not as good as the original series. The animation for this new series is a little different, making the characters look not quite like their old selves but definitely recognizable.

Probably the weirdest things about the new show are that 1) I don't think Casey Casem is voicing Shaggy in this series, but I could be wrong. I've tried doing a little research on the matter and my results are inconclusive. 2) Apparently VELMA has the hots for SHAGGY. ?!?!?!?

And that's basically what I want to get into here: A rant about Scooby-Doo.

The original series was groundbreaking, if you think about it. Four cool, idpendent kids and their dog, solving mysteries and never for one second believing that those ghosts or ghouls or witches or werewolves or vampires were real. Not really. For another thing, even though they were teenagers, and sure, Shaggy was quite goofy, none of the characters were at all dumb, and none of them really stood out as being smarter than another. (No, not even Velma.)

But the show's been through several incarnations now, and some of the new writers aren't staying true to the spirit of the show. In the new live-action made for television movie, Scooby-Doo!: The Mystery Begins, for instance, there are REAL GHOSTS in the movie. ?!?!?!??!

And again, Mystery Begins is OK, nothing special, though I do like the kid they got to play Shaggy.

The Scooby-Doo movies that were made for the theater and are available on DVD were better (Scooby-Doo and Scooby-Doo: Monsters Unleased), with Mathew Lillard and Linda cardellini doing FANTASTIC jobs at being Shaggy and Velma respectively. We own both of these, and though I'm downright sick of them now, it took a while for them to wear me down.

I'm tellin' ya. These kid writers need to go back and watch the original series before they go messing with the legacy of Scooby-Doo. Now get off my lawn, whippersnappers!

Despicable Me & Airbender: The Good, the Bad, the UGLY

2010-08-02T08:46:00.000-07:00

Hey there out in the Interwebs! I guess I’ve decided to keep this blog going, but I’m going to go about things a little differently. Those official reviews are nice, but they’re a little bit of work, so I’ve decided to take things a little more fast and loose.

If you haven’t taken your kids to see Despicable Me, do so IMMEDIATELY before it’s out of theaters. And do yourself a favor and pay the extra money to see the 3-D version. (3-D costs us extra here.) Believe me, it’s TOTALLY worth it. Don’t get me wrong, the movie is still ultra funny and touching for both kids and adults if you choose to see it in 2-D, but the filmmakers used the 3-D to great effect and the extra visuals are fun, fun, fun.

Yes, I have read some of the negative reviews regarding this movie and all I can say is that someone must have taken a dump in those reviewers’ corn flakes the morning they went to see it: It’s trite, the 3-D is overused, nothing new to see here … blah, blah, blah, whine, whine, whine and total BS.

The fact is, if you see this movie you and your kids are going to LAUGH. You may even laugh yourselves silly. We certainly did. The movie is appropriate for any kid aged 5 and over. In fact, I want to see it again, but I don’t know if we’ll make it back to the theater.

Another movie we caught this summer is The Last Airbender, because our whole family are HUGE fans of the cartoon, which airs on Nickelodeon. Everything you’ve heard about this movie is TRUE: It is a ginormous STINKER, and the use of non-Asian actors for the main characters is nothing but OFFENSIVE, especially when everyone around them is Asian. (I think the Fire Nation are all Indian actors, but whatever.) I feel so bad for the creators of this awesome cartoon, since M. Night Shamalamadingdong took a fascinating concept and turned it into a huge fiasco. (And he really needs to quit plastering his name all over his movies. I mean, criminy, it’s not like he’s Steven Spielberg or Alfred Hitchcock or anything.)

My advice: sure, take your kids to see it in the theater if it’s just totally unavoidable, but ask Santa to not bother to put the DVD in anyone’s stocking, if you know what I mean.

And if you haven’t watched the animated version on Nick, which is called Avitar, the Last Airbender, check it out! The concept of the four nations and their bending abilities is really interesting, and the writing for this show is quite good. (Normally, I DESPISE anime, but I make a huge exception for Airbender.)

TV – Chowder

2010-04-15T11:31:00.000-07:00

☻☻☻☻☻

(five smiley faces out of five)

Man. I need to do a review on something I hate. I’ve been giving lots of four and five smiley face reviews lately. Ah well. I suppose that’s a good thing.

ANYWAY. Chowder is a cartoon airing on the Cartoon Network (apt, eh?) for anyone aged six and up who has a sense of humor. And when I say “sense of humor” let me put that into perspective for you: If you think that Jay Leno is consistently fall-on-the-floor HILLARIOUS, then you do not have a sense of humor. You have a sense of “ha.”

Chowder is not “ha”. Chowder is clever-hilarious bordering on the subversive.

I have only seen Chowder a few times, so I will admit that I don’t really understand all of the dynamics of the show. I do know that the lead character, who is apparently supposed to be some sort of purple raccoon, is a young kid named Chowder and is apprenticed to an old chef named Mung Daal who owns a catering company in Marzipan City. There’s also this weird, gray monster thing that hangs around, as well as a cranky old fairy lady who runs the front desk of the catering business. There are lots of food references sprinkled throughout the show.

I also know that Chowder is a delightfully bizarre, surreal, and completely legal drug-free trip that you and your kids can take together for a half hour at a time. You and your kids will laugh and enjoy yourselves even when you have no idea what’s going on. The writing is exemplary, the jokes genuinely funny and the animation absolutely captivating. The odd looking characters move through bright, psychedelic backgrounds that are reminiscent of India or Marrakesh.

Unfortunately, the last episode of Chowder premiered earlier this month, and the creator, C. H. Greenblatt, who used to write for the brilliant Sponge Bob Square Pants cartoon is moving on to the Disney Channel. (Let’s hope he makes it there, because let’s face it; after you’ve done Nick, Cartoon Channel and Disney, where else can you go in children’s television? Back to Nick?)

Before it fades away altogether, do yourself a favor and watch an episode of Chowder.

TV – Team Umizoomi

2010-03-29T12:30:00.001-07:00

☻☻☻☻☺

(four smiley faces out of five)

Team Umizoomi is a new show aimed at preschoolers that airs on the Nickelodeon networks. Rather than focusing on language or behavior, as so many preschool educational shows do, Team Umizoomi focuses on math by way of mostly geometry, size relationships, patterns and occasionally number concepts like temperature.

Team Umizoomi consists three ultra-small, animated characters that interact with a world that’s mostly animated but also consists of real people. When Team Umizoomi is driving to a task in their teeny-tiny “umi car,” they often pass life-sized, non animated people and buildings, and I really like the look of the mix of animation and non-animation.

Team Umizoomi is made up of a couple of little kid pseudo-superheroes: Milli, a little girl with the power to change patters and measure objects with her ponytail, and her little brother, Geo, who is able to create objects from the shapes on his belt. They are accompanied by Bot, a robot that is able to show anything on his “belly, belly, belly screen.” Bot always has the rundown on the team’s mission for the day, which involves helping to solve some kid’s problem. (Team Umizoomi, come help! My dog buried the thermos of lemonade for the picnic somewhere in the back yard. Oh no!)

Like Dora the Explorer, this show has plenty of those pauses that allow your child to respond to questions that Team Umizoomi might ask them. The plots are so-so. The writing is pretty simple and straightforward. Though she’s really too old to be watching it, my 7 year old enjoys this show very much.

As for me, Team Umizoomi doesn’t really bother me, although just writing about it has now put Bot’s song into my head and I can’t get it out. Darn it. And I think it’s nice to see a preschool show that’s deals with math concepts. That’s not something you see much, except for maybe Sesame Street.

My only complaints are that the show seems a little … whitewashed. Very, you know. Suburban and safe and culturally bland. I also think its funny that the creators are obviously trying to cash in on the cute Japanese look and feel of tiny characters in bright clothing with a Japanese-ish name—Umizoomi—but whatever.

DVD - The Princess and the Frog

2010-03-18T18:09:00.000-07:00

☻☻☻☻☻

(five smiley faces out of five)

Living in a college town has its advantages. The University of Kansas plays Saturday night movies in the Woodruff auditorium in the Student Union that students may see for the bargain basement price of $1, and the general public may see for just $3. A couple of Saturdays ago, the Union was showing Disney’s newest ‘princess’ movie, The Princess and the Frog.

Luckily, the movie started at 8 p.m. So, I bundled my kid up in her jammies and slippers, bought some sugar free Sprite and candy at the Union convenience store and settled in with the students (and several other families with kids also in their jammies) to take in a fun night-time treat.

And what a treat it was! The Princess and the Frog stars Tiana, a hard working girl from New Orleans who is fighting poverty and racism to open her own restaurant. She happens across Prince Naveen, a fun-loving, lazy royal who’s been cut off from his family fortune for being too much of a playboy. I won’t spoil your fun by talking about the plot.

Before you write this movie off as a downer, or too political for little kids, let me assure you that Disney has, in my humble opinion (yeah right), handled the social implications of 1920s New Orleans in a manner that's digestible for today's kids. More on that later.

Right now, I want to focus on what I think makes this movie one of Disney’s best. First off, the musical numbers are as good as (if not better than) any song from Disney’s most celebrated musical princess movie, The Little Mermaid. Tiana, who’s speaking and singing voice is handled by Anika Noni Rose, has a set of singing pipes that will knock you back in your chair.

Scene after scene of this movie is pure eye candy. Hopefully for you, you can still catch it on the big screen somewhere or maybe on a big screen TV, because the larger the screen, the prettier this film is. It makes me want to visit New Orleans something awful.

The villain is hands down my new all-time Disney favorite. The Shadow Man, Dr. Facilier, is a snake-like, silky voiced charmer who oozes charisma and evil all at the same time and is voiced by the extremely talented Keith David.

This movie is genuinely funny and I laughed out loud several times. All of the characters are well-written and fun to listen to and watch. The scenery of New Orleans is gorgeous. The plot is pretty much fluff, but that’s okay, because it’s a fun bit of genuine escapism.

Now to the negative stuff: this movie has generated a lot of controversy. I’m not going to weigh in on most of it ’cause I’m a white lady (if you hadn’t noticed from my photo) and I would never condescend to try to tell other people when they should or should not feel slighted.

There has been criticism ranging from Tiana’s relaxed hair, to “Why is Disney’s first black princess a frog for most of the movie?” to Prince Naveen’s “strange” light colored skin. Whether or not these issues offend you is, ultimately, up to you. Personally, I am extremely offended that it has taken Disney this long to have a black lead character and a mostly black cast.

But there are definitely social issues that Disney chooses to ignore or gloss over in this movie. This is 1920s New Orleans we’re talking about. The film definitely depicts racial disparity—none of the black people in this story line, save Prince Naveen who’s come from a long way away—is rich. That privilege is reserved for white people. Still, somehow, there’s no segregation in this version of New Orleans. Black and white folk eat together in the same restaurants, which is certainly not going to look strange to the children of 2009-10, but will definitely be noticed by their parents and grandparents. And Tiana’s upwardly mobile, spoiled white friend Charlotte is actively trying to marry Prince Naveen, who is of some racially vague but definitively brown descent. That’s pretty far-fetched for 1920s America, prince or no prince.

Finally, there are apparently some white people who are offended that most of the white characters in this movie are goofy, dumb and silly, which they most certainly are. To that I say: Oh please.

As for me, “The Princess and the Frog” is now my favorite Disney princess movie ... and I’ve never really cared for any of the princess movies, for several reasons that I won't go into here. I would definitely recommend this movie for a bit of Disney fun.

Web Site – Wiggletime.com

2010-03-03T10:37:00.000-08:00

☻☻☻☺☺
(three smiley faces out of five)

I know I haven’t specifically stated that I’d review websites anywhere on this blog, but as a modern parent, I’m well aware of the pluses of occasionally letting your kid mess around on the computer. Sometimes, it’s just the thing to occupy a fussy toddler or young kid.

Recently, I had the opportunity to check out www.wiggletime.com, a relatively new site that’s being touted as a “virtual world” for preschool kids. My 7-year-old daughter helped me explore the site. Her conclusion? She’d give the site five smiley faces out of five, two thumbs up and an “Excellent!”

I think it’s a pretty good site as well.

First off, the site has some features available for free, but the bulk of the benefit of the site is reaped when you pay for a subscription. Families have the option to pay $5.95 once for a one-month subscription; $5.35 per month for six months, or $60 for the year. You also have the option to pay for a UNICEF subscription, which is a bit higher, but a portion of your subscription money goes to UNICEF and even more secret games are made available to your child.

If you opt to go with the free subscription, your child will be able to move around the entire site and will have access to some of the videos, but none of the games. If your child is 3 or 4 years old and loves the Wiggles, they’ll have a great time just wandering around the site, driving around in the big red car, visiting Wags and Dorothy and Captain Feathersword and all the Wiggles. But if your child is 5 or older and is a hardcore Wiggles fan, I think that he or she is going to become frustrated in not being able to access the games. There are TONS of coloring pages and activity sheets that can be printed from the site, whether or not you opt to pay for a subscription.

If you do decide to pay for a subscription, the site does have several nice amenities. Parents can set “activity breaks” that pop up every few minutes while your child is playing and remind him or her to get up and move around. The site will even open up a Wiggles video for your kid to sing and dance along to. In addition, the games and activities on the site are all meant to be educational, and the site will generate a monthly report to let you, the parent, know which activities your child has been accessing on the site. Finally, the site says that it will update its videos frequently, so your kid isn’t stuck watching the same videos over and over.

Another of the perks of the site is that there are ZERO advertisements, unlike the Nickelodeon.com and Disney.com sites which are almost always blasting advertisements at you that you have to hunt down and turn off.

When the Wiggletime.com site is loading a game or activity, a sort of stringed instrument pops up on the screen that your kid can add or subtract notes from. While my daughter loved this little application, the noise from it REALLY got on my nerves after awhile.

Also, even though we chose the language designation as the “Americas” when setting up my child’s avatar, there were still British spellings of words on the site, most notably the word “colour,” which pops up all over the place. (Apparently, that’s how the Canadians spell it.) Still, with as big as the American market has been for the Wiggles, I’m surprised they didn’t make a separate section of the site just for us Yanks. The British spelling of “colour” doesn’t bother me, but I know parents who would be bothered exposing their learning-to-read kids to alternate spellings of common words, especially if they’d paid for a subscription.

My daughter really enjoyed the games and activities on the site. I thought they were okay, but mostly on-par with some of the free games you can access at Nickelodeon.com. However, if your child is a big-time Wiggles fan and the subscription fee isn’t a hardship for your household, then I think it’s probably well worth it for your family to consider subscribing to Wiggletime.com.

TV – The Backyardigans

2010-02-25T10:31:00.000-08:00

☻☻☻☻☺

(four smiley faces out of five)

The Backyardigans is an animated show airing on the Nickelodeon networks that is aimed at kids aged two to five or six years old. It stars five creatures who are kids, three boys and two girls. There's Pablo the blue penguin; Tyrone the orange moose; Uniqua, who I've always thought of as a pink dinosaur; Tasha the yellow hippopotamus and Austin, a purple kangaroo.

Much like the variety of brightly colored puppets and monsters on Sesame Street, the creature-kids are meant to be representative of the melting pot that is the U.S. The premise of the show is that the kids meet in their backyards to play, always acting out a specific scenario that they spontaneously agree on. Once they’re into their play, the backyard scene melts away, revealing a new world created in the kids’ imaginations. The Backyardigans might be cowboys or explorers. They might travel through the dessert or to a volcano.

The CGI animation is not only easy on the eyes, but extremely well done. The plots are interesting and original, with whimsical twists.

Here’s where I’m going to get myself into trouble. Apparently the creator of the Backyardigans, Janice Burgess, prides herself on the show’s songs and dances, which encompass a plethora of genres and dance styles, and require a lot of work from choreographers and writers. These musical segments almost always earn high praise from parents and reviewers, including a review on IMDB.com that describes the songs in the Backyardigans as “Broadway caliber.”

But I just don’t care for them. To me, they seem more like time killers or fillers than anything else. Then again, I can admittedly be a grump, so I decided to get the opinion of a kid and recently asked my seven year old if she liked the songs in the Backyardigans. (In, I assure you, a completely neutral tone.) “No,” she said. “I just like the episodes.”

So, maybe the aversion to the Backyardigans music sequences is just a wacky gene that runs in our family. I dunno.

I’ve also always thought it was ironic that here we are, watching kids playing outside and using their imaginations when really, our kids should be outside playing and using their imaginations rather than watching a television show about it. But then, that’s more due to our failings as parents than the fault of the show, right? Besides, sometimes the weather is bad or there’s not time to go and play outside before school.

The fact is that the Backyardigans is a high-caliber show that you can enjoy with your kid(s). Our family just has to suffer through the musical interludes.

Oh, and incidentally, there are several really great Backyardigans video games on the Nickelodeon web site. Some are free and some you have to pay for, but they’re all really well tailored to younger kids.

Books – Mr. Putter and Tabby Pick the Pears

2010-02-20T08:52:00.000-08:00

☻☻☻☻☻
(five smiley faces out of five)

Mr. Putter & Tabby Pick the Pears is a book by Newberry Medal winning author Cynthia Rylant. It’s about an older man, Mr. Putter, and his cat companion, Tabby. Mr. Putter dreams of making pear jelly from the pears growing on the pear tree in his front yard, but first, he must get the pears down off the tree. Trouble is, old Mr. Putter has “cranky legs” that won’t allow him to climb a ladder.

Recently, my grade schooler brought this book home as part of her home work, and at about page three, I was hooked. I get so aggravated with children’s books that are sappy, dippy, drippy, poorly written or just plain boring. That’s not the case here. The writing is fresh and funny, and Rylant takes an interesting plot concept and works it through to a satisfying end. And let’s face it; what with video games, television, DVDs and the internet, books need to be particularly entertaining to engage today’s youngsters.

Mr. Putter decides that to get the pears off his tree, he’ll shoot them down with a sling shot. But first, he has to make one. What to use for the elastic? Why not the elastic from an obnoxious pair of pink boxers with poodles printed all over them that his brother gave him as a gag gift? But it’s not gratuitous use of underwear and slingshots; it’s how Rylant treats the material that really makes it entertaining. After all, several authors these days seem to think that referencing underwear, or farting or potties equals engaging reading material for children, but it’s the writing itself that makes a book good; not just gimmicky concepts or material.

I would say that the Mr. Putter series is geared toward kids from the ages of about five to nine, depending on how well your child reads or how much he or she likes to be read to.

Mr. Putter & Tabby Pick the Pears is only one in a series of Mr. Putter books, including Mr. Putter & Tabby Pour the Tea, Mr. Putter & Tabby Paint the Porch, Mr. Putter & Tabby Walk the Dog and more. Our family enjoyed Pick the Pears so much that we will definitely be purchasing several Mr. Putter books for our own personal library.

TV – Phineas and Pherb

2010-02-17T14:05:00.000-08:00

☻☻☻☻☻

(five smiley faces out of five)

Phineas and Pherb is a cartoon aimed at kids aged about five and up that airs on the Disney networks. It stars two smart, inventive stepbrothers who spend their seemingly eternal summer vacation (it’s always summer vacation on Phineas and Pherb) building impossibly incredible gadgets, inventions and mega structures. For some reason, all of this activity irritates Phineas and Pherb’s bossy older sister, Candace, who is always trying to get the boys in trouble with their mother. The only problem is that somehow, the evidence of Phineas and Pherb’s activities always seems to conveniently disappear before their mother can see it.

There’s always a side plot in this show, which involves the boys’ pet platypus, Perry. Perry is a secret agent (his family is unaware of this) whose nemesis is the evil Dr. Doofenschmirtz. And yes, Dr. Doofenschmirtz is as doofy and tragically hilarious as his name, because of course, Perry always manages to foil him.

Since the new episodes of Sponge Bob Square Pants continue to go downhill (really, people, just let a great cartoon die with dignity), Phineas and Pherb is probably the funniest, most well-written cartoon series specifically aimed at kids that’s currently being produced.

Another stand-out aspect of this show is the music. Generally, I HATE musical interludes in cartoons. Remember the old, old episodes of Scooby Doo? Great show, pointless, crappy songs. And The Archie Show? They had exactly one great song come off of that show: Sugar, Sugar. (You know. "Oh Sugar, do do do do do do, oh, Honey, Honey...) Don’t even get me started on the annoying songs from the Backyardigans.

But somehow, inexplicably, the Phineas and Pherb writers manage to come up with a great song, in a variety of genres, for every single episode. Our family’s favorite is probably Squirrels in my Pants, which is a sort of hip-hop-ish pop-ish ditty, but I swear to you that if the Phineas and Pherb people would get really smart, write a longer version of the song Busted and release it for airplay, it would be top-40 gold.

Phineas and Pherb is so clever and fun that I hope for your sake, your kids like it; because honestly, it’s far better than much of the schlock television written for adults these days.

DVD – School of Rock

2010-02-13T07:10:00.000-08:00

☻☻☻☻☻

(five smiley faces out of five)

School of Rock is a comedy movie rated PG-13 for lightly rude humor and apparently “drug references” but those must be pretty vague because I’ve seen the movie at least 20 times and offhand, I can’t think of what they are. There’s a tad bit of bad language, which mostly consists of the word “ass” being uttered—I dunno—maybe three or four times.

The movie stars Jack Black as a hapless rocker wannabe Dewy Finn, who needs to find a job quick or his roommate and his roommate’s bossy girlfriend (played excellently by Sarah Silverman) are going to kick him out.

Dewy happens to take a phone call for his roommate Ned who is a substitute teacher. Dewy decides that it’ll be easy money to take Ned’s “temping” job at an elite prep-grade school. I’ll stop summarizing here so as not to reveal any spoilers.

Let me just say that School of Rock is what I like to call a perfect movie. The writing is excellent. The dialogue is witty. The characters are expertly played by every actor in the movie, and that includes the kids. Joan Cusack, who I LOVE, plays the school’s uptight principal to delicious perfection. The plot is extremely satisfying, with everything wrapping up at the end like a big ol’ gorgeous present on Christmas morning. (Yeah, film major, that’s all cheesy and oh-so-typically American, but I happen to enjoy it sometimes.)

And the number one most awesome thing about this movie is that your kids, from the age of about four or five, will love watching it as much as you do, probably over and over and over again.

TV – Hannah Montana

2009-12-02T09:59:00.000-08:00

☻☻☺☺☺
(two smiley faces out of five)

Since I just did an iCarly review, I thought I’d review Disney’s television sitcom offering to female ’tweens, Hannah Montana.

Only I ain’t gonna be quite so nice. In fact, I'm not even really sure why I'm giving this show two smiley faces instead of just one, except that it's so gosh-darned popular that I'm going to give millions of screaming little girls some benefit of the doubt.

Hannah Montana is about a 'tween girl, Miley Stewart (played by Miley Cirus, country star Billy Ray Cirus’ daughter), who lives a double life as a pop star. During her everyday life, she’s plain ol’ Miley Stewart with brown hair. But when it’s time for her to throw-down at a pop-country concert, she busts out her blonde wig and appears on stage as Hannah Montana. It’s this double life that allows Miley to have some privacy and friends.

Speaking of friends, Miley’s friends, Lily and Oliver, know her secret and keep it for her. Miley is also joined by her annoying older brother Jackson and her real-life father, who also plays her father on the show. Miley’s mother died a few years ago, but sometimes shows up in flashbacks and is played by Brooke Shields.

The main problem with Hannah Montana is the writing. It’s just terrible. It’s that same old tired, boring, trite sitcom writing that’s been employed by such “winners” as Three’s Company (yes America, I’m sorry to inform you that Three’s Company completely sucked), the Brady Bunch, Different Strokes and a whole litany of bad, bad, bad sitcoms that have been produced in this country over the years.

Hannah Montana plots are, in general, completely insipid and uninspired.

As far as the acting goes, Miley Cirus’ acting skills aren’t stellar, but I really think that she could move forward from this show and learn to be a competent actress. I think her dad does a pretty good job as an actor, as well. I also think that the periphery actors might be good, but it’s really hard to tell as they’re forced to work from scripts that are downright poopalicious.

Heaven help you if your daughter is a Hannah Montana fan. Your eyes might get stuck in the back of your head from all the rolling.

iCarly

2009-12-01T10:44:00.000-08:00

☻☻☻☻☺

(four smiley faces out of five)

iCarly is a show aimed at ’tweens that airs on Nickelodeon, though my 6-year-old daughter and her 7-year-old friend are HUGE iCarly fans. As it turns out, so am I. (So is my husband, but don’t tell anyone I told you.)

The show is about three good friends who are freshmen in high school who have their own weekly web show called iCarly. Carly lives with her older brother, Spencer, who is 26, and conveniently, he's the only adult around as Carly's father is on an aircraft carrier somewhere and her mother is ... well, we don't know where Carly's mother is.

In the world of kid’s sitcoms, iCarly is a breath of fresh air. The plot-lines aren’t those tired, recycled old sitcom plots you’ve seen for years. (You know. Someone is stuck in an elevator. A pregnant woman goes into labor in an inconvenient place. So-and-so has to ride on a plane, even though they have a plane phobia. Blah, blah, blah, YAWN.)

Whoever the writers are for iCarly sure know what they’re doing. The writing is fresh, witty and genuinely funny. My husband and I often catch ourselves looking at each other thinking, That was actually funny. Can you believe it? No. Me neither. And then we laugh out loud.

And the actors are absolutely top-drawer. And I mean everybody on the show. Miranda Cosgrove is a pre-teen acting powerhouse. You may have seen her as Summer in the Jack Black movie School of Rock. Jerry Trainor, who plays Carly’s older brother, has a genuine comic talent and I expect to see him moving on to greater things. Carly’s friends, Freddie and Sam, are also talented kids.

Each character is well-written and well-rounded, and some of the running character attributes are hilarious. Freddie’s mother is overprotective to the point of absurdity, giving him “tick baths” and making him wear “anti-bacterial underwear.” I find Carly’s best girl friend, Sam, interesting as well, as Sam is … well … pretty much white trash. There are often jokes about various members of Sam’s family being in jail or stealing things. And Sam’s mother’s parenting skills are often called into question. But again, I find this to be refreshing and a little edgy.

There's a recurring character, Neville, who's a foil to the iCarly crew, and ... well, you'll just have to see Neville for yourself. He is so funny he almost makes me pee my pants.

I do, however have a couple of complaints about the show. For one thing, these kids are pretty blasé when it comes to money. It’s pretty much no big thing for Carly to pull 50 bucks out of her pocket to pay off some kid in some scheme that she and her friends have cooked up. I can’t do that without a trip to the ATM and even then, there’s no guarantee they’ll be 50 bucks in there to pull out.

I also have a good friend who is also a mom who thinks that Sam’s character is “too mean”. And she’s right; Sam can be pretty darn vindictive, especially to Freddie. However, there is an episode when Sam goes too far, her friends call her on it and Sam really lowers herself to make amends. Sam’s “meanness” is written to be flip and funny, and it’s fine for your ’tween who will understand the humor. But my six year old and I often talk about when Sam is being overly malicious.

Overall, I find iCarly to be a show that the whole family can enjoy together and I really appreciate Nickelodeon's effort to produce such a well-written, funny sitcom.

TV - The Electric Company

2009-11-20T14:04:00.000-08:00

☻☻☻☻☺

(four smiley faces out of five)

Hey you guuuuys!

The Electric Company has recently returned to television courtesy of the Sesame Workshop, and I’m happy to say that like the original, the new version is pretty freakin’ cool.

The Electric Company is a show that emphasizes language development, is aimed at kids from the ages of three to seven or so, and airs on PBS.

The Electric Company has changed from the original in that there are now six central characters in the show, each with a different sort of “literary superpower” that helps them to read and understand language. Now, I’m not going to detail those superpowers here, as that’s the one aspect of the show I find a little silly. I didn’t even notice as I was watching that the extraordinary gifts the characters displayed were … extraordinary; I just thought that some of the cool graphics and rearranging of scrambled letters to make words was part of the Electric Company being the Electric Company.

The episode we most recently watched at my house focused on the letter “C,” and the concepts of hard C and soft C. The show discussed various words that start with the letter C and their meanings. But a second focus was the concept of humanity: what makes humans, well, human.

Sounds like it could be pretty boring, right? Oh, you would be so wrong. The Electric Company is hip, urban, diverse and highly watchable. The writing is exemplary and the acting is excellent. The show incorporates rapping, hip-hop and beatboxing to help illustrate various language concepts and it’s done in such a fun, non-geeky way that I think you’ll find you and your child drawn in to the rhythms and rhymes.

Overall, I found the new Electric Company to be highly entertaining and educational, and I would gladly sit down with my kid to watch the Electric Company anytime.

TV – The Doodle Bops

2009-11-17T07:45:00.000-08:00

☻☺☺☺☺
(one smiley face out of five)

The Doodlebops is a sort of live-action, acid-induced, cartoon-like, Broadway-musical-gone-awry airing on the Disney networks and produced by our Canadian friends (or possibly enemies) to the north. The show is aimed at kids aged three to five or six, but really, no one should be watching it.

The Doodlebops are a three person band consisting of two guys and one gal who are inexplicably covered in pastel paint, impossibly bright clothing and clown wigs. The point of this show, I guess, is to get kids up and dancing rather than sitting on their butts watching television. But I would recommend that instead of turning on this show, you turn on some Kidz Bop or ‘80s music and let them have at it.

The formula of this show is that there’s usually some lame “problem” the Doodlebops have to overcome in order to make it to their “gig,” but there’s no real lesson or educational value that kids can take away from the Doodlebops.

Frankly, this show stinks. The (over)acting is hideous, the music is bad and the plots are so saccharine-ly simple as to be almost be non-existent.

Don’t waste a second of you or your child’s precious, precious brain time on this show. Unless, of course, your child loves it, and then, well, you’re pretty much screwed.

TV – Caillou

2009-11-14T13:09:00.001-08:00

☻☻☺☺☺

(two smiley faces out of five)

Caillou is an animated show airing on PBS aimed at preschool-aged kids. It’s about a little boy, Caillou (pronounced Kai-you), who is four years old and his family: his little sister Rosie, his mom and dad and his grandparents. What’s with the weird name? Well, the show is produced in Canada, and apparently Caillou is French for “bald” or “stone” and Caillou has no hair. Why? I don’t know. The kid isn’t a cancer patient or anything.

This will be one time when I’ll bow to public opinion. I don’t think I have ever, ever, ever spoken to a single parent who likes Caillou. I hear the same complaint over and over and over again: CAILLOU WHINES. In fact, many parents think that Caillou encourages whining in their own children, so they’ve banned the show completely. Others try to leave the room while their child is watching, because their kid is in love with it, but they can’t stand to watch it themselves.

Now here’s the weird thing: Caillou actually doesn’t bother me that much.

I know. I can’t believe it either.

Unfortunately for parents, Caillou is extremely appealing to small children. And the reason he appeals to small kids is because he is one. He whines. He’s demanding. He’s selfish. He’s a pain in the butt.

I think it’s Caillou’s realism that actually kind of appealed to me when my child used to watch it. Frankly, the character is extremely realistic.

The adults on the show, however, do annoy me because they’re too patient, too kind, too sweet-syrupy-drippy goodness and light, and they always seem to say the right thing. Ugh.

I felt compelled to give this show two smiley faces rather than just one because of the realism of the central character. But there’s nothing about this show that is so stellar that your child is going to be harmed if he or she misses it, so by all means, don’t feel guilty about keeping your kid(s) away from Caillou.

TV - The Fresh Beat Band

2009-11-11T10:03:00.000-08:00

☻☻☺☺☺

(two smiley faces out of five)

The Fresh Beat Band is a new show aimed at kids aged about 2 to 6 that airs on the Nickelodeon networks. The Fresh Beat Band is a live action show that stars the four members of the Fresh Beat band: Kiki, Marina, Twist and Shout. The show is bright and colorful and there’s lots of singing and dancing and everyone is very clean-cut and kind to one another, but there’s absolutely nothing that makes this show stand out as … well … good.

The Fresh Beat kids appear to be in a music school of some sort, but it’s kinda hard to figure out exactly what age they’re supposed to be since the actors are in their early twenties but the show is aimed at young children. Obviously the Fresh Beat kids are not supposed to be in college, but they’re way too old to be in grade school … so, where are they, anyway?

Since these kids are a band, this of course means that there’s lots of singing and playing of instruments, but the songs are these happy, sappy, uninspired tunes that you’ll (thankfully) forget a few minutes after you’ve turned off the television.

The very non-offensive, cookie-cutter squeaky-clean kids of the Fresh Beat Band say things like "cool beans," "ready, steady, play" and "kickin"! Are you falling into a sugar coma yet? Shudder.

I honestly can’t figure out what the point of this show is. It’s not particularly entertaining. There are no real lessons to be learned here and no great songs to take away. Just a bunch of kids who are too old to be toddlers and too young to be parents trying to connect with small children. In a word, the Fresh Beat Band is fresh, yes. It’s also bright, and youthful, and kinda loud, but completely lacking in any sort of substance.

DVDs – Pink Panther I & II

2009-11-08T07:29:00.000-08:00

☻☻☻☻☺

(four smiley faces out of five)

If you’re tired of all the movies that play in your home in the daytime being animated and your child is aged 6 or older (or the age at which your child can follow the plot of a movie), you just might give the new Pink Panther movies, starring Steve Martin, a try.

Our family rented Pink Panther II on a whim a couple of months ago. The three of us, aged 6, 37 and 41, laughed ourselves silly. And to my husband and me, it was like a miracle had occurred: here was a movie that the three of us could genuinely enjoy together.

So this weekend, we sought out to rent Pink Panther I. But Hastings didn’t have Pink Panther I available to rent. What they did have was a used version for sale, and since the movies were buy-one-get-one free, we ended up purchasing both Pink Panther I and II.

After watching Pink Panther I last night and laughing a few times until we were almost on the floor, I’m thrilled that we own them both.

These movies are rated PG for suggestive humor, brief mild language and action. I personally couldn’t recall any “bad language” from either of these films, so I looked them up on a Christian movie review site and apparently the word “hell” is used twice in Pink Panther I. I couldn't find any bad language detailed for Pink Panther II. And the “suggestive humor” is so brief and so over a small kid’s head that it’s really pretty negligible. (If your kid DOES understand the “suggestive” humor, then you may have more than these movies to worry about.)

I won’t bother to summarize plots here. I mean, they’re Pink Panther movies. There’s a murder (that's not shown, of course), France’s big pink diamond is in play, it’s all a big mystery, Inspector Clouseau is a complete bumbling idiot with a hilariously ridiculous French accent, yadda, yadda, yadda. The humor is downright slapstick and goofball, but not so crude as to be inappropriate for children. There is a fart joke in Pink Panther I, but … well … it made me laugh.

Before you go out and purchase one or both of these movies, you should of course give them a test run by renting them or checking them out from your library, but I would definitely recommend them for a night of popcorn munching, jammy wearing, family fun.

TV - Imagination Movers

2009-11-04T11:35:00.000-08:00

☻☻☻☻☺
(four smiley faces out of five)

Imagination Movers is a television show that airs on the Disney Channel and is aimed at kids from the ages of three to seven or eight. The show stars the Imagination Movers, four guys who “work” together in a warehouse. Their job is to solve people’s problems imaginatively, problems that they refer to as “Idea emergencies”. The Movers consist of four cool guys named Rich, Scott, Dave and Smitty who are far less dorky than the four guys on the Wiggles, though the Wiggles is certainly not without merit.

The Movers’ website touts the show this way: What would happen if the Beastie Boys collaborated with Mr. Rogers? But I think that’s taking it a bit far on the “street cred” scale. Imagination Movers is more like a mix of the Bare Naked Ladies and Mr. Rogers.

The Imagination Movers are often joined by their grumpy neighbor Knit Knots who is very boring and always wears beige, and his niece, Nina. Knit Knots is actually one of my favorite characters on the show, as the depth of his boringness is seemingly unending and for some reason his straight guy act just cracks me up immensely. For you hetero dads and lesbian moms out there, Nina is apparently extremely hot.

The movers also play instruments and sing songs, so there’s lots of music on the show. Thankfully, it’s modern, catchy music that’s usually quite good. You might even find yourself tapping your foot and singing along, and maybe, just maybe, you’d find you could stand purchasing the CD and listening to it over and over again in the car with your kid(s).

Overall, Imagination Movers is fun to watch for adults and kids. The plots are inventive and original (in one episode, the Movers have to help a lady figure out how she can carry around her gigantic phone book), the writing is good, and the actors are excellent. I often find myself laughing along with my daughter.

So why did I only give the show four smiley faces? Well, the show’s main educational focus is teaching kids that there are always several ways to attack a problem, even if only one solution will ultimately work. It also teaches tenacity and stick-to-it-iveness, which is certainly not a bad thing, but it’s not really educational, per se. I dunno. I kinda figure that either a person has tenacity or they don’t. I’m not sure if it’s something that can really be taught; it’s more like a decision that each person much reach on his or her own.

Ultimately, Imagination Movers is a good, clean, half-hour of eye and ear candy for you and your kid.

TV – Dragon Tales

2009-10-28T09:26:00.000-07:00

☻☺☺☺☺
(one smiley face out of five)

Dragon Tales is a cartoon produced by the Sesame Workshop that airs on PBS. It was made from 1999 to 2005, but is still regularly re-run on Public Television. It is aimed at children from about the ages of three to six years old.

Dragon Tales stars brother and sister Emmy and Max, and later, their friend Enrique, who conveniently injects a little Spanish into the show. The premise is that Emmy and Max have a magic dragon scale that occasionally “calls” them to Dragon Land, a magical place populated by dragons.

I think I would rather lick an electrical outlet than watch this show. First off, there’s nothing particularly educational about it, except that it’s a very “feel good” program that aims to teach about friendship and manners and treating others as you’d like to be treated, but aren’t our kids already completely saturated with that message from parents, television, preschool teachers and then kindergarten?

One of the dragons, Ord, is supposed to be lovably dimwitted, but he comes off as so straightforwardly stupid that he’s hard to like. Then there’s Zac and Wheezy, a two-headed sibling dragon whose voices are both so annoying that I can barely stand it when they’re on screen. (Zac sounds as if he’s got a chronic sinus infection and Wheezy’s voice is high and grating.)

The plots are insipid. The animation is low quality. Max whines incessantly. The dialogue is banal. The first time I watched Dragon Tales I distinctly remember being very disappointed that it’s produced by Sesame Workshop, as this show shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same breath with such a stunningly brilliant children’s television show as Sesame Street.

Thankfully, my child was only “into” Dragon Tales for a few weeks. In my opinion, unless your child is just very attached to this show, there’s no point in wasting your child’s very valuable brain time in front of the boob tube for Dragon Tales.

DVD – Baby Einstein

2009-10-27T17:08:00.000-07:00

☻☻☻☻☺
(four smiley faces out of five)

The Baby Einstein series of videos are targeted toward children aged a few months to about three years old. They consist of music—often classical—paired with the actions of brightly colored puppets and toys, and sometimes live-action shots of animals or babies or children. Each Baby Einstein video focuses on a particular theme, such as Beethoven or Mozart or animals or shapes or language. Besides videos, Baby Einstein produces toys and books. The Baby Einstein videos were started by mom Julie Clark and are now owned by Disney, though Ms. Clark is still in charge of the Baby Einstein company.

Now, there is some controversy surrounding the Baby Einstein videos. Some people think it’s horrifying to actually try to engage babies in television watching. And I do have to say that I always thought it was disturbing that these DVDs had as a menu option to either “Play Once” (ummm … yes, please) or “Repeat” (Seriously? What freakoid is putting his or her baby in front of a repeating Baby Einstein video, and why would the company even make that a menu option?). But maybe they’ve stopped doing that now; it’s been a few years since I’ve watched one.

Just yesterday I heard on NPR that the company is offering full refunds to anyone who purchased a Baby Einstein video between June 5, 2004 and September 4, 2009, because apparently an activist group (okay, mostly Harvard psychology professor Susan Linn) didn’t like that Baby Einstein was insinuating that its videos are educational. The Baby Einstein company denies ever claiming that their videos are educational, but c’mon. They’re called Baby EINSTEIN and Einstein was no idiot.

Obviously, making the decision to let your baby watch television is a highly personal one. Some people are going to be dead set against it, and that’s okay. It’s a free country.

But when you have a baby like mine, one who’s fussy and wants to be held and entertained all the time, it’s like a miracle to occasionally be able to put on a video and get a 30-minute break. I looked at it this way: the videos could shake a succession of toys and puppets in my baby’s face faster than I could, and the videos seemed to have a soothing effect on her. I never, ever thought of the videos as being educational, so I personally don’t even care about the whole educational vs. not educational controversy. Sometimes I just desperately needed a short respite from being a physically exhausted basket-case of a new mother.

And, as a sleep-deprived new parent, I have to say that I never minded watching the Baby Einstein videos with my baby/young child. Even if there was a segment I didn’t care for, I knew the next segment would be coming up quickly, and sometimes the animals and kids and toys are cute. The puppet work in the Baby Einstein videos is so-so.

Ultimately, you’ll have to be the one to decide whether or not to let your very young child should watch these videos. But if you do decide to purchase any Baby Einstein videos, I think you’ll find them not only tolerable, but on some days, the only thing that saves your sanity.

TV - Dora the Explorer

2009-10-26T11:04:00.000-07:00

☻☻☻☺☺
(three smiley faces out of five)
Dora the Explorer is a cartoon airing on the Nickelodeon networks for young kids aged two to five or so. Dora is a seven-year-old Latina girl who travels the world with her monkey friend Boots on various adventures.

In each episode, Dora and Boots have a quest to fulfill, which usually involves helping a person or animal, and in each episode the antagonist is Swiper the fox. Swiper’s mission is usually to try and take whatever object Dora and Boots need that episode, whether it’s something they’re trying to deliver to someone else, or, for instance, a shape that they need to fix the road or bridge in front of them so that they may continue on their quest. Luckily, Dora has a magic backpack that can produce almost anything Dora and Boots might need to help them on their quests, from skis to wagons.

Dora the Explorer does a good job of teaching fairness and kindness to others, and it does a great job of injecting a little bit of Spanish into small kids’ vocabularies. The show often tries to teach kids about shapes and colors, and there’s often a pause in the dialogue that’s meant to allow little kids to be able to verbally interject their answers to Dora’s questions. The show also tries to get little kids to get up and move around while touching on the fact that there are different cultures all over the world.

But because this blog is about children’s shows that adults can also enjoy, this show receives only three smiley faces out of five.

Dora’s voice is nasal to the point of bordering on maddening. Boots is cute if you’re three, but not when you’re twenty-three and especially not if you’re thirty-three. He’s just a sidekick who’s kind of … there. There’s nothing particularly clever or funny about Boots.

Same goes for Swiper. About the only amusing thing Swiper says is “Oh, man!” when his moderately evil plan is foiled. When Dora and Boots succeed on their missions, there is this bizarre little mariachi band made up of a grasshopper, a frog and a slug that play a quick happy tune, and that’s about the only thing that ever makes me crack a smile.

The other recurring characters that pop up are just as uninteresting, and the guest characters are usually weird, but not in a good way.

Dora’s plotlines do tend to be odd—for example, Dora and Boots often get caught up in a fairy tale—but still not unusual enough to be inventive. The dialogue is almost never clever or witty.

Because of Dora’s popularity, it’s probably going to be difficult to keep your preschool to kindergarten aged kid away from this show. But it’s certainly not going to hurt him or her, either. Just try to unload the dishwasher or fold some laundry in the next room while it’s on.

TV - Sponge Bob Square Pants

2009-10-22T09:16:00.001-07:00

☻☻☻☻☺

(four smiley faces out of five)

Sponge Bob Square Pants is a cartoon airing on the Nickelodeon networks that’s enjoyed by kids and parents aged four and up. (Wait; what?) Now, I’ve met a few people who don’t care for Sponge Bob, but most people with even the smallest speck of a sense of humor genuinely enjoy watching this cartoon with their kids.

Sponge Bob Square Pants centers on a little square yellow sponge (named Sponge Bob, obviously) who lives in Bikini Bottom (are you cracking a smirk yet?) with his pet snail that sounds like a cat and his dimwitted best friend Patrick the pink star fish. Sponge Bob works as a fry cook at the Krusty Krab for his notoriously cheap boss Mr. Krabs—whose daughter, oddly enough, is a whale—(and by the way, I LOVE this running gag in Sponge Bob because they NEVER explain why Pearl is a whale or who Pearl’s mother is or was). Sponge Bob works alongside Squidward, a grumpy, artistically frustrated squid who also happens to be Sponge Bob’s neighbor. But the main antagonist in Sponge Bob is Plankton, a really, really tiny, green, evil genius who owns a competing restaurant in Bikini Bottom—the Chumbucket—and is married to his computer wife, Karen.

(Can you even believe how *&$@ing crazy this cartoon sounds? Can I fit any more parentheses into this review?)

Some of the best episodes of Sponge Bob are as good as any of the best episodes of the old Looney Toons cartoons. The writing is witty and fresh and far superior to almost every other cartoon being made right now. The story lines are deliciously clever and sometimes border on the brink of insanity.

I’d give this cartoon five smiley faces out of five if the quality hadn’t started to fall off a bit a couple of years ago. But Nick has to keep churning out new episodes because Sponge Bob is so gosh-darned popular and makes more money than a chastity belt salesman at a Promise Keepers convention.

Of course, if you’re an extremely straight-laced person with a strict moral code, then there will definitely be material in Sponge Bob to offend you and you should avoid it at all costs. There is also a danger of your kid becoming seriously addicted to Sponge Bob, and eventually, you might start to get tired of it, as Nickelodeon keeps it in heavy rotation.

Overall, though, Sponge Bob gets a huge thumbs-up from everyone in our household and most of our friends with kids’ households.

TV - Sesame Street

2009-10-21T10:43:00.000-07:00

☻☻☻☻☻

(five smiley faces out of five)

Let’s start this blog with the mother of all children’s television shows. Debuting in 1969, Sesame Street is the longest-running children’s television show in U.S. history.

It’s also one of the absolute best. Mostly aimed at the pre-kindergarten crowd, Sesame Street airs on Public Television.

I loved Sesame Street when I was a child and continue to love it today, as did my child when she was pre-K. The writing is exemplary, the educational value is outstanding, the cultural diversity and sensitivity give me hope for humankind, and the performances of the actors and puppeteers are always top-notch.

Sesame Street has always managed to deliver all of this while being genuinely entertaining, both for children and adults. I can’t count the number of times I’ve watched Sesame Street as a grownup and found myself laughing out loud at the jokes or being delighted by a special celebrity guest. (And let’s face it, the guest celebrities are for us parents; most of the time, little kids don’t even know who those people are.)

Sure, some parents find Elmo’s high voice to be a bit annoying, but most people can give Elmo a pass when they see how their little boy or girl’s face lights up when Elmo appears on the screen. And then there was that flap several years ago when some moronic preacher declared that Ernie and Bert were gay (where’s your head at buddy?) but most of us non mouth breathers know that even if Ernie and Bert were gay, it just wouldn’t matter, because Ernie is freaking hilarious.

I sincerely hope that until the day I die I can remember the lyrics to this song whenever I need a smile:

One-two-three-four-five, six-seven-eight-nine-ten,
Ten tiny turtles on the telephone
Talking with the grocery man
(Ya da da da!)

We would like some lettuce,
Will you send us ten heads please?
And ten sweet potatoes
And ten rutabagas with the dimples on their knees.

And send us 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 artichokes;
Ten eggplants—over easy
That's one of our little jokes (ha ha ha).

Ten leafy, leafy collard greens
And please make sure they're washed;

Light up our eyes
Brighten our lives
With ten banana squash.

We'll need ten cans of black-eyed peas
They give you good strong muscles
Ten of those tasty sprouts—
The ones that they call Brussels
We'd also like ten mangos
They're the favorite of our sister Gert;
And one last thing,
Please do include ten apples for dessert.

TEN!

FAQ

2009-10-21T10:41:00.000-07:00

Why are you so mean?

I dunno. Maybe it’s because my parents didn’t raise me right. Maybe it’s because I have too many (or not enough) aberrant hormones raging through my sagging, middle-aged body. But mostly I think it’s because that poor entertainment in general just cheeses me off, and just because a television show, movie or book is created for children doesn’t mean that people (grownups!) should cut corners on quality. If something is crap, I like to call it like it is and warn others. If you disagree with my opinion, that’s great! Please feel free to say so.

Why are so many of your reviews for television shows or movies on DVD?

I am a stay-at-home mom. This means that we’re a one-income family and we just don’t want to spend the money on the movies out at the theater. When we do go see a movie, you can bet I’ll write a review about it. And though we own many, many children’s books, we tend to buy the classics and not so often the ones that are hot off the press.

If you have produced a new movie, book or television show for the children’s market, please feel free to email me at afraley @ sunflower (dot) com, I'll give you my address, you may send the material my way and I will be more than happy to review it. Keep in mind, though, that just because you go to the trouble to send me your material doesn't mean I'll show it any favoritism.

What makes you think you’re qualified to write these reviews?

Well, nothing, really, other than I have now watched hours of children’s television and movies and I’ve always loved children’s books. But I did earn a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Kansas and I’ve worked as a writer, reporter and editor for various newspapers and magazines for about twelve years now. Finally, between my connections with parents in the stay-at-home mom club I belong to, my kid's grade school and Daisy Scouts, I quite often find myself speaking with fellow parents about kids' shows--which ones they like, which ones they don't, which ones they won't let their kids watch under any circumstances, which ones they dread their kids watching ... those sorts of things.

Do you really let your kid watch that much television?

Our child’s viewing habits are probably a lot like your child’s: some days yes, she watches waaay too much and other days she watches nothing. It depends on whether or not she went to school that day or she’s home sick, whether or not it’s snowing or raining outside, whether or not I’m sick or dead-dog tired, and about a million other factors.