Toddler TV: a Befuddled Father's Guide to What the Kids are Watching

By Michael Curry

One of the problems of becoming a father in his late forties that he DIDN’T expect was watching television with his pre-schooler: “Daddy, can we watch Barney?” “Sure! The Andy Griffith Show is on in a few minutes!” “No Daddy, the purple dinosaur.” “Dino? I LOVE The Flinstones...”

In this sequel – kind of – to his memoir Abby’s Road, the Long and Winding Road to Adoption and How Facebook, Aquaman and Theodore Roosevelt Helped, Michael Curry reviews the television shows his now-preschool daughter has available. It has been forty years since Michael watched children’s television and much has changed ... and much has stayed the same.
Told with gentle (and sometimes not so gentle, humor) Michael reviews and comments on over 100 children’s shows aimed at ages 0-5 from the 1960s to the present!
Meet some familiar friends – from Oscar the Grouch to Thomas the Tank Engine – and meet some new ones whose adventures you might be missing!
Whether you are in your 20s or in your 50s or anywhere in between, you may find yourself saying, “I remember that show when I was that age!” or “If I was a toddler I would love this!”
Let’s see what the kids are watching!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Curry
• Release date: Oct 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310361074

Book preview

TODDLER TV

A Befuddled Father’s Guide to What the Kids are Watching

Michael Curry

Smashwords edition

Copyright 2014

Any and all photographs and song lyrics copyright their respective holders and used herein under the fair Use doctrine of 17 USC 106 & 106a for the purposes of criticism and comment

Discover other titles by Michael Curry:

Abby’s Road, the Long and Winding Road to Adoption; and how Facebook, Aquaman and Theodore Roosevelt Helped

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Speaking of which: thanks for the wonderful cover design by Caligraphics! Their home page is here: http://caligraphics.net/index.php

Michael G. Curry

PO Box 93

Mount Vernon, IL 62864

[phone]

[e-mail]

***

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Index

Dedication

Introduction

A Color Scheme

PBS Kids

Of Muppets and Men

Sprout

Wonderful Wiggles of Oz

Disney Junior

That Other Purple Dinosaur

Nick Junior

My Neighbor

Potpourri

The End of It

About the Author

Connect with Me!

Other Books by the Author

***

INDEX

You’ll notice a lot of hyperlinks in this book. Not just for chapter or section headings, but most of the programs have links, too. If I mention, say, Sid the Science Kid, in another program’s review ... or just now ... you can click on the hyperlink to look at the main Sid article. If a program doesn’t have a hyperlink that means one of two things: 1) it doesn’t have its own article/section or 2) I missed it!

Shows that are italicized either do not have a hyperlink (and do not have their own section) OR you are within that very section - no sense hyperlinking something to itself, yes?

No?

My experimenting with this high-tech hyperlinking/NCX stuff is akin to a baboon sitting next to Sulu on the USS Enterprise (NCC-1107, no bloody A, B, C or D, to quote Scotty. You’ll see lots of Star Trek references in here...). I did my best!

INDEX

Adventures of Chuck & Friends

Angelina Ballerina – the Next Steps

Arthur

Astroblast

Barney & Friends

Berenstain Bears

Between the Lions

Blue’s Clues

Bob the Builder

Boj

Bubble Guppies

Caillou

Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot about That

Chica Show

Chloe’s Closet

Chuggington

Clifford the Big Red Dog

Curious George

Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood

Dino Dan

Dinosaur Train

Doc McStuffins

Dora the Explorer

Earth to Luna

Ella the Elephant

Fairies

Fireman Sam

Franklin and Friends

Fresh Beat Band

Gaspard and Lisa

Go Diego Go

Good Night Show

Handy Manny

Henry Hugglemonster

Jake and the Neverland Pirates

Julius Jr.

Justin Time

Kipper the Dog

Lalaloopsy

Lazy Town

Lily’s Driftwood Bay

Little Bear

Little Bill

Little Einsteins

Make Way for Noddy

Martha Speaks

Max & Ruby

Mia and Me

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse

Mike the Knight

Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch Friends

Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood

Mixed Nutz

New Zoo Review

Ni Hao Kai-Lan

Noodle and Doodle

Octonauts

Olive the Ostrich

Olivia

Oobi

Pajanimals

Paw Patrol

Peg Plus Cat

Peppa Pig

Peter Rabbit

Phineas & Ferb

Play Along With Sam

Pocoyo

Poppy Cat

Qubo

Reading Rainbow

Rollie Pollie Ollie

Romper Room

Sarah & Duck

Sesame Street

Sharing Show

Sheriff Callie’s Wild West

Sid the Science Kid

Sophia the First

Space Racers

Special Agent Oso

Spongebob Squarepants

Stella & Sam

Sunny Side Up Show

Super Why

Team Umizoomi

Teletubbies

Thomas & Friends

Tickety Toc

Tree Fu Tom

Wibbly Pig

Wiggles

Wonder Pets

Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!

Yo Gabba Gabba

Zack and Quack

Zerby Derby

Zou

***

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my immediate family - my sister Robin who watched kiddie TV with me when we were little, my sister Kathryn who kept me watching kiddie TV long after it was useful to me. To my sister Yvonne and brother Emmett - who were both basically grown and gone by the time I could remember them being around. I didn’t want to leave them out, though!

To my dad who paid for the TV and the electricity going through it, and my mom for putting up with my viewing habits!

And as always everything I do is dedicated to my two lovely ladies - my wife Esther and my daughter Abby. I love you both with all my heart and soul!

***

INTRODUCTION

Some time back I posted on Facebook:

All three of us watched the Teletubbies for the first time. Abby called them RubberDubbers. It was very confusing - The purple one is Jeff, the red one is Murray. I thought Anthony was blue not green. Well, he DID start off as green. Who's the yellow one? That's LaLa. I thought LaLa retired due to health reasons and was replaced by Sam. Where are Mr. Greenjeans and the Moose?

And then in the comments:

And where was Grandfather Clock? Isn’t there a tiger living in the clock? And a trolley? And where’s the big yellow bird? I am so lost!

Ironically just days later the family of Gus Cosmo Allegretti announced he died in July 2013 at age 86. He was one of the last major cast members of Captain Kangaroo. He played Dennis the Apprentice but also did the voice for Mr. Moose (I did not know that but now that I think about it – it sounded just like him!), the voice for Grandfather Clock and was the puppeteer for Bunny Rabbit. There are other cast members still alive – but they were more secondary characters compared to Dennis, Mr. Green Jeans and the good Captain.

The less said about Slim Goodbody the better…

This got me thinking about the television shows my daughter watches. I wondered if other fathers were as befuddled as I was in choice and content. Mothers aren’t befuddled – they are omnipotent. Perhaps fathers (or anyone interested in the subject) could benefit from a guide to children’s programming: a guide from one father to another. A guide told from the perspective of a veteran couch potato and TV watcher.

So they could learn from my mistakes …

***

One month shy of my 45th birthday I became a father for the very first time. A beautiful girl with brown eyes and brown hair. Oh heavens, what have I gotten myself into…

We avoided television for her first year – we researched all the bad news about the electronic babysitter. We read books together and listened to music instead. As she got older, though, we watched TV programs with her. She recognized some of the characters from her books – Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch.

At the same time her babysitter let her watch TV, too. By the time my daughter was two she was into Dora, Barney and Sesame Street. She is now four years old and has her favorites and her not-so-favorites. She is officially an All-American-TV–Zombie. Just like her dad.

Children’s television is a much broader landscape than it was when I was her age. I was born in late 1964. My first memory is my grandfather installing our swing set. My next memory is of the moon landing. I would have been just over 4½ years old. It was late, late at night – around 7:30 or so. I remember my parents telling me to watch this important thing happening on the TV. I remember that – their telling me to watch – more so than the event itself.

Still, I think that’s what instilled my love of science, science fiction and all things nerdy.

I have two younger sisters. Among the many hang-ups that caused include watching children’s television programs until 1982 or so, when I left for college. When I was four years old TV programs aimed at children were either Saturday morning cartoons or local programs with people dressed as clowns and their puppet cohorts showing syndicated cartoons and performing silly skits. Pie-throwing was usually involved.

There was this thing called NET and PBS that aired educational programs for children, but there wasn’t much to it compared to Bugs Bunny, the Groovie Ghoolies and HR Pufinstuf.

By the time I left the world of children’s television PBS was fully ensconced in our American way of life. Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood and The Electric Company were expected, if not mandatory, viewing. Captain Kangaroo was still around, but Zoom, Letter People and Villa Allegre were gone.

Romper Room was around until the 1990s, but it was long gone from my area. I don’t know if the St. Louis area had its own host or showed the syndicated national program. At the time I had no idea what any of that meant. I was just waiting breathlessly for the host to mention my name. Romper bomper stomper boo. Tell me, tell me, tell me do. Magic Mirror, tell me today, have all my friends had fun at play? I sent in my name and my birth date. Naturally on my birthday I slept in and missed. It. Did she say my name, I ask my mother. Yes she did, she said. I suspect now she didn’t and my mother said she did. Mom could handle the smaller explosion of my missing it better than handle the larger explosion of the host not mentioning me by name on my birthday. That I still remember that forty-five years later speaks volumes doesn’t it …

There was no channel devoted solely to children’s television, let alone three or four channels! My daughter has that choice now, though – Sprout, Disney Jr., Nick Jr., good old PBS, even a channel of Christian-themed kid shows called Smchild on the satellite. Kids were no longer relegated to Saturday mornings and before and after school. I don’t know a toddler that watches TV at two in the morning, but their shows are on!

And that is the point of this little exercise. Toddler TV: a Befuddled Father’s Guide to What the Kids are Watching is the result of my viewing, and PRE-viewing, most of the shows available for my daughter to watch.

Hey, you might say, "you spend an entire chapter on Mr. Rogers and only one page to Spongebob! What the heck is that about?! or I was raised on Teenage Mutant Chili Peppers! Where are they in this stupid guide?!"

Good points. I focus on the preschool shows. Spongebob, although a good show, is aimed at kids older than mine. Sorry, but it’s true. Preschoolers may watch Spongebob – and there are certainly toys and games aimed at them with that franchise stamp on it – but the show isn’t aimed at them. It shouldn’t be at any rate. And the Red Hot Ninja Turtles? Older kids still.

Remember – preschoolers.

If your favorite show is missing that may be the reason. Or I may not have the channel on which it airs. Or I may have simply forgotten. I’m almost fifty raising a baby for heaven’s sake. I’m lucky I remember to dress each morning.

Do not forget this is done in the spirit of humor and love, even love for the shows I do not like all that much. You’ll be able to tell which I like and which I don’t. The shows are explained and critiqued not only for the children but the weary parent watching it, too.

Bonafides? Sorry, I’m a lawyer in real life and prone to using bigger words than necessary. Bonafides is a fancy-shmancy way of asking, What qualifies you, Mr. Smarty?

I wrote for (and had a small role in) a children’s television show for a PBS affiliate in the 1980s. Our producers told us that we needed a few small nods to the parents watching to keep them, and ultimately the kids, interested. Give the grown-ups a wink – a joke or reference that will go over the children’s heads but not theirs – and the parents will encourage their kids to keep watching. Sesame Street was a pro at that – especially Jim Henson and his muppets, especially Kermit the Frog.

In the mid-1980s the majority of Sesame Street’s viewers were adults. Some adults watched the show without a toddler in sight. College students were a sizable chunk of the Street’s audience.

The reason some kid shows are so despised is because they lack that connection with adults. Teletubbies & Barney & Friends are two examples of shows adults hate because there is nothing – nothing - aimed at them.

There was nothing aimed at adults in Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood either, you might say. True, but as I will say later, MRN was an unmovable force. Parents were as mesmerized by its quiet and gentle-yet-firm demand to be respected as were the children.

Some shows are popular; other shows just as good or better are not. Some shows work; some do not. Maybe we can find out why. Let’s see what the children are watching…

return to Table of Contents

A Color Scheme

return to Table of Contents

PBS Kids: The grand-daddy of children’s programming

Before PBS, there were lots of things for the kids to watch. Most of it was crap, but there was a lot of it!

In the early morning you could watch, say, The Lone Ranger. Here we learned that good shall always overcome evil in less than thirty minutes. Problems can be solved not through gunplay, but by fistfights. The only problem the Lone Ranger couldn’t solve was the degradation of Native Americans. I kid - I loved The Lone Ranger. I am probably the last generation who still gets a chill down their spine when they hear the opening notes of his theme song (the William Tell Overture). I get the same reaction when I hear the opening fanfare of Star Wars. The music starts and for one-tenth of a second I am twelve years old again. How can that be a bad thing?

Or one could also watch Lassie or Fury. Here an above-average intelligent dog or horse is raised by a loving teenager and his widowed parent. The parent’s cantankerous father-in-law or uncle-in-law is also on hand to help raise the boy. Lassie/Fury is a wonderful and loving pet unless you get on his bad side.

Ruff! Ruff! (translation:Feed me!)

What’s the matter, girl?

Ruff! Ruff! (I said I’m hungry, feed me!")

Where’s Timmy?

Ruff! Ruff! (I don’t know; let’s look for him after dinner.")

Is he caught in a well?

Ruff! Ruff! (Why would you ever think that? Just ‘cause I pushed – er – just ‘cause he fell in one last week…")

And there’s a fire?

Ruff! Ruff! (No, no, the smoke? The Finnegans are barbequing again…")

We have to go rescue him!

Ruff! Ruff! (Wait, come back! I … damn! All right! I’ll take you to him! I didn’t push him in or anything! {races to Timmy} Got to get to that little brat first in case he finks on me!")

Then came the cartoons. Heckle & Jeckle, Popeye with Brutus (not Bluto, Brutus), and for a time they even showed the old Beatle cartoons with (if I remember correctly) Krazy Kat and Beetle (coincidence?) Bailey cartoons sandwiched between the mop top’s adventures. I remember Beanie and Cecil, Tennessee Tuxedo and the Three Stooges …

… and of course the mac-daddy of all pre-PBS kid shows – Captain Kangaroo.

There were also the Saturday mornings – hours and hours of superheroes, wascally wabbits and meddling kids.

And then PBS, when it was called NET (National Educational Television), decided it should create its own version of children’s television programs. Children can be entertained and still learn their ABCs and 123s. They can learn about feelings – being angry, sad or happy.

They picked a show whose producer/writer/host had recently moved his show from Canada to Pittsburgh. He was making an impression with his puppetry and lessons about being yourself and not being afraid of your feelings.

They also picked a show with an urban theme, but also included a masterful puppeteer whose characters included a talking frog, a monster who lived in a trash can and another monster who loved to eat cookies.

The shows were successful – so successful that non-PBS stations filled their programming with similar children’s shows. Gone was Race Bannon shooting neo-Nazis; instead we watched The New Zoo Review, The Big Blue Marble and (in the 1980s) The Great Space Coaster.

Even the beloved Saturday Morning orgy of violence and idiocy showed signs of teaching and learning with In the News (shown in segments between shows), Curiosity Shop and Talking With a Giant.

And Schoolhouse Rock. Who doesn’t start humming the jingle while reading the preamble to the constitution? We the People, in order to form a more perfect union…

***

When I was a child, PBS aired children’s shows in the morning and in the late afternoon when school was out. During the day you might see Julia Child and lots of interview programs. Evenings were for classical music concerts or Shakespeare plays. Later on came the mysteries, other Masterpiece Theater-esque programmes (sic) and Peter, Paul & Mary concerts.

And now PBS airs specials on the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour and enough British detectives to make Sherlock’s head spin.

And now, also, children’s programs run from five in the morning until the PBS Newshour

comes on – I still call it The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; it was called that when it aired right after Zoom.

The PBS children’s programs of today are still quiet and comfortable. With a few exceptions, the characters will still be recognized by adults even forty-plus years later (Oh, I remember reading Clifford the Big Red Dog books – they made a cartoon out of them?). Children watching these shows will more likely learn not to be greedy and to share more than they will learn the three Rs.

What the heck do they mean by three Rs anyway – reading, writing and arithmetic? That’s an R, a W and an A. Three Rs … no wonder we rank somewhere below Togo in education…

Every few months PBS changes their schedule on weekends and weekdays. Some of the shows I talk about no longer air and new ones take their place. Consider this a snapshot of PBS’s line-up.

***

Sid the Science Kid

My daughter and I both like Sid the Science Kid. I think it is aimed at older kids – kindergarten through third grade or so – even though the CGI cast consists of pre-schoolers. There is enough to keep the pre-k young ‘uns interested at least for the first ten minutes or so. Then we can play blocks or color until the last five minutes of the show.

I think she likes it so much because it is so strictly regular and predictable.

When we first realized we were going to have a child, I read everything and anything about child rearing. Of course there were as many theories as to how to raise a child as there were children.

One theme was consistent: consistency.

Keep a regular and predictable schedule. Nap time, meal time, bath time, bed time. Do not waver.

Sid the Science Kid does not waver. It starts with Sid wondering about something. Why do we have to wash our hands? Why can’t we eat cake all day? How can he slide on his bedroom floor (wood) but not the hallway (carpeted)? How can you measure a whale?

His mother (sometimes father) calls him into breakfast. Breakfast tiiiiimmmme! He shouts and runs down the hallway. We meet his mother, father and baby brother. He repeats the questions to his parents who answer his question; sometimes they look at the computer for answers. But then it is time for breakfast.

Music starts as his mother drives him to his day care. He dances in the playground and introduces us to his classmates – each with a little song and dance routine. Always the same – regular and predictable.

I can be cynical and say it helps shorten the new parts of the program. Why produce 23+ minutes of new programming when we can pad it with fixed routines? True, but ... eh, it works.

Then Sid, the roving reporter, interviews his classmates about the day’s topic.

Rug time! Teacher Suzie calls from the classroom. It’s Teacher Suzie, Sid tells us. Suzie sings and dances the kids onto their seats – it’s the same song and dance routine (who am I kidding? It’s the same clip); regular and predictable.

They discuss Sid’s topic du jour. They experiment and explore the topic. Video clips showing real children doing similar experiments – so you at home can do them after the program. One I like shows the kids observing pieces of fruit rotting over days and weeks. They draw what shape the fruit pieces form; they talk about the colors they change into; whether or not – or when – it starts to smell.

In a less gross episode they look at all the different shapes of leaves.

Afterwards the characters tell jokes through Laugh-In style windows. Knock-knock jokes are preferred.

Then grandma takes Sid home. She gives her take on the question-of-the-day (When I was a little girl …). He goes into his house singing and dancing (same clip every show) and tells his parents what he has learned.

Tedious? Not really. I enjoy watching the animation. The show is produced in Jim Henson’s temple as CGI. But the characters are designed as if they were muppets – with big mouths and eyes. Their hands and arms are either skinny, flappy things (think Bert) or large, flowing things that seem to move independently of the head and body – as if another person were in control of it.

Sid runs just like a four-year-old. Brilliant stuff.

And, to be honest, some of the lessons are pretty interesting.

And Teacher Suzie is a hotty.

***

Dinosaur Train

Kids love dinosaurs; kids love trains. This show is the equivalent of a Reese’s commercial. You’ve got your dinosaur show in my train show! You’ve got my train show in my dinosaur show.

The show must be popular – it is on all the time! It’s one of the few shows PBS airs on the weekdays and both days of the weekend. It’s another CGI entry from Temple Henson. But these aren’t muppets or cartoony versions of dinosaurs. The characters are meant to look like real dinosaurs – albeit with soft round eyes and smiles. And they speak English – some with a southern accent and some with a French accent, but still…

The premise is established with an annoying theme song sung with a monotone Elvis lilt. During the series we meet the dinosaur who sings it – a T-Rex named King who looks, sounds and moves like Elvis. He even says Thank yuh, thankyavermuch.

I later learned he is not a T-Rex, but is instead a cryolophosaurus. Yeah, whatever…

Dinosaur Train is the story of a mother and father pteranodon who live in a nest high above a forest. They have four eggs that hatch into three pteranodons – Tiny, Shiny and Don, and one T-Rex. Yipes! Someone must have snuck a T-Rex egg into the nest. Yes, that’s it …

And he better be the ONLY T-Rex egg snuck into our nest. That’s the last time I take a job outta town, says Mr. Pteranodon off-camera.

But they adopt Buddy as one of their own. The parents lift Buddy as they fly off to their adventures.

The children want to learn something about a new dinosaur. Do they migrate? Do they live in the water? Do some live in cold climates?

So they board the Dinosaur Train. It whisks them around the world and into the various time periods. One special program led them into the ocean. The conductor is a Troodon. I had to look that up – I thought he was a velociraptor. The conductor’s son and mother sometimes help with the ticket taking and announcing.

They meet dinosaurs of every size and