Last Shreds Of Sanity

Have any of you seen this children's show, Oobi? Do any of you get it? My daughter is being entertained by hand puppets. Nekkid hand puppets. That sort of talk. And sing. It's like Teletubbies for 4 year olds. Except...not.

This show just freaks me out. They wear little plastic googly eyeball rings as a costume. Some of them wear "body paint" with strange prosthesis sticking off the back of the hand to change them into dinosaurs. Some of the "puppets" that are supposed to be females are clearly male hands. And they only wear "clothing" when they are dressing up. It's weird. I swear who ever came up with this concept was higher than Jeff Spicoli during Mr. Hand's history class!

This brings me to some of the other acid trip children's shows out there. Like Go Diego! Go!, Dora the Explorer, Ni Hao Kai-Lan, 64 Zoo Lane and Pinky Dinky Doo.

Who comes up with this stuff?

My daughter is now speaking a language she says is Spanish, but is more like a mish mash of Japanese, Spanish, British accents & American Sign Language. A good friend of mine has christened it Rowanese.

The first time she came in to tell me 64 Zoo lane was on I thought she was saying something else entirely. And it wasn't appropriate for a 4 year old to be saying! Then I realized that she was mimicking the British accent of the characters on the show and it all made sense.

But seriously, our toddlers and preschoolers are just learning to speak proper English and then these channels {Noggin, PBS Kids} geared towards them play programming with different languages and strange accents. Kids like to imitate. So I get The Diva making up words and calling it Spanish. Yes, imagine, if you will, the looks I get from my Hispanic In~Laws every time she speaks her made up word for Grandpa, instead of abuleto she says ki-hi-loshana-ban. She swears it is, in fact, Spanish even when she gets corrected by people who are fluent in that particular language. Then I get the looks of poison death arrows from the family, like it's my fault. Just because I'm the only white girl in this family, doesn't mean I am responsible for it.

I found out something very interesting a couple of weeks ago thanks to my Dish DVR...Noggin starts playing Little Bear, Miss Spider, etc. at midnight PST. MIDNIGHT. What the hell for? Even on the east coast it's only 3 am. What kid is up at 3 am to watch it?

Who's brilliant idea was this?

You see, I have the DVR set to auto tune to all episodes of The Diva's favorite shows. Imagine my shock {and later horror} to have the TV suddenly change channels at that late hour to Noggin. The horror came when the theme to Little Bear woke up my recently put to bed child {it was a bad night and we have a small house} and I could not get her back to sleep for anything.

Where do these programmers get their info/ideas for time slots? Do they want kids to stay up all night to watch these shows and drive their parents into the nut hut? Or are they hoping to maybe get the European market at that time? It just makes no sense to me.

Oh, and why, oh why are they showing Sketchers commercials during the preschool programming? Now my daughter wants a pair, along with every other advertised product she has seen on that station. Just what I need, a product aware, advertising indoctrinated 4 year old!

I originally let her watch these shows because they were not mindless drivel or teaching violence to my child. I did not realize that the commercials for expensive, relatively useless products were so prevalent. What purpose does a spot for the Quiznos "stick it in me" campaign or the friggin Bump-it infomercial serve during programs for the preschool set? My daughter thinks I need a Bump-it now. She is also obsessed with the Snuggi, & Bend-A-Hangers.

Thanks a bunch, Mr. Agency Man. I appreciate it more than you will ever know. Do you and Jeff Spicoli, the stoner programmer dude, coordinate this schedule just to screw with us parents, or what?

Maybe I should just stick to DVD's of Signing Time, Little Einsteins & Dragon Tales from now on.

~*~*~This article was originally posted here, it's where else I can be found {As my other persona, Shan}.~*~*~