Tube Talk: Kiddie TV

How to earn those square eyes early.

Baby G and I caught whatever bug was going around a couple of weeks ago, and so I took the opportunity to introduce him to the Magic Box. Passive entertainment isn't such a bad thing when everyone is cranky and congested. Not that baby G hasn't been exposed to what I like to think of as "second-hand TV." When we watch "The Daily Show" or "Nightly News with Brian Williams," baby G is in the playpen right beside us. But now that he's starting to do a Jon Stewart-inspired exaggerated shrug and chuckling with the studio audience, we might have to be more careful. Which is why we started watching programming made for kids—the following three programs in particular:

• Sesame Street. I loved, loved, loved "Sesame Street" as a child (and looooong after)—but I was pleasantly surprised to see that the neighborhood is still the same after all these years. Sure, there are new people and monsters on the street, but Oscar still lives in his trash can and Maria and Luis still repair toasters at the fix-it shop. And, of course, it still has an unabashed alphanumeric agenda, with fun songs and commercial parodies featuring the letters and numbers of the day.
  
  I had forgotten how clever Sesame Street is—the writers do a good job of keeping parents engaged, too, with parodies like "Law and Order: Missing Letters Unit," "The Adventures of Trash Gordon," "A's Anatomy," and "The Amazing Alphabet Race." Also, at least one celeb features prominently in each episode. This morning, I cracked up when James Blunt and Telly Monster sang "My Triangle", a parody of the singer's ubiquitous "You're Beautiful." I appreciate this because I now know who James Blunt is, which I'm pretty sure knocks 5 years off my age. I also love that Sesame Street isn't afraid to throw in $10 words, like when Cookie Monster's favorite snack broke in two and left him feeling "slightly lachrymose." How often does "lachrymose" appear in a laugh line? So great.
  
  Probably the biggest change is that the last 15 minutes or so are now a segment called "Elmo's World" starring the red-felted Muppet with the Jar-Jar-like voice. Luckily, this little monster is a lot less annoying than he was back in the day. "Elmo's World" is geared for the youngest viewers, and baby G does perk right up when "Cat"—his word for Elmo, and any Muppet, for that matter—appears on the screen. Elmo explores one theme every day—usually anatomy like feet and eyes, or activities like jumping and helping. Sure, I have some beef with the creepy mime bit and the annoying ending song where Elmo plinks out the tune to "Jingle Bells" and sings the word of the day over and over. ("Eyes eyes eyes eyes eyes eyes"—yeesh.) But it does get the message across: After the segment on "teeth," baby G was pulling back our lips and shouting "chooch!"—a word that now serves for both "tooth" and "couch."
  
  Anyway, it's pretty great that baby G and I have something to watch that we both enjoy. After 40 plus years, "Sesame Street" is still the gold standard of children's programming. *****

• Yo Gabba Gabba. When my brother called to tell me about this show, he said he didn't know if it was the greatest thing ever or the worst acid trip for kids he'd ever seen. You get the indie/emo flavor from the intro of this Nick Jr. program, which you can check out here. The show opens with the host—a young guy called DJ Lance who sports Buddy Holly glasses, a fuzzy orange Cossack,  and a matching jumpsuit—grooving across a white screen with his boombox. ("What's that?" The kids are going to want to know.) He opens the box to reveal what looks like a set of five grodie Gumby figurines that magically come to life (as people in full-body suits) when he lifts them out.
  
  The characters have babytalk names—Muno, Foofa, Brobee, Toodee, and Plex—and their neon color palette comes straight out of a highlighter set. The character voices aren't as shrill as the Chipmunks, but they have a similar timbre—maybe more like a higher-pitched version of the little green aliens from Toy Story. In other words, they hover close to annoying, but are fairly watchable. To frenetic beats, the characters sing about being polite, going to sleep, the seasons, the dangers of crossing the street, etc.—and the show is broken up with little segments of kids dancing or bizarre interludes such as Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh teaching kids how to draw or DJ Lance making funny faces.
  
  The problem with "Yo Gabba Gabba" is that the imperative prevails! Dance! Smile! Play! Every song is a command, and has maybe 10 words in it. After what seemed like the billionth chorus of "Don't give up, don't give up!" I wanted to rebel and quit everything. This is the kind of show I imagine kids have to watch in dystopias like the one in 1138. Dance! Like it! Or else.     ***



• Dora the Explorer. I was prepared to love Dora. After all, she's a smart, bilingual girl protagonist with cute gear that all the kids seem to love. Girl power! The 30-minute cartoon airs on Nickelodeon, and I set the DVR to record every episode.
  
  Boy, was that a mistake! It is absolutely unwatchable. Dora and her friends—a monkey and a map—have such obnoxious, shrill voices (or is it the same voice?), that I'm pretty sure they can pierce small ear drums. The show format is a lot like an activity book maze. In each episode, Dora and friends must solve a problem by getting from point A to point B through a variety of obstacles. To stay on the right path, the characters break the fourth wall and ask the viewers to shout out answers to questions, such as "Should we go LEFT or RIGHT?" While Dora and pals re-shriek the question over and over, an arrow icon hovers on the screen for a very long time before clicking on the right answer. How lame! And this happens over and over again. It is interminable. Even baby G turned his back to the TV.
  
  I was most disappointed by the bilingual element—there seemed to be very few Spanish vocabulary words, and the ones they used weren't reinforced well. One segment of "Sesame Street's" "Murray Has a Little Lamb" introduces more Spanish vocab than three episodes of Dora combined. So, I bid adios! to the tot icon and turned on Magnum P.I. Hey, there's only so much kid stuff a person can watch in a day!     **