execrable children's programming pox

I saw an episode of Doodlebops and holy shit wtf I don't even. I don't have a child but goddam if I did she wouldn't be watching this. Why is this sick stuff legal?

and don't get me started on Dora the Explorer, good Lord!

I like the Backyardigans.

Peppa Pig is quite often the best thing on telly.

can't stand kids' shows like waybuloo where the characters talk in gibberish. kids are supposed to be learning how to TALK, not how to go "FEEEEmooooo eeeewennn!" - they can do that already quite nicely thanks#

waybuloo also promotes a distinctly pro crystal vibes mystical bullshit ethos imo

The show features four whimsical characters called Piplings who live in Nara and play with real children, referred to as ‘cheebies’. It encourages children to get interested in exercise by showing them a simple version of yoga.

i mean

kids programmes are for kids tbh

http://www.popartuk.com/g/l/lgPP32337.jpg

the Wiggles/Doodlebops continuum is just abominable

my kid primarily watches two shows: Yo Gabba Gabba and Sesame Street. She's seen Thomas the Train on occasion, and a bunch of episodes of the old Muppet Show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3Wf9vixP80

NO, wait! This one!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS2hhVHFJrw

Horns and dance moves!!

Really like Backyardigans. Music director is John Lurie's brother! Also, great dancing, fun stories, low pandering factor.

I'd never seen Thomas until recently, but from what I've picked up, each episode seems to be about how one of the trains acts like a total asshole?

Saw an episode of Lazytown a few weeks ago. That was weird. Not certain if I like it.

Spongebob obviously supposed to skew a little older, but more than half the time, I want to set my TV on fire after watching it.

My favorite thing on earth right now is Chica on the Sunny-Side Up Show. I was home sick for a week with my daughter recently and she got so happy about that little chicken puppet. It brings tears to my eyes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz1i4exvVMA

My son was into Doodlebops briefly when he was a lot younger. I don't impose my tastes on the kids, because they can attach so much personal significance to the stuff they like. You know, they're like "Doodlebops are awesome! I want to be a Doodlebop!" And you can't be all like "No son, Doodlebops are LAME." I was really glad when he moved on to something else, though.

Fresh Beat Band is more tolerable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8RYs2iEgvg

I don't impose my tastes on the kids

how old is your kid...?

cuz I mean before a certain age they're incapable of making media choices on their own

Well, on the older one. He's almost 8. I've been his parent since he was 4. I've never asked him to turn something off for the sole reason that I didn't like it. There would have to be some kind of content issue, and there usually isn't.

ah okay that makes sense. Yeah once my daughter can figure out how to turn on the TV and play music on the stereo by herself I expect to limit my role to one of establishing ground rules for how much she can watch and monitoring questionable/adult content. But at this point (she's 4) she pretty much is only exposed to the music and the TV shows that I choose for her, so I'm always surprised when people complain about the tastes of toddlers or whatever - like, if you're annoyed that they love a particular Disney song so much, maybe you shouldn't have taken them to the movie etc.

they learn it from their friends, child minders, etc. it's sick. my three year old is intimately acquainted with the entire cast of peppa pig despite us having never played it to him, ever.

Johnny Test is so awful. I didn't even realize it until tonight when I was consciously trying to decide how much I really liked my son's tv shows. It dawned on me: every time this show comes on, I completely tune out or wander off to do the dishes or something.

It may be the noisiest show I've ever heard. It's completely reliant on repetitive soundtrack motifs the way that shitty sitcoms were completely reliant on laughtracks to let you know when the jokes happened. It's just wall-to-wall clanging.

haha, otm. that is one of the few shows we make the kids turn off.

I saw Harvey Feierstein on Sesame Street the other day. Everything was coming up noses.

guys so i'm guessing your kids are pretty young you should watch yo gabba gabba while it's still not weird. it's the best show!

my kid is almost 13 now and he likes icarly.

I heard pre-K kids talking about Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez. For the first time, I was all "those two better not fuck up like Brittany and Miley."

Add Lego Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitsu to this list, please.

Annoying Orange ftw

Will the children of the future remember Annoying Orange with the same fondness that we remember Bugs Bunny or whatever?

"my kid is almost 13 now and he likes icarly.

― hhhhhh Bill I juste like ertronic thinges (NZA), Thursday, January 26, 2012 5:57 PM (8 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink"

hell, I like iCarly

My fav shows beats watches are fairly oddparents, danny phantom and spiderman and his amazing friends (the series with firestar and iceman). Henry is strictly yo gabba. Before gabba he just wasn't interested in tv. what a weirdo.

my toddler's super into Twisted Whiskers. It's a whole TV series designed, I guess, to promote a line of greeting cards from American Greetings? Well, here"

)

Twisted Whiskers is a childrens series developed in 2010 for entertainment and American Greeting has used some information for greeting cardsTwisted Whiskers is a design for greeting cards developed and licensed by American Greetings and created by Terrill Bohlar since 2001. It includes digitally modified photos of animals, creating a caricature. The series includes greeting cards, gift items, wrapping paper, notepads and holiday items. Animated e-cards and instant messenger products have been produced as well. In 2011, American Greetings relaunched the line with the release of greeting cards featuring lenticular designs, showing a pet turning into a trademark character of the Twisted Whiskers line.

Oh, here's one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4IGomyth9U&feature=c4-overview&list=UUWTogLTWpjItvnLSKJJUtLA

There's a fuckton of it on Netflix.

Beatrice loves twisted whiskers too. I was amazed they made a series based off of greeting cards. I mean they must be selling a shit ton of those cards to make a tv show cost prohibitive.

We dont watch "TV" much anymore. Its all Netflix. Henry is mad into Oscars Oasis and Pingu. To us these are interesting choices as they have no real dialogue and Henry has delayed speech development. The weird thing about that being he can understand everything he hears but cant say much back too clearly.

fuckton shit ton. what charming parents we are.

Been having total bummer-thoughts about animal cartoons with mixed-species casts and poorly-matched life expectancies. Take Wonder Pets for example. You have a guinea pig (life expectancy 4-5 years), a duck (life expectancy 10-20 years*), and a turtle (life expectancy decades). Realize this is not the programs fault and is really more indicative of my own mental state. Not exclusive to the Wonder Pets, obvs. Could easily transpose to Looney Tunes or whatever. Had to share this with someone though and I'm just adding to my list of things I'm sure as hell not gonna bring up in front of the kids.

*Presuming with the name Ming Ming that she is a Mandarin Duck.

Beatrice loves twisted whiskers too. I was amazed they made a series based off of greeting cards. I mean they must be selling a shit ton of those cards to make a tv show cost prohibitive.

― educate yourself to this reality (sunny successor), Thursday, June 20, 2013 10:03 AM (three years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Just learned recently that American Greetings was also responsible for Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, and (my favorite when I was 4) The Get Along Gang.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Get-Along_Gang_cartoon_group.jpg

Anyway, lately my youngest has been into H20: Mermaid Adventures on Netflix, a cartoon reboot of an Australian live-action show. It's corny as hell but I'm actually enjoying it and try to subtly hint for it instead of another round of Octonauts or whatever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNa_fMQO8R4

i would take the shittiest cheapest narrative cartoon over the youtube videos my kids now watch of people just opening and describing toys

I want to find the guy who came up with this series, lock him up in a room somewhere....

http://i.imgur.com/FnrbFzU.png

hate shimmer & shine, littlest pet shop, the new strawberry shortcake, shopkins, mlp: equestria girls, paw patrol, lalaloopsy, lalaloopsy, i really cannot state enough how much i hate lalaloopsy, bubble guppies, mickey's clubhouse

all of these shows my children love

lazy town is super creepy. luckily my kids don't like it.

We Bare Bears, on the other hand, see also Adventure Time, and to a lesser extent Regular Show, I happily watch them without the kids there.

steven universe and adventure time are both a++ shows that my kids are not half as interested in as i am

i would take the shittiest cheapest narrative cartoon over the youtube videos my kids now watch of people just opening and describing toys

omfg these are THE WORST

there's one of a dude ordering his wife to play with a Thomas toy set a certain way that my kids were playing on repeat for a while that is unberable and had me on the verge of going full Luddite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNaTZV8qS1I

^^^ this OTOH made me laugh really, really loudly

i can't believe how much Thomas i've watched. i think that phase is maybe over. i think we've talked about this before DJP but i feel like the creepy dictatorship of Sodor seems to indicate to me a nazi victory on the mainland and there's sort of "Train in the High Castle" shit that's going on. basing this entirely on my theory of topham hatt being a former Gestapo with sadistic methods, cf walling up Henry as punishment and what not, the constant terror the trains live in of being turned into scrap, etc.

I am 100% down with a "Life Is Beautiful And Really Useful" reading of Thomas and Friends

Bing is sweet, but the impression it gives is of some far-future post-human utopia where genetically engineered "human" animal children are cared for by AIs in the bodies of toys

Bernard, about an accident-prone and bad-tempered polar bear, is quite good, but occasionally horrifyingly sadistic

yeah we're down with the no-screens-til-2 thing (parents are a bit more liberal/slack but they do pretty good), just wanted to mention that a younger one is coming up and will also watch video at some point, so we wanna pick up a few things now. thanks!

Good children's programming

ty

maybe relevant to this discussion - there seem to be a bunch of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse videos on YouTube that do pretty much everything possible to get around Disney's copyright detection algorithm, including increasing the speed, flipping the screen, and dropping out big chunks of the show. they're completely unwatchable but I assume someone's making a quick buck there.

My "favorites" are the MMC "episodes" that turn out to be video of some terrible tie-in game

sorry to be That Guy but we don't let our kids watch TV or YouTube except on special occasions and i gotta say it works out GREAT. and if you think "it's too late, can't put the genie back in the bottle" well, in our case at least, we totally could. we used to let them watch cbeebies every day, but the crying and whining about how many episodes they could watch, and the screaming when the TV got turned off, was eventually just too much for us so we just shut it down for good. it only took three or four (hellish) days for them to stop asking about it. when grandparents are over the kids get to watch some TV, usually DVDs brought by the grandparents, and sometimes as a reward for good behaviour we'll let the oldest one watch graffiti stuff on YT but i watch that shit like a HAWK (or at least keep an ear out). no way am i going to let them just follow "watch next" links, i just do not trust that shit at all.

no way am i going to let them just follow "watch next" links, i just do not trust that shit at all.

You shouldn't, it gets weird and terrible very quickly.

For us, we have the TV on as background noise constantly so putting it on their channels made sense for us. So far the whining has been manageable (and there's been little-to-no screaming when the TV goes off).

good god you are blessed. honestly.

speaking of thomas the tank engine this is at least as disturbing as anything in the algorithmic shite factory article:

https://youtu.be/iO6qIM2WO6k?t=168

"i think he deserved his punishment, don't you?"

yea we don't do any screen time either. our kids are 2 and 5. it's not wholly an intentional thing, we just don't watch a lot of TV ourselves and don't own any tablets or anything. though i think our older kid's autism diagnosis made us a little more firm about it since screen time is especially not recommended for young kids with autism. it does make things easier in general i think. i don't judge folks who do. there are a lot of times when we've thought it would be a nice thing for them to do while we're cooking dinner or whatever, but instead we just let them play on their own with trains, cars, outside in the yard, etc.

old-skool Thomas is terrifying; did you ever see the one where they were laughing about lorries driving off of mountains?

"i think he deserved his punishment, don't you?"

lool

sorry to be That Guy but we don't let our kids watch TV or YouTube except on special occasions and i gotta say it works out GREAT.

I am increasingly thinking about this. We have clamped right down on portable screens — no iPad at all except on flights, no phones except in extremis, eg in the restaurant that inexplicably took 40 minutes to bring our food.

TV he has had daily, tbh, in restricted amounts at breakfast time and bedtime. Breakfast time because schedules mean it's often him left unsupervised in the flat while the adult in charge is showering, and TV is a reasonable way of stopping him climbing the bookcase or other lethal activities. Bedtime because it's a good mood manager — 30 mins of watching brings him down from late-evening mania.

I think we could definitely go without at bedtime, once we trust his behaviour a bit more probably go without at breakfast time too.

We just recently started turning off the TV 30 min before bedtime because without it, they're much more likely to go to bed without argument; sometimes they'll go early and ask for extra stories which is A++

We experimentally began allowing a 1/2 hour of screen time per weekday and 1 hour on the weekends when my son was turning 2. We've held it at that level for a year and he doesn't seem to want any more.

What, I thought Jonny Jonny Yes Papa was an American thing?! It's on Little baby Bum and other nursery rhyme things like Dave and Ava, absolutely baffled by it. Telling lies, ah ah ah

Son also likes appalling quality knock-off animations which is particularly hilarious as his dad is fairly senior in VFX/animation and it pains him

Little Baby Bum is out of India IIRC; I had never heard that song before encountering that video, which was honestly one of the most perplexing experiences of my life.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/johnny-johnny-yes-papa

apparently someone just made the damn thing up 8 years ago

Right. It seems to be of Indian origin and recent - not, like a lot of YTK vids, an Indian version of an Anglophone nursery rhyme. Which would be fine if it were not also stupid.

F's crafty "no papa" face makes it all worthwhile for me

My son flipped the script and indicated that we should do Daddy Daddy? / Yes Sammy? / Drinking beer? / No Sammy.

Yeah, that Johnny Johnny 3D thing freaked me the fuck out when I first saw it - I've caught a fair few of these on "weird youtube" and seen some very odd Elsa from Frozen Caesarian Section type games on hosting sites but I think not having (or having much to do with) kids means I may well have missed out some proper weirdo content.

I still cannot believe that Elsa game exists

I just spent a good 30 mins trying to find a Medium post that made waves over the summer abt this "phenomenon", creepy youtube for kids. It was about these youtube clips, seemingly created for children but with bitter, torturous twists (stuff like Peppa Pig being degraded, hurting etc). The comment sections all had comments in some form of code language, seemingly gibberish, but when decoded lead to child pornography websites and degradation porn. No conspiracy (or lunacy) theory stuff here, trust me, it really did lead to horrible websites. But I cannot for the life of me find the medium article any more... :-(

It's probably deleted. Regardless, it's where tl;dr James Bridle got his info from though, but in his Medium article he's only barely scratching the surface.

In short: there's some fucked up stuff just a click away. The digital variant of luring kids makes me nauseous.

KIDEODROME: scary "Kid's Youtube" algorithms, fringe programming, insert conspiracy theory here

Have generally been on board with Hey Duggee but ffs the stick song gaaaaah

STICKY STICKY STICK STICK

beachville at 8:20 7 Mar 12

Add Lego Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitsu to this list, please.

Paw patrol is fecking terrible. Just awful. Thomas and Friends is like a masterclass in storytelling in comparison

It’s amazingly terrible but I’m really jealous I didn’t come up with it. Like half of every episode is just a montage of them getting into their vehicles.

Thankfully my kid isn’t that into it other than when he’s sick and has already watched Moana, Dino Dana, and Peg + Cat all of which are orders of magnitude better.

We’re in a Sarah and Duck/Puffin Rock phase, which are about the chillest cartoons ever.

we've pretty definitely jumped out of this thread - they're all about match of the day and effing top gear now

Hey Dugee is very enjoyable, i am discovering.

Hey Dugee is the best thing on the BBC at the moment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K05N2jqFHc8

This is the only clip I can find of their Apocalypse Now parody

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN-FrziBbWU

That Apocalypse Now bit felt like a present just for me

Aaaahk! My daughter has for some reason become obsessed with watching these interminable unboxing/reviewe videos where over-excited middle-aged American women with irritating voices and vocabularies consisting of only 14 words other than "soooo cuuuute!" open up endless blind-bagged collectible toys. I am going insane.

My daughter is deep into a Pokemon obsession right now and while I guess the show isn't the worst, she always wants to have imaginary pokemon battles with me and I can never remember any of their names our their powers. She spent three straight hours last night skipping around the house and babbling about various Pokemon and their attacks and evolutions. I'm proud of her for memorizing all these facts and I want to participate in her obsession in some way but my brain just shuts down at anything beyond Bulbasaur, pretty much.

I would welcome Pokémon at this time. RN my son got into watching Beyblade (a show which makes exactly zero sense) and that led him to Yo-Kai Watch.

Occasionally, though he comes up for air and rediscovers some shows I kinda liked when my daughter was little (10 years back). The music in Wonder Pets, Backyardigans, and Bubble Guppies is pretty decent.

Man, I miss Nick Jr. All I see now is "Hey guys, what is up. Today we're going to learn how to glitch out of the police station in Murder Mystery 2...."

Beyblade doesn't look like something I'll have to worry about but this Yo-Kai Watch thing seems to have a ton of cute animals, which is right up her alley. I am very afraid.

I miss Wonder Pets and Backyardigans.

Wonder Pets featured some of the most negligent parents in the world though. </judging>

Yeah, what the fuck, mama kangaroo? YOU EVEN HAVE A HANDY POUCH TO KEEP YOUR YOUNG IN.

But the "...Save the Beetles" ep was choice.

I like the Boinga song from Backyardigans' "Mission to Mars." Bubble Guppies brought some clever lyric writing (like the internal rhymes in "all of the bones that everyone owns / underneath the skin they're in").

Is this 'baby shark' song an actual thing or just something my son has picked up from somewhere?

this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR2o6k8aPlI

this is the one I know and am doomed to have in my head forever:
http://youtu.be/XqZsoesa55w

I'm not actually sure which version he was trying to tell me about ...

1.3 BILLION views

jesus christ

they teach it in day care. its got its own coordinated hand movements and everything

I saw the vid sleeve posted, thought "ahh that's where it comes from". later came to realize that every cheapo kiddie animation factory does this song. so who knows.

we spent some time in Mexico and found out that they do this stuff way better than us

there are a lot of really catchy ones. and not in the same way as "Baby Shark, doo doo doo doo". plus the videos are actually kind of funny. these two crack me up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_c-HVfe4VM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGFOXpgsw1M

My 8yo son mentioned last night about some terrible catchy song kids in his class were singing and asked me to look it up so I found it, or a version of it, on YouTube. It is indeed a terrible catchy song with ok animation but then 55 seconds in a cartoon boy pops up with a handgun, wearing a tshirt that says "Jerk":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-xWhG4UU_Y

wtf is that all about? Have I stumbled across one of those sinister kids youtube channels that people were talking about a few months ago?