Cartoons
Hans has been suggesting for a very long time that I blog about the children's programming that we are forced to watch. Every. Single. Day.
Some of it is better than others. Some of it is actually tolerable to an adult and a child.
Here is our regular morning lineup:
1) Maisy
2) 64 Zoo Lane
3) Higglytown Heroes
4) Little Einsteins
5) Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
6) Charlie & Lola
Each of these lasts half an hour. That's right. Do the math and you'll see that my kids spend around two hours watching cartoons every morning. We only watch Maisy if we get up very early, and we watch Charlie & Lola at 10:30 or 11:00 after we've had a break for baths, getting dressed, picking up Legos, making beds, re-picking up Legos and brushing our teeth.
The truth is that we have purposely steered our children towards loving these particular cartoons, because we can stand them.
Maisy is a very simple cartoon, full of bright colors and not a whole lot of action. It is narrated, Maisy doesn't actually talk, but makes a lot of strange noises that are supposed to be emotions and words (think the teacher in the Peanuts, only easier to listen to). Maisy has been a staple since Josiah was very little. She was also popular in Japan. We have a Maisy pop-up book that shows the alphabet in English and kanji.
64 Zoo Lane is about a little girl whose house is right next to a zoo. She obviously lives somewhere where zoning laws don't exist. I would think it would smell funny and I'd be nervous about bears and panthers breaking out or something. But Lucy, the heroine of 64 Zoo Lane, gets out of bed every night and slides down the neck of a giraffe to hang out with the animals and listen to them tell stories of life on the "outside". Apparently, all of these animals lived in Africa or something before they were captured and forced to tell stories to a naughty little girl every night. If I was Lucy's mother, I'd be pretty mad to discover she was doing things like getting up and sliding down giraffe's necks. Anyway, we have also watched 64 Zoo Lane since Josiah was teeny-tiny. It's pretty cute, in small doses.
Higglytown Heroes has been on for awhile, too, but I didn't like it at first. Then, it became a matter of "either start watching it or watch DORA" and I quickly picked sides. I have to say that Higglytown Heroes has become one of my favorites. It's about four kids and their squirrel. There are two things that bug me about the Higgly kids--they are shaped like eggs and can split in half and "nest" inside each other like Russian dolls. That disturbs me. They're alive, don't they have internal organs and stuff? It just creeps me when they nest. I'm also bothered by the fact that their arms disappear when they aren't wildly gesticulating. One minute, their arms are there, then they fall to their sides and are morphed into their bodies (it's all CGI). Anyway, I really like the storylines...the kids always get into some sort of problem and therefore need an adult "hero" to help them. So kids get to meet various people in the community: policeman, firefighter, dog trainer, furnace repairman. I really loved yesterday's episode: there was a hole in the roof, so the called the roofer to come and the roofer was a SHE!! Ha!! She split in half and she was carrying a 40' ladder around in her body. Maybe they don't have internal organs. Anyway.
Little Einsteins is good. It's certainly educational. I'm watching it as I type. There's lots of classical music, snippets of which are repeated ad nauseum through the entire show. The other day I was playing Eine Kleine Nachtmusik for Josiah and he started singing along...so I know that they are at the very least learning the tunes of the world's most famous classical music. He learns the sounds of different instruments and other various things about animals, plants, etc. Everybody knows that if you don't let your kids watch Baby/Little Einstein programming, they will ride the short bus.
Mickey Mouse is my least favorite. I find it to be chokingly saccharine. But Charlie & Lola is my absolute favorite and my best (that isn't a typo, it's a Lola-ism). Charlie & Lola are a British brother and sister. The British part alone makes it worth watching. They're always having "biscuits" and yelling for their "mum". They have delightful accents. Everything sounds better in British. Well, some British. Maybe not Cockney, Eliza Doolittle-esque. Anyway. Charlie is the big brother and Lola is his little, funny sister. Their relationship is just so adorable. Charlie is such a sweet big brother and Lola is just so goofy. This is the cartoon that I will sit down and watch while having my juicebox and Goldfish. And don't interrupt me, either.
OK, so there you go. As for other cartoons, we don't let Josiah watch The Simpsons anymore. And definitely not Robot Chicken, Family Guy or anything else that appears on Cartoon Network in the Adult Swim. Surprisingly, we have seen a steady decline in the amount of Thomas that we've been having to consume. I conciously steer them away from Dora and/or any of the shows of Dora's aunts, uncles, cousins, sisters or goats. I loathe Dora. Loathe is a kind word.
Everything you did and didn't want to know about cartoons. Jeez, I didn't even get around to talking about The Goodnight Show. I guess I'll save that for a different post. Yay! I know you're all looking forward to it!!
Some of it is better than others. Some of it is actually tolerable to an adult and a child.
Here is our regular morning lineup:
1) Maisy
2) 64 Zoo Lane
3) Higglytown Heroes
4) Little Einsteins
5) Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
6) Charlie & Lola
Each of these lasts half an hour. That's right. Do the math and you'll see that my kids spend around two hours watching cartoons every morning. We only watch Maisy if we get up very early, and we watch Charlie & Lola at 10:30 or 11:00 after we've had a break for baths, getting dressed, picking up Legos, making beds, re-picking up Legos and brushing our teeth.
The truth is that we have purposely steered our children towards loving these particular cartoons, because we can stand them.
Maisy is a very simple cartoon, full of bright colors and not a whole lot of action. It is narrated, Maisy doesn't actually talk, but makes a lot of strange noises that are supposed to be emotions and words (think the teacher in the Peanuts, only easier to listen to). Maisy has been a staple since Josiah was very little. She was also popular in Japan. We have a Maisy pop-up book that shows the alphabet in English and kanji.
64 Zoo Lane is about a little girl whose house is right next to a zoo. She obviously lives somewhere where zoning laws don't exist. I would think it would smell funny and I'd be nervous about bears and panthers breaking out or something. But Lucy, the heroine of 64 Zoo Lane, gets out of bed every night and slides down the neck of a giraffe to hang out with the animals and listen to them tell stories of life on the "outside". Apparently, all of these animals lived in Africa or something before they were captured and forced to tell stories to a naughty little girl every night. If I was Lucy's mother, I'd be pretty mad to discover she was doing things like getting up and sliding down giraffe's necks. Anyway, we have also watched 64 Zoo Lane since Josiah was teeny-tiny. It's pretty cute, in small doses.
Higglytown Heroes has been on for awhile, too, but I didn't like it at first. Then, it became a matter of "either start watching it or watch DORA" and I quickly picked sides. I have to say that Higglytown Heroes has become one of my favorites. It's about four kids and their squirrel. There are two things that bug me about the Higgly kids--they are shaped like eggs and can split in half and "nest" inside each other like Russian dolls. That disturbs me. They're alive, don't they have internal organs and stuff? It just creeps me when they nest. I'm also bothered by the fact that their arms disappear when they aren't wildly gesticulating. One minute, their arms are there, then they fall to their sides and are morphed into their bodies (it's all CGI). Anyway, I really like the storylines...the kids always get into some sort of problem and therefore need an adult "hero" to help them. So kids get to meet various people in the community: policeman, firefighter, dog trainer, furnace repairman. I really loved yesterday's episode: there was a hole in the roof, so the called the roofer to come and the roofer was a SHE!! Ha!! She split in half and she was carrying a 40' ladder around in her body. Maybe they don't have internal organs. Anyway.
Little Einsteins is good. It's certainly educational. I'm watching it as I type. There's lots of classical music, snippets of which are repeated ad nauseum through the entire show. The other day I was playing Eine Kleine Nachtmusik for Josiah and he started singing along...so I know that they are at the very least learning the tunes of the world's most famous classical music. He learns the sounds of different instruments and other various things about animals, plants, etc. Everybody knows that if you don't let your kids watch Baby/Little Einstein programming, they will ride the short bus.
Mickey Mouse is my least favorite. I find it to be chokingly saccharine. But Charlie & Lola is my absolute favorite and my best (that isn't a typo, it's a Lola-ism). Charlie & Lola are a British brother and sister. The British part alone makes it worth watching. They're always having "biscuits" and yelling for their "mum". They have delightful accents. Everything sounds better in British. Well, some British. Maybe not Cockney, Eliza Doolittle-esque. Anyway. Charlie is the big brother and Lola is his little, funny sister. Their relationship is just so adorable. Charlie is such a sweet big brother and Lola is just so goofy. This is the cartoon that I will sit down and watch while having my juicebox and Goldfish. And don't interrupt me, either.
OK, so there you go. As for other cartoons, we don't let Josiah watch The Simpsons anymore. And definitely not Robot Chicken, Family Guy or anything else that appears on Cartoon Network in the Adult Swim. Surprisingly, we have seen a steady decline in the amount of Thomas that we've been having to consume. I conciously steer them away from Dora and/or any of the shows of Dora's aunts, uncles, cousins, sisters or goats. I loathe Dora. Loathe is a kind word.
Everything you did and didn't want to know about cartoons. Jeez, I didn't even get around to talking about The Goodnight Show. I guess I'll save that for a different post. Yay! I know you're all looking forward to it!!
Comments
Just this morning Sam got up at 5:30, which is early for him. So, we turned on the TV. Scuba of course had it set on ESPN and Sam was slightly interested. I said, let's try some cartoons, so flipped through until we landed on a channel.
Guess what we watched? Higglytown Heroes! Scuba and I were snorting with laughter at "Dr. Allergen" and later, "Pizza Guy" and we also commented on the fact that they just randomly split apart and hide in each other and stuff like that. Sam was ENTRANCED by this show.
Later, "Little Einsteins" was on and we caught a bit of that. Also enjoyed the music and patting to get the spacecraft moving. Sam seemed to like it verrrry much.
I miss Looney Tunes, too...while we were watching "Higglytown" I actually said how much I missed Bugs. Too funny.