Stop! Stop! I'm Scandal-ed out! At least for a couple of hours, until Dreher's on
Court TV at 5:30.
A few thoughts on children's television. Except for Rugrats, we haven't watched any for a good long while, but now with Joseph, we're back into it, just a little bit, just as much as is decent for an-almost one year old.
My assessment? In the nineteen years I've been a parent, children's television has improved a lot. Really. Think about it. Back when my oldest was little, cable was just a'bornin', and all we had were wretched Saturday morning cartoons (Smurfs...the bane of my early 20's) and PBS. Now the choices are a lot more varied, and there's actually some very good, commercial-free stuff out there, and most of it is fairly free of anvils-bearing-Messages. Our favorites:
Blue's Clues. Every generation, it seems, must have its gently-speaking asexual male on television. For me and my older children it was Mr. Rogers. For Katie, it was the horrible Barney. Now it's Steve, he of the green rugby shirt and big wide eyes on a face that fills up the screen - and that's what babies like - faces. I'll take Steve over Mr. Rogers anyday, myself. His manner is simple and direct, without Mr. Roger's insipidness (word?) and forced non-condescension.
Bob the Builder is good, too, a rather ingenious play on all small children's fascination with construction and trucks. It's just so pleasantly straightforward: Bob the Builder. You know?
The best, though, is Rolie-Polie Olie, which is probably the most charming cartoon I've ever seen. It's based on a book by William Joyce, a fine children's author, and is just a beautiful expression of retro futurism, with jazzy 30's style music in the background and a world in which almost every single object has a face of some sort. Plus, it's a cartoon with simple, 100% irony-free stories and dialogue. As I've said before, I think we've all had enough irony-drenched, wise-assed children's "entertainment" full of pop-culture references and comedian-de-jour's voices. Anarchy is fine. Anarchy is traditional and good in Toon Land. But irony's different, even from anarchy. It's the very opposite of wonder, imagination and enchantment. It's Pixel-ated postmodern meaninglessness. I can't stand it. It makes me tired and makes me feel that someone, somewhere, is trying to impress me with their knowingness, which, in the end, is never impressive.