Friday, June 30, 2006
Imported TV
THE GOOD
This is Daniel Cook is awesome. We love Daniel in our house. I want to buy Petunia Daniel's DVD so that we can watch his five-minute adventures whenever we want. We have gotten tons of mileage out of Daniel's trip to the market, where he ate exotic fruit. Our Petunia has tried berries, plums, melon, and starfruit just to be like Daniel.
He's a plucky kid who goes out and experiences cool things. Petunia has the awe for him that she has for all big kids, and giving little kids the opportunity to watch big kids out and about in the real world makes for some great kids programming.
THE BAD
The Doodlebops, of course, are straight outta hell. Their songs are sort of "rock-n-roll" toddler music, which means that they're practically unsingable for small children. DeeDee, Rooney and Moe are spazzy dancers, and Moe unnecessarily breakdances in EVERY SINGLE EPISODE.
I don't get why they're orange, blue and pink and whether or not they're supposed to be actual people or some sort of new species, but the makeup, costumes and sets are such a cacophony of obnoxiously loud colors that it makes me want to have a seizure.
The only slightly enjoyable part of the show is Busdriver Bob. He sings the "Get on the Bus" song when it's time for the overearnest freaks to go to their concert. This song actually has a distinguishable tune, and the lyrics are simple and easy to understand.
The best part of the song is at the end when Bob gets to do his little hitchin-a-ride move while saying, "Hey...come on...we're gonna take a bus ride" and then he pretends to drive the bus while singin, "Yeah...come on...we're gonna take a bus ride."
Too bad the other 22 minutes of the show are unwatchable.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Einsteins Redux, Again
We caught a new Little Einsteins for the first time in ages, and - once again - they used a piece of music that had already been used. Nicolay Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee. It was featured in The Northern Nightlight, as the silly song that Quincy sings to get over his fear of the dark while the team helps Mama Reindeer find Baby Reindeer in Lapland.
In case you haven't heard it (okay, you must have heard it, even if you didn't know the name of the piece), Bumblebee isn't exactly the most singable classical work out there. So both episodes feature the kids doing a lot of humming and making nonsense noises while adding a three or four syllable phrase at the end of the featured snippet.
It was a bit of a stretch to use Flight of the Bumblebee the first time around, but it was really annoying this morning. And again, why not something else? To the best of my knowledge, they've never used Beethoven's Fifth Symphony or Strauss's Blue Danube waltz.
There's plenty of good stuff out there, Playhouse Disney! Get some new music already!
