Admittedly, a rant on kids TV this morning, but it’s all good fun.

Simply said: I don’t get it when it comes to children’s educational television.

With the general indication that the quality of our education system has declined, but the promise that these shows are based on ‘research’ in helping our children develop, something must be off.

With my daughter having left the TV on the Disney Channel last night, I woke to Mickey’s Playhouse on Disney Junior… Not the way to start the day given I’m already not a morning person.  Whether the intended audience is 3-years-old or not, I can’t help but wonder if we’ve developed a new level of moron with what these shows present.  Today’s crisis for Mickey and crew was to restore color to their world, given everything seemed to be greying out at a rapid pace… OH CRAP.  CALL THE NATIONAL GUARD!!!!  Ok, wait.  They just need to find all the colors of the rainbow to avert this crisis… phew, that seems solvable.  Thankfully Mickey and his studied crew, versed in the laws of education for young children, are here to rescue us.

Where are they in the process?  Hmm… Yellow.  They need to find Yellow… Ok, no problem Mickey, your shoes are Yellow.  Mickey suggests that the group needs to go find this… wait a second.  Mickey?  Your shoes Mickey… look down.  Look DOWN Mickey… Where the hell are you going?  They’re right THERE!  Oh, ok, it’s like a little scavenger hunt.  This is kind of like reminding Dora the Explorer she has a map three times, even though it’s ALWAYS in her backpack, because she keeps forgetting that she not only has it, but also that we just told her the route to Benny’s barn not even a couple minutes ago (before she crossed Crocodile lake).  At this point, Mickey and his intrepid crew spy a yellow flower in a bush.  They need to get a shovel, dig it up, and put it in a pot.  Problem solved.  Yep, thanks Mickey, that’s MUCH easier than pulling off your shoe.  If my girls were still young, this is a valuable life lesson.  Go the difficult route… it pays off in the end.  Lol… my head hurts three minutes in (well, and I could use some coffee).

What’s next?  Green?  Ok, no problem, you’re in the middle of a field surrounded by trees.  “Let’s go find something green.”  Oh Lord, here we go again.  I can’t figure why young kids are mesmerized by these shows instead of getting frustrated.  In any case, Mickey and his crew with oddly patterned blindness proceed to get to a clearing where they see a pond with a bunch of yellow rubber ducks with one green duck in the middle.  They now need to fish it out with their special fishing rod.  Yep, a green rubber ducky… that’s common.  I’ll never see that in my lifetime.  And fishing it out, much easier than just grabbing a few blades of grass at their feet.

Upon fishing out the freakish duck, they need to leave the pond to find Blue.  Again. They need to leave the POND to find the color blue.  Hmm… that’s a hard one.  After years of education from Mr Rogers, Romper Room, Bozo, and the like, I’m now clearly lost on what they need to do.  Thankfully, Mickey and his highly insightful crew know that there is a blue item in a wrapped gift box that can be identified by a specific size, cut open with special scissors, and used for this very purpose… phew.  Our future for a world filled with color is in the right white gloved hands.

All this meandering journey eventually culminates with a successful outcome, the group restores the rainbow, and the playhouse regains its original color… this is when I notice that the place looks like it was painted by a failed artist on a tequila bender.  Hmm, maybe we should go back to the greyscale… just a thought.

Ok, enough ranting.  I’m sure somewhere, someone has done a bunch of research to show that these shows help young kids develop.  Certainly they are captivated by them in my experience, but does it really make sense?  I’m not sure whether the shows of my childhood were any better, but I don’t remember them being a study in the obvious.  I suppose either I’ve lost that piece of the story in my memory or the world has just moved on to a place I don’t quite understand.

Either way, I think I need to leave the remote control closer, give up sooner, or set a timer for the coffee before I go to bed in these cases… yes, it’s tongue-in-cheek, but I wonder what the effect of all this will be in 20 years, when these kids are ready to start doing things in the “real” world.

-CJG 02/16/2014