But Kids Adore Them!
I have a love/hate relationship with my TV. On the one hand it’s a great babysitter, it means my girls will sit still and keep quiet for all of five minutes at a time which means I can safely have a shower and maybe even wash my hair some mornings. On the other hand, the noise! Those shrill voices, the repetition of the dreadful inane scripts and those terrible theme tunes.
I’m the map, I’m the map, I’m the map, I’m the map, I’M THE… enough! No one uses a sodding map any more, we have GPS in our cars. Get an iPhone, Dora and piss off!
So, for all you mothers out there who spend their days fighting the constant dichotomy of kids TV versus being left alone for a few minutes… here is my list of the Top Five Cartoons to avoid unless you want to kick your TV in. Or you want to bring up daughters that are so influenced by these irritating cartoons that they turn into even more annoying little shits.
You’re welcome!
Peppa Pig
I’ll hold my hand up, when this precocious pig first came into my life she was a God-send. The episodes were only a few minutes long, the characters were amusing and there was the odd adult joke hidden among the story line to keep me sat beside my child. But the more my daughter watched Peppa Pig, the more of a rude little brat my child became. She began to copy her favourite porcine prat…
‘Oh silly mummy!’
‘Daddy has a big tummy’
‘Grown ups go bla,bla,bla’
Really? REALLY!
In my day I got a clip round the ear’ole for less than that.
I blame Peppa’s mother. Mummy Pig is one pathetic passive aggressive woman. Did you see how smug she looked when her horrid child dyed her husband’s football kit pink? Did the kid get told off? No. Was the hapless hubby made to go out and join his friends wearing his sweaty work shirt? Yes. Poor bastard, slaving away as a well-respected architect all day only to be humiliated by his supercilious wife, his rude little madam of a daughter and a son who doesn’t stop crying. Seriously? What is wrong with that boy? The only decent character in that show is the entrepreneurial Miss Rabbit single-handedly running every business in the area. She must get so tired of the twats she lives alongside.
PLUS do you know how hard it is drawing Peppa Pig for your kids? Stick hands and hairdryer heads. Try it, I dare you. Or better yet try and make a Peppa faced birthday cake. Fucking Peppa…
Dora The Explorer
Dora, Dora, Dora… I abhor her.
Oh Dora, I wanted to like you, I really did. My kids are bilingual so I figured you would come in handy, with all that two language chatting you do on your adventures and asking my kids to answer your tricky conundrums. But instead your whiny voice got on my tits. Why don’t you just go about your business and let us watch you?
Oh no, you have to include us. It gets really awkward, Dora. It really does. You stop what you are doing, you ask us an inane question and then you stare. You stare for a really long time and it gets very uncomfortable… to the point that I just crack under the pressure of all that silence and shout out ‘Red, Dora! The t-shirt is red!!’ And no mother should be seen to be having conversations with the TV. You’re brave enough to trek through a jungle all day but you don’t know the colour red? And why aren’t you at school, anyway? Are your parents too busy with their super baby twins to worry about you wandering about with giant talking animals? Your cousin, Diego is so much cooler anyway… and he has a pet jaguar that is way cuter than your freaky monkey. So bugger off and stop staring.
Mickey Mouse Club House
What is it about that bloody mouse? His voice is ridiculous, his walk is stupid, his house pops out of the ground (I know it’s make believe but I always wonder about the contents inside and whether Minnie is in there muttering ‘for God’s sake, I’m tired of tidying up this frigging place… why can’t they just stop making it pop up and down?!’) and his friends are bizarre. An angry duck, a lolloping cow, two vain female role models (well done Minnie and Daisy on your Bow-tique, please let us spend all day choosing hair ties for you both) and don’t get me started on Goofy. What is he? If he’s a dog like Pluto then why is Pluto a pet that can’t talk and Goofy isn’t? And how is a mouse bigger than a dog? And what’s with the hot dog song? I can’t tell you how many hours of how many nights have been spent with that ditty going round and round and round my head. No, don’t giggle at the end of your sentences, Mickey. It’s not funny. It’s not funny at all!
Max and Ruby
In case you are unfamiliar with this cartoon I will sum it up for you really quickly. Max is a monosyllabic rabbit who is always wanting something and is relentless in his pursuit of tedium. And his sister Ruby is a control freak bitch who never lets him have any fun. And she manages to pronounce his name with five syllables in a sing-song ‘I wanna punch her’ voice. They have no parents, I’m guessing she’s around 9 years old and he’s about 3, but clearly they don’t need to live with parents or a guardian. And her grandmother lives next door, but seems to be a bit senile as she just smiles a lot. Either that or she’s keeping Ruby sweet because Ruby has murdered her parents and the old girl is next. Look at their faces! Look! Stupid Max and smug Ruby. They’d look better in a casserole dish.
Angelina Ballerina
My kids love ballet, so I figured this was appropriate. WRONG! This cartoon tells you that to be a great ballet dancer you must get jealous, angry, give up on the first try and at every given opportunity throw the mother of all strops. Oh yeah, you big lumbering mouse…just pirouette into Mummy’s pancakes and knock them on to the floor. That’s so sweet. It’s fine to jump around the house like a flouncing ninny, she’ll just make some more breakfast for you hehe. Bloody brat. She’s a nasty piece of work and I hope she breaks her ankle and takes up chess. Wait, that wouldn’t rhyme with her name. Okay, errr… Angelina Engineerer? No. Angeline Toilet Cleaner? Hardly. Angelina Ponce and Preener? Something like that.
In fact, I have a theory that Peppa, Dora, Ruby, Minnie and Angelina are all in some Mean Girls type clique at school (when Dora can be arsed to attend) and they spend their time bitching about their annoying younger brothers, laughing at fat pigs and goofy dogs and moaning about how ridiculous their parents are. Or in Ruby’s case sharing tips on how to murder your parents when they get too much. They are basically everything I don’t want my kids to be… so why are these programmes always on my TV?
The way my kids have been mimicking them has started to grate on me so much that I took matters in my own hands. It was time to introduce them to quality television viewing. So I whipped out YouTube on my tablet and typed in 1980’s Kids TV Shows. Yay, a bit of nostalgic quality viewing!
And up popped The Wombles. Ah The Wombles, you can’t fault them – ecological, polite, fun and amusing. My girls loved the concept when I sold it to them… but their eyes glazed over after two minutes. Apparently slow and simple and well-meaning doesn’t cut it any more. Pink Panther was a big hit with them though, how can you not love a bit of retro PP? But when did that incessant theme tune get so irritating? It’s on a bloody loop! I gave up after a while. So I finally settled for Tom and Jerry. I figured a bit of old school violence and really un-PC themes was better than precocious pigs and psycho rabbits.
Oh well, so my girls may well start chasing each other around the living room now, knife in hand and eyes popping out of their heads, but at least people won’t think they are being rude. Vengeful murder fantasies are way better than veiled insults, awkward silences and strops in ballet class any day!
