Last Tuesday, my mom decided to ruin my snow day by making me babysit my little brother while she went off to work. Usually, in order to make my life easier, I turn on the TV and let my brother watch some cartoon that’s on, usually being something like “Spongebob Squarepants” or “Phineas and Ferb”. Most of these cartoons and TV shows for kids though just don’t seem as fun as the ones I saw as a kid. It upsets me that, in order to appeal to the new “tween” demographic, a lot of TV networks are making more reality sitcoms that recycle the same kind of characters and plots and are rarely showing anything that blows the minds of kids.
As a kid, I watched an endless amount of TV. Out of all that TV I saw though, the three most memorable TV channels I viewed were Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, and Disney Channel. If you were a kid during the late 1990s and early 2000s, then surely you have seen at least one of these channels and know what I mean when I say that these channels have made huge changes in their TV programming. There seems to be an endless number of reality sitcoms that star young adult actresses like Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez that are put through the same issues of cute boyfriends, school, and fights with friends. I am not saying that these sort of topics are necessarily bad per se. But with so many shows that copy this same format, there isn’t much freshness and creativity in these sorts of shows.
Now I don’t have anything wrong with children sitcoms. I remember watching “Drake and Josh” and “Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide”. I will never forget Drake and Josh’s crazy antics (which included babysitting a pregnant sheep for their little sister) nor will I ever forget Ned’s crazy classmates and the even crazier things that went on in Polk Middle School. What made these reality sitcoms stick out compared to ones like “Hannah Montana” and “iCarly” was that the older reality sitcoms tried to mix it up in every episode. Not only were the jokes a lot funnier, the characters were involved in situations that were completely unimaginable and unpredictable.
Another problem I have with the more recent TV sitcoms is the content of these TV shows. As I said earlier, most of these sitcoms talk about how Miley has a new boyfriend, but can’t see him because of her alter ego as Hannah or how Carly has gotten in a fight with her best friend Sam and can’t settle their disagreement. I know this probably seems appealing to pre-teens, who are excited to enter this new world of adolescence, but what about younger kids like my 5-year old brother? They aren’t ready for this world of friends, dating, and social networking. They should be watching cartoons. And I don’t mean computer generated cartoons with lame toilet humor like “Penguins of Madagascar” and “Total Drama Island”. I’m talking old-school cartoons like “Dexter’s Laboratory”, “Doug”, “Fairly Odd Parents”, and “Rugrats”. Not only were most of these cartoons hand drawn by the creators themselves (which gave the show a more natural appeal), their plots and characters were simply memorable. I feel nostalgic thinking of the hours I spent watching all these TV shows, pretending to put myself next to these characters and joining their many adventures. What happened to all of that?
There is much more left to say regarding the TV shows being aired for children nowadays. I want to keep writing about this because not only is it fun to reminisce of the good times I had with these shows, I really do miss all these old TV programs. On a concluding note, I want to say this. TV programs for kids have certainly made major changes compared to the old TV shows I remember. I don’t mean to say that we should completely eradicate these new shows. But, why not go back to the old school shows? It would be nice to babysit my baby brother and watch a cartoon with him that has hand drawn animations, crazy plots and characters, and truly memorable episodes. All I want is to share my experience with TV with the next generation that is to come and to let them have similar memories to the ones I have now as a teenager.
Agreed. Dexter cracked me up. Plus, you should mention Tom and Jerry. Those were the best.
ReplyDeleteOh by the way. Sorry. But it's the orthographist in me. It's "per se" not "per say".
ReplyDeleteThank you for pointing out the typo.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Sometimes I see ads for the new shows on the kids channels, and I think, "Who would watch that?" But you never know. Perhaps your brother will grow up and remember these shows fondly. Maybe he thinks they pertain to his life, and he enjoys them like you enjoyed your cartoons. Just a thought, because I know that when I watched tv shows as a kid, my mom would say, "Do you really like this show?" she thought the plots were stupid as well, so maybe it's the cruel cycle of terrible tv. :D
ReplyDeleteNice post. I look forward to reading more.
I definitely agree with this post. It's really annoying how once a movie is made they try to make TV show using the characters, like the Penguins of Madagascar, which you mentioned. I also noticed an epidemic of knock off shows like Shaggy and Scooby Get A Clue, which was just terrible and nothing like the original Scooby Doo series. Great Post!
ReplyDeleteI love this post. Although disney channel shows are still funny, they seem to grown up with all the characters worrying about things like who's dating who. It seems like disney movies have suffered a similar fate as well.
ReplyDeleteAwesome Post. I love Doug and Dexter's Lab. I'm pretty sure I can recite most fairly odd parents episodes from memory as well. I haven't watched nick or cartoon network in years so I have no idea whats on now. I think around the time when Naked Brothers Band came out is when kids shows died. But that could just be because I'm older.
ReplyDeleteEither way, great post.
P.S. Did you ever watch Zoids?
PBS still has some great kids' programming. The Electric Company has been around since I was a kid, and though it's changed a lot since those days, it's still an excellent show. I also like Ruff Ruffman. And even though Thomas the Tank Engine kind of creeps me out (the whole trains with faces thing), my kids seem to love it and it gives them all sorts of ideas for stories when they play with their toy trains.
ReplyDeleteI think this was a great post! Drake and Josh and Ned's Declassified were both favorite shows of mine growing up and even my older brother enjoyed sitting down with me and watching them. And you can't forget about the glorious days of Blue's Clues (with Steve of course)! I think it's kind of sad how the media is always trying to make the younger generation grow up more quickly; let the kids enjoy their childhood while they can, because they might miss it later!
ReplyDeleteThis post makes me want to reminisce. I loved Fairly Oddparents and Rugrats. I agree with a lot of what you said about Disney and Nick. no longer putting out shows with more interesting plot lines, but I have to admit that sometimes at like 1am they will show an old show that I loved and I will watch it and think, wow this isn't the quality show I thought it was.
ReplyDelete