Folks, I am worried for the future of our children. Not because of global warming, or terrorism, or the collapse of American values, but because the shows they watch on TV nowadays are creepy as hell. And since television has effectively supplanted parents as the primary guardian/caregiver in a family, that means they have a bleak future ahead of them. I grew up on good, wholesome, clean shows like Sesame Street and Mr. Dressup, and I am proud to say that they made me the good, wholesome, clean individual I am today. I can't even begin to imagine how fucked these kids will be when they get older. Here I present to you what I hold to be some of the biggest offenders in bizarre children's programming, so you know what to keep your kids away from.
Laughing Chinese Children of the Damned
I don't actually know what this show is called, but I am pretty sure my title isn't too far off the bat. First off, the jokes are terrible. Kids are going to grow-up thinking that's comedy which is a crime in of an itself. Secondly, and most importantly, why oh why did you feel the need to punctuate each terrible joke with a chorus line of devil children laughing monotonously? I guess your jokes are so bad that you need to indicate when its time to laugh, but then couldn't you have just used a laugh track? Come to think of it, a standard laugh track probably wouldn't be enough. You need to threaten the kids into laughter and those girls send a very clear message: laugh now or I'll kill you in your sleep.
Anything From Japan
Insanity is one of Japan's top exports. They put it in anything that they can and children's programming is no exception. Apparently their idea of a kid's TV show is to take (probably kidnap) a bunch of 2 year olds, dress them up as Faberge eggs, throw them in a room with a dancing dog, and tell them to shit their pants. I am still debating whether or not anybody in that clip knows what the fuck is going on. That being said, this show is probably the most benign of all the Japanese children's shows out there, but feel free to click on some of the related videos and throw yourself into a wondrous odyssey down into the darkest recesses of Youtube.
In the Night Garden
You'll notice that the video I linked is a segment from right in the middle of an episode. You'll also notice that it makes no difference whatsoever. Upon watching a full episode, I have determined that there is no plot to this television show, no moral, no lessons learned, no rhyme or reason. It's just a senseless string of made-up words and borderline retarded puppets. It is of my professional opinion that you could take random minute-long segments from across the series, string them all together in no particular order, and it would make just about as much sense. I honestly don't know what any child could possibly get out of this unless they have access to marijuana.
Adventure Time
If ever you needed proof that some children's shows were created during a drug induced stupor, look no further than Adventure Time. This show takes the worst drug trips known to man and condenses it into a 10 minute cartoon. When I watch this I just don't even know what to think. It looks like a sketch from Wonder Showzen. Kids are going to watch this and then they're going to spaz the fuck out to the point where no amount of Ritalin will be able to bring them back to Earth. To top it all off, the main character is 12 years old. Now I have nothing against imagination, but if your 12 year old kid tells you that he likes to adventure in a world with rainicorns, flying beard men, and technopathic dogs, then you've officially failed as a parent.
Dinosapiens
You can also find clips of this show in french and english, which makes this the most widespread, and by extension, most insidious show on this list. The basic premise is that there's this dinosaur themed summer camp for kids with teens serving as the camp counselors. It follows their adventures and developing relationships as they work to solve some mystery about dinosaurs. As it turns out, the solution to the mystery is that dinosaurs survived for millions of years underground without air, sunlight, food (other than each other), or anybody noticing until an earthquake hit an area which has apparently been tectonically stable since dinosaurs supposedly went extinct. Nobody seems to notice or care that this just raises a million other questions, but whatever, all that matters is that funky CGI dinosaurs with a sense of morality and a range of emotions are running all over the place causing all sorts of havoc. Actually the more I write about this show, the more I realize how awesome it truly is. Parents, this is the show you should plop your kids down in front of. It may not be very educational, but it will certainly teach them something.
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