Les Bonnes Choses

As a result of my status as a parent and an uncle to some pretty young kids, I have been exposed to quite a bit of what's being served up to kids these days. Most of it is just crap. I have a few friends who are in the animation industry (here's where I get to tag them), and I know that a few of them get irritated by the crappy animation that gets foisted on them because companies get all kinds of tax credits for producing this crap. It's like they print their own money. Surely you're familiar with the old Flintstones or Amazing Spiderman (trippy '70s bongo version) looping background gambit; it's like that, but slightly less obvious, though once it gets pointed out to you, you can't miss it (here's one: Next time you have occasion to see a cartoon, be on the lookout for extended periods of dialog where the screen is mostly filled with a character's face -- here the animators basically use of the head as a background, and only have to animate a mouth). Don't get me started on the plots.

Kids music seems to be similarly crappy. How many recordings of Old McDonald (sung either by a swarm of atonal, yelling kids, or else some saccharine vocalist) does the world need? Fortunately, Rebecca is chronically reading blogs, often written by mom-knitters, and seems to pick up recommendations for music that isn't total crap. I am rather pleased to be able to say that, instead of having a collection of Barney's sh*ttiest hits, we have CDs like For the Kids, too, (I really like John Lee Supertaster, by They Might Be Giants, I Often Dream of Trains, by Robyn Hitchcock, and Meow Meow Lullabye by Nada Surf). More recently, we picked up Blue Moo, which features some really well-done songs by artists like BB King, Brian Wilson, Sha Na Na. It's like they actually put in a bit of effort. If it happens to be in the CD player, I listen to it in the car even if Pokey isn't with me.

It's like how your parents didn't mind watching Sesame Street with you when you were little. Anyways, I just wanted to put in my $.02 on the topic. And tag a bunch of parents.