Kids' shows nowadays

Katzi428

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I already ranted on something that happened on Sesame Stret (go take a look if you want) There's a little kids' show called Ni Hao Kai Lan that my 4 year old niece used to watch. My sister in law said that one of the characters was acting fresh & my niece was taking on that trait. So she's no longer allowed to watch that show.
Then we have SpongeBobSquarePants. My friend's 4 year old son liked that show.But good ol' SBSP has bad traits also, my friend noticed. So I think she's steered him away from that. What the heck is with these shows?? OK...possibly SpongeBob is for older kids. I have no idea. (My 2 year old nephew watches Disney Channel shows to the best of my knowledge. The rest of the shows my 4 year old niece watches are fine. My 11 year old niece watches shows that are permissable. Thank goodness she's no longer a fan of Miley Cyrus.Which leaves my baby niece who probably doesn't watch TV)
I look back to when I was a kid & there were decent shows on TV that adults didn't question. (I know...I'm showing my age.:rolleyes: ) But honest to :jim: there were no ratings before shows,no violence (well OK..there WAS Batman But they covered up the violence with the words "POW!" "BANG!" "ZAP!" etc.)
Opinions?
 

CensoredAlso

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I think Spongebob was one of the good ones (it did jump the shark eventually but all shows do). It gets a bad rap for some reason but I thought it was very clever.

But yeah in general I'm not impressed with the majority of kid's shows today. They don't challenge kids; they condescend to them.

In any case, steering kids away from certain shows can have the opposite intended effect. Kids will be more eager to watch it if they know it's forbidden.
 

D'Snowth

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SpongeBob is a prime example of why current generations of little kids are more stupid than previous generations... ever since the mid-2000s, it's like just about all kids shows were either really watered-down, or brain-meltingly stupid.
 

CensoredAlso

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SpongeBob is a prime example of why current generations of little kids are more stupid than when previous generations... ever since the mid-2000s, it's like just about all kids shows were either really watered-doown, or brain-meltingly stupid.
I agree with you about MOST of today's kids shows, but I don't count Spongebob among them. I really don't get why people dislike it so much. ::shrugs::
 

Ozymandias

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Most children's television nowadays have been breaking the #1 rule of storytelling, which is to never underestimate the intelligence of your audience, which is really unfortunate. :frown: I mean, the only recent show I can really think about that followed that rule would be Avatar: The Last Airbender, a show that had serious respect for it's audience, and nowadays that's a rarity, which is a crying shame when you think about it.
 

Drtooth

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I think Spongebob was one of the good ones (it did jump the shark eventually but all shows do). It gets a bad rap for some reason but I thought it was very clever.
Spongebob is a WEIRD show. People either tend to really love it or really hate it. I fail to see it as a low quality cartoon (remember, I've seen 80% of everything, and I can think of many cartoons worse than Spongebob, even if I tended to hate it). I know that there's been a slip in the writing, as most cartoons that are on over 10 years tend to get. I see it as an even more twisted version of PeeWee's Playhouse mashed up with old sitcomy elements. However, it was never meant to be a preschool show, but turned into it somehow. I think it's terrible as a preschool show, but just fine for younger audiences and older ones alike. I tend to love something with that much generational appeal.

Plus, Squidward is ALWAYS hilarious, as is Plankton and Mr. Krabs... actually, most of the characters on the show I like more than Spongebob.

Of course, I have 3 problems...

  1. Preschool shows where they talk slowly and ask kids where things are or to help them, only for the main characters to answer their own stupid questions. Now, thankfully there's been a paradigm shift with shows like Curious George and Wow Wow Wubzy (which is a more suitable preschool show than Spongebob... it draws some stylistic and humorous parallels but much softer... at least from the bit I've seen). Hopefully the Dora phase will be gone completely. Less new shows have this.
  2. The lack of non-cable kid's programming is sickening. You've heard me complain about the bad FCC regulations that lead to this disaster of Infomercial Saturday Mornings. But there's no desire for the entertainment megaconglomerates to compete with themselves... so we wind up with Litton's Weekend Adventure (healthy cooking shows. What EVERY kid wants to wake up to watch), qubo reruns, and the CW Toonzai Sonic X marathons. Gone are the days of Kid's WB, ABC Kids (though it was craptastic quarter of a show reruns for 6 years), and all the rest.
  3. Everyone still feels the need to carbon copy the Disney Channel, even though the Disney Channel slightly moved on from it's non-stop tween parade and gave us Phineas and Ferb and Fish Hooks (an awful show, actually... but at least it's animated). Nick has been glomming onto Spongebob for years, while refusing to let any new show (that isn't owned by Dreamworks...at least so far) grow and flourish. I miss Catscratch, even though I only saw like 3 episodes (I don't have cable). I think Cartoon Network FINALLY found itself with Mad, Adventure Time, and Regular Show... but it still needs to kill the reality shows no one actually likes.
I also have to ask...

I look back to when I was a kid & there were decent shows on TV that adults didn't question. (I know...I'm showing my age.:rolleyes: ) But honest to :jim: there were no ratings before shows,no violence (well OK..there WAS Batman But they covered up the violence with the words "POW!" "BANG!" "ZAP!" etc.)
Opinions?
Are you kidding? Other than the safe as heck, terribly formulaic shows of the 70's, every decade had complaints going all the way back when cartoons were made for television. They had problems with the late 1960's Super Hero shows (Space Ghost, Frankenstine Jr. Mighty Heroes) for being violent... they had problems with 80's cartoons being violent and toy commercials... they had problems with Ren and Stimpy in the 90's, among others... you actually see less complaints because every barrier has been broken and nothing is deemed offensive anymore. Batman TAS broke barriers of violence, Ren and Stimpy broke barriers of grossness. Everything's basically safe compared to those shows because the 90's were the great upheaval. There's nothing left to break, and we take the 90's for granted. We wouldn't have had shows like Animaniacs or Rocko's Modern Life if Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures didn't pave way for them. Talk about the great Renaissance of animation. Now we're in the post-modern era.
 

Sgt Floyd

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I already ranted on something that happened on Sesame Stret (go take a look if you want) There's a little kids' show called Ni Hao Kai Lan that my 4 year old niece used to watch. My sister in law said that one of the characters was acting fresh & my niece was taking on that trait. So she's no longer allowed to watch that show.


What exactly do you mean by "fresh?" I know what it means when someone is acting that way, but can you be a bit more specific? What was this character doing? I was under the impression this show was a chinese Dora clone.


Then we have SpongeBobSquarePants. My friend's 4 year old son liked that show.But good ol' SBSP has bad traits also, my friend noticed. So I think she's steered him away from that. What the heck is with these shows?? OK...possibly SpongeBob is for older kids. I have no idea.

Spongebob is rated Y7, therefore, children under 7 years old should not be watching it.

(My 2 year old nephew watches Disney Channel shows to the best of my knowledge. The rest of the shows my 4 year old niece watches are fine. My 11 year old niece watches shows that are permissable. Thank goodness she's no longer a fan of Miley Cyrus.Which leaves my baby niece who probably doesn't watch TV)
Why does everyone choose to only target Miley Cyrus when talking about "bad" tv shows? I do not understand what is wrong with Hannah Montanna other than the fact that its not "like shows were in the 90s" :/

I look back to when I was a kid & there were decent shows on TV that adults didn't question. (I know...I'm showing my age.:rolleyes: ) But honest to :jim: there were no ratings before shows,no violence (well OK..there WAS Batman But they covered up the violence with the words "POW!" "BANG!" "ZAP!" etc.)
Opinions?
Wasnt Batman considered an adult show at the time? Just like Looney Tunes was originally made with adults in mind?
 

Katzi428

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What exactly do you mean by "fresh?" I know what it means when someone is acting that way, but can you be a bit more specific? What was this character doing? I was under the impression this show was a chinese Dora clone.
I myself had thought that Kai Lan was a Chinese Dora clone too. But something (I don't know what) must have happened with either KaiLan or one of her little friends that my niece thought "Well if they can act this way, I can too!" So she did in front of her parents & that was it.

Sgt Floyd said:
Spongebob is rated Y7, therefore, children under 7 years old should not be watching it.
I'm in total agreement!

Sgt Floyd said:
Why does everyone choose to only target Miley Cyrus when talking about "bad" tv shows? I do not understand what is wrong with Hannah Montanna other than the fact that its not "like shows were in the 90s" :/

I myself didn't start tagging Miley Cyrus until after she started appearing in the papers. My oldest niece was a HUGE fan of Miley! But once Miley started appearing in magazines & wild videos.my niece dropped her like a hot potato as a role model (smart kid in my opinion :wink: )

Sgt Floyd said:
Wasnt Batman considered an adult show at the time? Just like Looney Tunes was originally made with adults in mind?
Back in the '70s when Batman was on TV shows didn't have ratings like they do now. It was on in the afternoon.I guess they really didn't think of kids & violence.
 

Drtooth

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What exactly do you mean by "fresh?" I know what it means when someone is acting that way, but can you be a bit more specific? What was this character doing? I was under the impression this show was a chinese Dora clone.
One of the characters must act out or something. I dunno, I've never bothered with a critical look.

Why does everyone choose to only target Miley Cyrus when talking about "bad" tv shows? I do not understand what is wrong with Hannah Montanna other than the fact that its not "like shows were in the 90s" :/
Actually, Hanna Montana WAS like the shows they had in the 90's (and the 80's for that matter)... remember TeenNBC's line up? Even feels like a lot of old 80's sitcoms (and not in a good way). The problem I had wasn't the show itself but the fact that it took that show to shake up children's programming, when Even Stevens, Lizzie MaGuire, and even That's So Raven managed to be popular AND co-exist in harmony with other Disney fare.

But, least we forget, when HM and HSM first popped up and became famous, that was all Disney was focusing on. While I understand the shows spoke to people, and I cannot blame the stars or even the writers for that, Disney went way too overboard with the marketing... they basically tossed aside everything else they had for a couple years to focus on that.

Add to that, those were what Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon were claiming was hurting their ratings (though, let's face it, My Gym Partner is a Monkey and New George of the Jungle were terrible shows anyway), leading CN to do live action programming (which it has to this very day), and Nick to focus on more live action band related programming. And of course the prefab pop diva for kids phase came out of it. Sort of like how the popularity of Judge Judy lead to an insufferable number of copycats.

HM came at a bad time for cartoons. The 1990's FCC regulations were starting to really but the strangle hold on budgets, parental groups were starting to whine about the advertisements they show (that basically paid for them), the media was just starting to recognize teenage girls (in a stereotypical sort of way), it was starting to be less profitable, networks were starting to jump ship... there was more new animation created for adults than kids. While HM doesn't take all the blame, it had a hand in a near apocalyptic television animation crash. Even then it wasn't exactly Disney's fault so much as everyone's at that point.

Disney has since stopped focusing on making that their end all be all. Sure, they still have those kinds of shows, but they went back to marketing Mickey Mouse, Pixar, Winnie the Pooh, and even the Muppets. They have 2 cartoon shows now, and none of them are double contracted to be TV E/I stuff to run on ABC kids to save money (which is the problem they were having with animation for a while). A corner has been turned, though Nick and CN haven't realized it yet.

I myself didn't start tagging Miley Cyrus until after she started appearing in the papers. My oldest niece was a HUGE fan of Miley! But once Miley started appearing in magazines & wild videos.my niece dropped her like a hot potato as a role model (smart kid in my opinion :wink: )
No child actor or actress should be forced to be the product of one program or role. That's why so many of them turned into hasbeens, and that's why a lot of them fell into the wrong crowd and even drugs. I applaud Miley for wanting to dump that little TV show and moving onto other things. Not everyone can be Neil Patrick Harris and find a safe haven in Broadway until a weird reference in a movie leads him to having a popular TV show and being in everything. There are more stories like the kids from Home Improvement and (worst case scenario) Gary Coleman. I'm no Miley fan, but I'd hate to see her turn into Gary Coleman or Lindsay Lohan.
 

CensoredAlso

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Spongebob is a WEIRD show.
Oh yeah I'm first to admit, lol. I just love how Spongebob really is this example of a free spirit who knows what he likes and doesn't care how weird it is. Plus he's a young adult getting his first dream job and trying to get his license, something you rarely see on kid's shows. I think young adults could identify with that. It's like how H.R. PuffnStuff was aimed at kids but also became really popular with college students. It's the same with Spongebob.

And yeah Squidward as a character is so inspired, lol, he always makes me laugh. And the kids I worked with at a summer camp a few years ago loved him too.

Spongebob is rated Y7, therefore, children under 7 years old should not be watching it.
Well again I just don't see what the problem is with this show that kids can't watch it.
 
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