Hate Jessie

[Drtooth]

It's a Catch 22 situation. They're not going to put on quality children's programming no matter what. TV EI is meaningless because of how poorly defined it is, but in no way does it infer quality ever.

When TV EI started out, for better or worse, networks were hungry to make new programming to catch up on that. We got Histeria! and a couple others out of it. The real problem is the regulations on what they can and can't advertise on kid's programming. There are things I get. They used to advertise sodas all over kid's programming, for instance. Now if you even find a station that shows kid's programming, the commercials are either PSA's or those same depressing life insurance commercials you get on MeTV and other retro television networks. The ones that sound like suicide pacts. Basically stuff that's marketed towards adults that may be in the room.

Long story short, local stations would rather just air infomercials and get the petty cash that comes with it than actually compete with the couple cable channels. EI's essentially just making them put on cheaply made programming that no one watches. If they can fix that loophole, AND introduce legislation that denotes how much paid programming TV stations can play in a day, we'd be onto something.

 

[charlietheowl]

Rather have no morals than fake, plastic ones they say gritting through their teeth.

Morals work when they're organic. When they put them in kid's shows you either get something amazing like Fat Albert, Arthur, Doug... stuff like that. Or you wind up with Bratz (worst example I could think of). Something where the morals are forced on to get a TV EI rating to sell you toys. And not even in a fun Transformers/G.I. Joe/He-Man sort of way. The "just be yourself" message told by cute, vapid girls to other cute vapid girls while still leaving the "uggos" out in the cold.

What I really like is stealth morality. You can find that in essentially anything if you look hard enough.

Definitely agree here. The best morals or lessons or messages are the ones you have to think about to discover, not ones that are slammed to the front of the plot. It's easy to become resentful or skeptical of a lesson that's done in a heavy-handed manner (which is why I never liked Adventures from the Book of Virtues back in the day).

 

[Mo Frackle]

Out of curiosity, I took a look at some of the Disney sitcoms last night (during commercial breaks for the season premiere of SNL). First up was Shake It Up. I didn't watch the entire show, but I can say this from one I did see: nothing about this show is even remotely funny. There are literally no jokes. The attempts at jokes are merely bland lines of dialogue accompanied by the classic over-the-top laugh track. I'm not trying to put Disney down because I know they can do better than this. Maybe they just need better writers. Either that, or the writers should take a lesson or two in comedy. Oh, and the acting is what you'd expect from a Disney sitcom. By that I mean not particularly good. But give these kids a break; they're young, they're still learning. At least they can dance pretty well.

I then caught the first half of Good Luck Charlie. Admittedly, it wasn't as bad as Shake It Up. While there wasn't anything horrendously funny to speak of, it had some decent moments. It definitely feels like the writers of this show have a better understanding of comedy than the writers on Shake It Up. And the acting wasn't too bad.

Forgive me if my opinions rub any of you the wrong way. I'm not a regular viewer of these shows.

 

[D'Snowth]

I'll say it before, and I'll say it again, I once had to watch HANNAH MONTANA with my niece (when she was at that age), and I have to say, Miley Cyrus's acting was like a trainwreck... seriously, NO subtly, NO authenticity, NO believability... it's like you can tell that she can tell that the cameras are there, so there was definitely a cheesy and almost hammy factor in her acting.

 

[Drtooth]

Definitely agree here. The best morals or lessons or messages are the ones you have to think about to discover, not ones that are slammed to the front of the plot. It's easy to become resentful or skeptical of a lesson that's done in a heavy-handed manner (which is why I never liked Adventures from the Book of Virtues back in the day).

There was a brilliant Batman TAS episode about some aging actress/model that went nuts and kept violently disrupting fashion shows and network premieres. They had this one scene where they were showing the fall line up, and in one of the shows a bunch of vapid bimbo teenage girls were comforting one that looked exactly the same as the rest of them with the "be yourself" moral. That's essentially a slaughtering of my least favorite message. Heavy handed sucks, but when it's pointless lipservice, that's the worst of them all.

 

[charlietheowl]

Yeah, there's no emptier moral than "be yourself", especially when it's presented in a commercialized setting. There's nothing that comes off faker than a commercial describing how everyone who wears/buys/drinks/eats a certain product is unique. Like the commercials for Pepsi with Pitbull in them, they act like his songs aren't all cookie-cutter copies of each other and that he uses the same formula in all of them.

 

[mr3urious]

Yeah, there's no emptier moral than "be yourself", especially when it's presented in a commercialized setting. There's nothing that comes off faker than a commercial describing how everyone who wears/buys/drinks/eats a certain product is unique. Like the commercials for Pepsi with Pitbull in them, they act like his songs aren't all cookie-cutter copies of each other and that he uses the same formula in all of them.

I especially like the "Don't be so mayo" commercials for Miracle Whip that Stephen Colbert mocked on his show a few years back, causing Kraft to get all butthurt and buy up some air time during his show to specifically attack him in response.

Way to stay classy, guys.

 

[Drtooth]

Yeah, there's no emptier moral than "be yourself", especially when it's presented in a commercialized setting. There's nothing that comes off faker than a commercial describing how everyone who wears/buys/drinks/eats a certain product is unique. Like the commercials for Pepsi with Pitbull in them, they act like his songs aren't all cookie-cutter copies of each other and that he uses the same formula in all of them.

Much as I liked Shrek, I also have to say their moral of ugly people are worth something too, as told by the attractive voice cast, kinda fell flat.

I have to admit, I always hated Saved by the Bell and TNBC's line up. As sucktacular as NBC's final animated line up was, they're still better than carbon copy shows that act like they're funnier than they are. No offense to those who like SBTB unironically... I just view it as a less funny version of Archie.

 

[beatnikchick300]

The "be yourself" moral is also a bad one to give if the character, as we see him/her in each episode, is an unlikable jerk. It's like an often-quoted-in-social-media saying goes: "'Be Yourself' is just about the worst advice you can give some people."

 

[D'Snowth]

Uh... JESSIE's in its third season already? Didn't it JUST start?