The Most Annoying Kids Shows

[Drtooth]

This is how creepy Scooter and Miss Etta are.

They look like generic kid's puppet characters to me. Nothing remotely as creepy as some of the other things I've seen.

I'm also going to say Bloopy's Buddies. Other than the clear and obvious follow the leader of Barney-oid characters that they had in the 90's, this one's inexcusable for one reason. Johnathan Winters's comedic genius is absolutely wasted here. There were a lot of kids' shows that he could have been in that were far superior. He's pretty much the highlight of the series, but he's been in far better things that really exhibit his talents.

 

[Yorick]

Quote about Barney the purple Dinosaur:

to think this artificial cesspool threatened to wipe Sesame off the face of the earth.

And, if I recall rightly from the book "Street Gang" Barney succeeded in making the folks in charge of Sesame Street dumb down Sesame from what it had been, so that it could compete with Barney. So there was still something sacrificed And of course, so many shows since Barney have been much dumber than they ever would have been if Barney wasn't accepted, I'd bet.

Even in a few televised interviews, Caroll Spinney would sign off with "Take care! Keep watching Sesame Street! AND DON'T WATCH BARNEY!!!"

Mr. Spinney is the man! I want to see "I Am Big Bird" very much.

 

[Xerus]

I've been wondering, what if dumbed down kids shows didn't educate the kids and it actually put them to sleep instead? They certainly wouldn't be educated then.

 

[D'Snowth]

And, if I recall rightly from the book "Street Gang" Barney succeeded in making the folks in charge of Sesame Street dumb down Sesame from what it had been, so that it could compete with Barney.

SST wasn't "dumbed down" so much, but that's what Jon Stone unwittingly went on record as saying, in his own frustration of what was becoming of SST because of Barney (well, SST started having problems before Barney came into the picture with certain people who were on the production staff in the late 80s and early 90s), which ended up getting him fired because he wasn't supposed to bad-mouth the show.

Basically, all that happened to SST was that it was brightened up, the street itself was cleaned up and spruced up, the street expanded to ATC, new colorful Muppet characters were added.

 

[Drtooth]

I honestly never understood why Barney and Sesame Street had to compete. They were on the same network. Unless you had 2 PBS stations where they aired opposite each other (not in my area, though I have 2 PBS stations), the only "competition" was popularity and consumption of merchandise... and frankly, Sesame Street was no slouch even then.

If there's a show that did cause Sesame Street to dumb down, it was Blue's Clues. JTE's original incarnation was supposed to parrot that sort of school of educational thought.

 

[D'Snowth]

I don't think they had to compete, I think some of the CTW staff felt threatened by Barney coming in and becoming an instant hit, and feeling it was time SST was given something of an overhaul to stay a step ahead of Barney... and yes, merchandising did play a factor in it apparently, heck, Zoe's existence is a conspiracy in and of itself: they wanted to have a brightly-colored Muppet character that would stand out among the sea of purple Barneys on the toy store shelves, and even then, apparently Zoe wasn't the right color, they apparently felt she should have been pink instead.

 

[Drtooth]

And they already had a pink Muppet on the show, performed by Fran no less.

Barney is essentially the clean, shiny, safe, suburban answer to Sesame Street. That's the thing that gets to me. It goes almost out of it's way to speak to the more well to do kids when, at the heart of Sesame Street, that show was created to give inner city kids who can't afford preschool. That's when the show started to gentrify, making the neighborhood look a little too upscale compared to it's origins. If this wasn't a TV show, Hooper's would have been a Starbucks, and Ernie and Bert would have to move to somewhere they could afford to live.

But as much as Barney jeopardized the show, Nick's crappy Nick Jr. Line up did far worse damage. Oddly enough, Wow Wow Wubzy's Bob Boyle is actually doing Sesame Street segments (Quiet or Loud and the Space Alphabet bits). So at least they're getting a taste of a GOOD Nick Jr. show.

 

[tutter_fan]

I for one like Wow Wow Wubzy. Pretty funny show if you ask me.

 

[D'Snowth]

And they already had a pink Muppet on the show, performed by Fran no less.

Yeah, but they needed a female Muppet that emitted the same kind of star power as Elmo: Prairie is considered, "Too prissy" and, "Too Polly Perfect" to be a regular female character for little girls.

 

[Drtooth]

I for one like Wow Wow Wubzy. Pretty funny show if you ask me.

Oh definitely. Wubzy is a breath of fresh air with it's sly humor and it's general playing like a TV cartoon show instead of a wanna be computer game. It really stands out in a field of lame Dora-esque shows. And I can't get enough of that kid that says "KOooOOOOoooKY!"