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Sam and Friends BookI get what you're saying, but that's not the point I'm making.
You could fart in a sock, film it with seizure inducing color filters, add in cheap Casio Keyboard music, and call it children's entertainment. Children are easily entertained. BUT there's nothing wrong with challenging them and giving them something of quality. This is quantity. This is the cynical 1990's Barney knockoff revisited. Not even the ones they televised. The cheap home video ones they make to fool Grandma into buying a gift that gets buried in a closet.
Tossing together a crappy product and saying, "it's for kids, they'll like anything," is something children's TV producers that HATE children do. Kids aren't drooling morons, stop treating them as such. Give them the quality they deserve, well written scripts made for well designed characters that kids can happily grow up with.
Let me put it this way. You ever watch something you loved as a child when your older and you say "GAW! Why did I LIKE this crap!?!" Does that make an impact on you? Then do you watch something else and discover not only is it still great, but you have a better understanding and appreciation of it? I once bought a Teddy Ruxpin DVD at a dollar store and was afraid to watch it for months, fearing that it would be sugar coated nonsense and that would force me to rethink my childhood in a cynical light. I nervously watched it, and became a kid again, overly delighted in the show's solid adventure plot and fun characters. In truth, out of everything I liked as a kid, I only disassociate myself with the crummy girly shows I watched when I was really little and Captain Planet. I can still watch the Smurfs and be thoroughly entertained. That's what quality does.
Something good will be a part of you forever. That is what all children's TV producers/creators/entertainers/writers should strive for. I mean, how many people dump on today's programming and only want them to rerun Tiny Toons, Invader Zim, and Batman TAS for all eternity? Why does everyone of a certain age hate Elmo, but LOVE Sherlock Hemlock? Why does everyone fly off the handle on these non-stop CGI movies based on old cartoon shows? That's because those shows became a PART of them. They never grew out of them, they never grew to hate them for extended periods of time. That's the power of a quality TV show or movie.
How many people remember dime store knockoff Mac and Me over E.T.?
What this guy is doing isn't any of that. He wants to throw another throwaway kiddy toy empire out into an overcrowded marketplace in a lame attempt to make money. This will be quickly forgotten or remembered ironically (Teletubbies was popular ONLY because it was ironic and ONLY because they said one of them was gay... I defy anyone to tell me they actually liked it). There is something wrong with that because it's children's entertainment for all the wrong reasons. And this criticism is coming from someone who didn't hate the Smurf movie as much as he thought he would, and is actually happy it brought interest back into the characters.
Reread the article. it clearly states that the idea for making the film interactive came out of watching a specific audience of a Tyler Perry movie. it isn't a joke, it's not a gag... it's an ACTUAL QUOTE from the guy who wanted to make the movie. Not even created the characters... heck, the creator of the characters didn't want to make a movie.
