The Most Annoying Kids Shows

[Drtooth]

But in general, the writing for G1 was always a bit too spare. It's like they'd concentrate more on getting the plot done in a hurry than giving the characters their moments (unless your name was Starscream--Megatron's personal Greek Chorus, lol).

Rescue Bots knows the most important thing isn't the plot. Who cares what the latest contrived disaster is? The most important thing is giving each character an established personality quirk and making sure they all have their moment to shine. It's formulaic TV at its finest.

Oh, I get what you're saying now. Yeah, the loads and loads of characters really made things tough. If a writer had a small pool of signature characters, the episodes were much stronger. That's the best thing about RB, 4 main robots, detailed useful humans. All with nice, defined personalities. Sure, they could have added more Rescue Bots for the toy line, and the original toy line prior to the show felt unfocused... almost human focused to the point where it was just Rescue Heroes with Transformers. I've notices the toy line was influenced by the TV show, the way it's meant to be. Then again, Hasbro has a lot more experience with that sort of thing now. Originally the shows were meant to sell the toys, now the shows sell the toys with the added boost of having the show shape the toy line.

 

[CensoredAlso]

I honestly don't get why the last season of Transformers G1 gets so much hate

I've tried watching some of those third season episodes, and while the concepts are a bit more ambitious, for some reason the dialogue/delivery just make me cringe. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what's different. The first two seasons weren't Shakespeare, but it always sounded like the actors really cared about what was going on. They knew it was a campy romp, and they went with it. In the third season, for no apparent reason, everyone just suddenly sounds awkward and half interested.

Again, the exception being Starscream, who sounds delighted to be back from the dead, lol. But even then his dialogue is pretty bad. All of a sudden he's prone to completely random pop culture references ("Only my metal polisher knows for sure" Really?). Plus his character has absolutely no chemistry with Galvatron (as opposed to Megatron) and it's not as interesting to watch.

 

[mimitchi33]

1. SpongeBob: He is so rude and obnoxious! I never got why it was so popular. I agree with D'Snowth!
2. Nina Needs To Go!: I've mentioned this show in other threads on here before, but I'm going to tell you more about this. It's a short-form series about an annoying four-year-old who sounds like a more annoying version of Ponyo who always has to pee, and always has her Nana to help her. Here's the episode of this show that is the most-played on the channel, involving a play which I don't know what it's supposed to be about, rock puns, and Indiana Jones!

 

[Drtooth]

Spongebob was a generally good show when it first premiered. I'll agree it worn out its welcome. But with awful shows like Ricky, Dicky, Sicky, Mickey, Crappy, Dopey and Dawn (the show about the quardruplets that look nothing alike), I'm glad that Nick still has some cartoons on the channel. Personally, I'm more pleased with the success of the TMNT (toys still disappearing from shelves... time to renew it to five seasons!) and the supposed success of Sanjay and Craig. Spongebob is still in your face and their number one animated series/merchandising cash cow, but I see TMNT eclipse them more and more.

Personally, I never liked how Nick shoved Rugrats in your face, and while they did it for not that much shorter a time than Spongebob, they were aggressive with it. And I do like the show, but it wasn't as good past the second season... and that's generous. And it's all Arleen Klasky or is it Csupo's fault because she was totally seeing herself in Angelica and not liking it. Whatever... Klasky Csupo's best work for Nick was AAAAH! Real Monsters. So underrated and funky.

 

[mr3urious]

Looking back, Barney probably wasn't as bad as others say (for one, I admit to liking some of the human characters like Mr. Boyd the janitor and Stella the Storyteller, and I did enjoy the times where Tomie dePaola guest-starred), but I looked at a few of the more recent episodes, and I'd say the 9th one was where this banal show was made even more banal.

For one, the fake interactivity that came about during the 7th season (along with many other changes) really ratcheted up here, with Barney and the others talking to the audience and them questions and asking them to do things for them like a certain Hispanic cartoon girl. And this is also where the kids start to take a backseat to the dinos, making it really feel less like an ensemble (not that there was much of an ensemble to being with). And the "Barney Says" segments that recap the lesson plans in each episode were replaced with something similar with an adult woman rather than Barney himself, making it feel like it's aimed more at the grownups who should know about this stuff if they've watched it with their kids. At least those recaps are justified when aimed at their target audience. When aimed at adults, it just feels really condescending even to them.

Though it's still pretty amusing to hear Amethyst's voice coming out of the newest dino character they had on there.

 

[Drtooth]

Barney's a show that has a real stigma to it. In retrospect, it feels like a passive aggressive jab at Sesame Street's inner city setting by being a privileged suburban schoolhouse. And yet, the show looks and sounds much cheaper, especially with those accursed 90's synthesizers. And the whole Stepford vibe of the show where I swear the kids are taking bad direction, not so much poor acting. But by all means, it's not as horrible as you'd think ti was retrospectively. By all means, sure it started a trend and kid's educational entertainment was forever changed and Barney's the thing that takes the blame for it (though it was a factor).

Anyway, I found a much worse show by accident called "Mickey's Farm" which to even try to explain would cause a major brain tumor. And no. It's not a certain Disney Mouse. Even MMCH was less patronizing. I mean, by all means that Mickey Preschool show by comparison is a high point of kid's entertainment.

I found the opening.

Woof. No, seriously. I stumbled on this flipping through the channels and it's the cheapest thing I've ever seen. I mean, even Christian Puppet Shows have a budget compared to this. The sun is freaking animated clip art. And it's done in voice over to give the animals the "not even trying" ability to talk. And somehow this thing won awards because "it's for kids so their heart's in the right place." UGH. I don't know if I'd call this the worst preschool show ever, but it's pretty darn close.

 

[mr3urious]

Barney's a show that has a real stigma to it.

I feel that nowadays, even hating the show is out of fashion, much like with Twilight and Bieber. Anti-Barney humor has been milked for all its worth by this point.

In retrospect, it feels like a passive aggressive jab at Sesame Street's inner city setting by being a privileged suburban schoolhouse.

Or a public park in the later years, complete with a playhouse made out of a caboose that's open to all.

And yet, the show looks and sounds much cheaper, especially with those accursed 90's synthesizers.

Though the synth music got a bit better with instruments that didn't sound like they came from a PC game from the mid '90s.

And the whole Stepford vibe of the show where I swear the kids are taking bad direction, not so much poor acting.

I don't really hate the kids as people. A lot of them actually did grow up to be successful (besides Selena and Demi, of course) or at least not tremendous train wrecks in real life, and I commend that. The kid with the hearing aid (as referenced on Family Guy) is now a surgeon, for one.

Woof. No, seriously. I stumbled on this flipping through the channels and it's the cheapest thing I've ever seen. I mean, even Christian Puppet Shows have a budget compared to this. The sun is freaking animated clip art. And it's done in voice over to give the animals the "not even trying" ability to talk. And somehow this thing won awards because "it's for kids so their heart's in the right place." UGH. I don't know if I'd call this the worst preschool show ever, but it's pretty darn close.

Is that sun related to the Teletubbies baby-faced sun?

 

[Flaky Pudding]

Barney's a show that has a real stigma to it. In retrospect, it feels like a passive aggressive jab at Sesame Street's inner city setting by being a privileged suburban schoolhouse. And yet, the show looks and sounds much cheaper, especially with those accursed 90's synthesizers. And the whole Stepford vibe of the show where I swear the kids are taking bad direction, not so much poor acting. But by all means, it's not as horrible as you'd think ti was retrospectively. By all means, sure it started a trend and kid's educational entertainment was forever changed and Barney's the thing that takes the blame for it (though it was a factor).

Anyway, I found a much worse show by accident called "Mickey's Farm" which to even try to explain would cause a major brain tumor. And no. It's not a certain Disney Mouse. Even MMCH was less patronizing. I mean, by all means that Mickey Preschool show by comparison is a high point of kid's entertainment.

I found the opening.

Woof. No, seriously. I stumbled on this flipping through the channels and it's the cheapest thing I've ever seen. I mean, even Christian Puppet Shows have a budget compared to this. The sun is freaking animated clip art. And it's done in voice over to give the animals the "not even trying" ability to talk. And somehow this thing won awards because "it's for kids so their heart's in the right place." UGH. I don't know if I'd call this the worst preschool show ever, but it's pretty darn close.

Worst. Kid. Show. EVER!

 

[Drtooth]

I don't really hate the kids as people. A lot of them actually did grow up to be successful (besides Selena and Demi, of course) or at least not tremendous train wrecks in real life, and I commend that. The kid with the hearing aid (as referenced on Family Guy) is now a surgeon, for one.

When it comes down to it, sometimes kids can't act. I don't so much think that's the case here. It's like when they say the Star Wars prequels have wooden acting, or the same thing about the Last Airbender movie. Those are more of a case of bad direction. I'm really thinking that was the case, about the whole over-exaggerated happiness. I mean, even the voice actors are kinda subject to that here. By all means, I'm sure these kids are still happy they managed to get on the show and are proud of it. In the end, this show spoke to people, and it has its fans. And while I'm at it, Teletubbies was obviously an intentional tongue in cheek thing that doesn't translate past England. The whole "Tinky Winky is gay" stuff the religious right was harping about... I'm completely convinced it was intentional, but in a "crap past the Radar" nod sort of way.

I have to admit it's not so much the show, but the atmosphere around it that gets to us Die Hard Muppet Sesame fans. I don't see why kid's programming types (even ones at SW) felt the need to compete with this show. It's it's own thing, and as annoying to anyone over the age of 5 as it is, it's by no means awful. Cloying, but let's face it, Care Bears was far more obnoxiously diabetic. At least the DIC series. I caught an episode of it a while back and the VA's really seemed like they were phoning it in...thus making the CB's (ahem) emotional cleansing techniques come across pretty dang creepy. Yep. I have to admit, DIC Care Bears is worse than Barney. Nelvana, on the other hand...

Is that sun related to the Teletubbies baby-faced sun?

Doubt it. The Teletubbies Baby head sun probably cost like 50 times the budget of "Clip art sunshine man." I can harp on a LOT of preschool shows, but in the end there are things that just come off as cloying to anyone outside the target audience. Then there are things I just don't get. Faux-interactivity being the obvious. But there's a level of professionalism in most of them that makes them look like shows. Mickey's Farm, for the 2 minutes I caught of it, it looks like a tax dodge. There are better shows to introduce small children to animals. This didn't look like they find the smallest of children all that bright. It's somehow below the level of jingling keys. And with less than half the budget to boot.

 

[MikaelaMuppet]