NaBloPoMo Day 25: Playhouse Disney

I mentioned recently that Cate is really loving My Friends Tigger and Pooh on Playhouse Disney. It’s more the theme song than the show itself, I think. Yesterday at Target I caved into the powerhouse that is the Disney marketing machine and bought her the Christmas special DVD, and eh… not so much. They don’t do the theme song at the beginning of the movie, so she was bored and crawled off after about five minutes. I’m guessing she might like it more next year.

Btw, if any of you watch that show, you know the turtle? Did you know that Mark Hamill – as in Luke Skywalker – does his voice? Um, WTF?

Anyway, since we’ve been watching a lot of Playhouse Disney in the mornings, I’ve started noticing a couple of thing about the little segments that they show in between the regular shows to fill in the time.

First, Feeling Good with JoJo is a little segment based on the show JoJo’s Circus, which comes on at ridiculous o’clock in the morning, so we’ve never watched it. Basically, in these little segments, JoJo (a clown) shows kids how to do one yoga pose, which is a nice idea in theory. However, at the beginning, she says something along the lines of:
“Hi, I’m JoJo, and today I’m going to show you how to do something with your body that’ll make you feel really good.”
And I giggle at how completely inappropriate that is for children’s programming. Because apparently I’m a 14 year-old boy.

Also, JoJo has a pet lion named Goliath, and the first time Dave saw him, he almost fell off the couch laughing. It’s all done in claymation, so Goliath’s mane is rather well-coifed. Dave says he looks like Christopher Walken, and well, he sort of does.

One of their other segments proves that I clearly need to get out of the house more often, because I think the DJ on Choo-Choo Soul is kinda hot. Dave thinks that the singer (Genevieve) looks like a stripper. There is something sort of Fergie-esque about her, and the train conductor’s uniform that she wears is a little costume-y, so I can see where he gets that idea. But I like their music, and Cate seems to dig it too, so no complaints about that.

And as much as I despise the Happy Monster Band, and I can’t decide if Go Baby is really cute or really creepy, I still think it’s nice that they don’t show tons of commercials in between shows.

Like I said, I need to get out more.

8 thoughts on “NaBloPoMo Day 25: Playhouse Disney

  1. I haven’t seen any of those shows but the Go Baby thing freaked me out. RE: baby yoga show: the script writers for that show HAVE to have done that for the parents’ humor. Or, you’re seeing the real consequences of the Writer’s Guild strike.

  2. Oh, and I’d totally be laughing too, because I am also a 14-year-old boy. Someday we’re going to have to stop watching South Park.

  3. I’m curious as to why you put their name in all caps – I hope you intended it as a joke (all caps to demonstrate the obnoxiousness), and that you don’t work for Disney.

  4. I don’t work for Disney. But I am the creator of the show. I am interested in feedback and more specifics about what you didn’t like about it.

  5. Wow. Well, now I’m kind of embarassed because I didn’t mean for the show’s creator to read that. But since you want feedback, here goes:

    First, the music just doesn’t appeal to my daughter. Most kids’ music makes her rock back and forth and kind of yell along, and for whatever reason, the Happy Monster Band doesn’t do it for her. Take that for what it’s worth; she is only 10 months old, after all.

    Most of my gripes are from an adult’s perspective, not a kid’s (which is probably not your biggest concern, since the show is designed for kids). It bugs me that the characters’ voices are done by kids, but the music is obviously sung by adults. I’m sure it’s not something a kid would notice, but it irritates me. And I assume that the American Idol reference at the end is intended to be a joke for the grown-ups (because one hopes that toddlers aren’t watching AI), but it’s just not funny. Although maybe that’s because I hate American Idol, who knows.

    Any other cable cartoon segments you’ve done that I might’ve seen? (If you did that talking moose on Noggin, my husband is going to have a bone to pick with you.)

  6. Don’t be embarrassed. You raise some good points. Using kids voices for the speaking parts and adults for the singing was a concern I had from the beginning. The American Idol spoof was a Disney addition. I designed the characters and came up with the overall concept. I have only heard positive things about the music. Your daughter may be a little young or just have different taste in music. That’s OK. This is my first TV project. It has been a learning experience. Mostly I write/illustrate children’s books.

  7. My 2.66 year-old, my wife, and I can’t get enough of Happy Monster Band. My daughter wants to watch and listen to the songs every night at the Happy Monster Band website. The animation is simplistic genius–clever and cute at the same time. The songs are catchy for both kids and adults. In fact, the songs so appealed to me I did further research and discovered the band behind the songs (Tally Hall). We would like to see longer length productions and a CD reslease sometime soon. Continue the great work!

Comments are closed.