I’ve had to endure the normal amount of children’s programming, maybe a little more than average. I don’t think that there is anything detrimental to watching educational programming, and Treehouse Tv doesn’t show commercials (well, almost. They sneak ‘sponsors’ in at the start of a show, but before the show actually starts, and only once every half hour) so no harm done. I even like some of the shows. I’m officially a fan of the Wiggles, for example.
But to the point, there is one show that irritates me with its lack of logical cohesion. That show is Little Bear, a Canadian cartoon that stopped production years ago. The main character, Little Bear, capers happily around the forest with his diminished-capacity friends. Sure, his friends could be all children themselves, but then why do they have adult voices? Anyway, they all frolic without any clothes on, yet Little Bear’s parents are always wearing clothes. What?
The first reasonable excuse you could use is that the need for clothes is a symptom of growing up, and youthful innocence is represented by the nudity. I don’t like that explanation, but I went with it until there was an episode that displayed a picture of Mother Bear when she was a child AND SHE WAS WEARING CLOTHES! So, the nudity is not an established tradition in their culture, it’s just the wierd, hippy decision of this bear’s parents to let him run around with his business in the breeze.
One other facet that bothers me, is using a character’s species as their name. What happens when the new ducklings grow up-are they all named ‘Duck’? Is ‘Duck’ now ‘Old Duck’? Are they numbered ducks 1 through 9? Way to confuse children, Little Bear.
Chris Loblaw, Author 