Two Children's Television Shows in Need of Repair

Let's face it, there are the good programs on television for kids and then there are the bad. In fact, some of these programs should never even be aired as they are. While they were created as harmless entertainment, I've gotten a chance to witness first hand the downside to some of these programs. I won't state that the entire program itself is bad, no, but there are certain aspects of these shows that need to be changed or removed entirely. While these are favorites to some, these two top my personal list of programs in serious need of repair in order to be excellent programming for young children.

Wonder Pets

The Wonder Pets are three small schoolhouse pets - a turtle, a guinea pig and a duck. The three remain your typical school pet until after the last person leaves the school and then they turn into these pint sized superheroes. This trio of cute critters join forces to save a certain animal per adventure, be it a skunk stuck in a rose bush or a pidgeon stuck on the Statue of Liberty. When the trio get their mission from their can phone, they work as a team (Since the show ultimately teaches children the importance of teamwork and does so quite well) to create their mode of transportation - toys pieced together to create a ship with wheels, basically.

Then the trio flies on their way to save the troubled animal. This is usually done with a little creative thinking and after one failed attempt usually, the threesome do make the rescue. It is then that the Wonder Pets share celery (showcasing healthy eating, again, a plus side) and return to their school cages for the night.

The downside, however, is in the speech of one of the characters. Ming-Ming, the duckling, has a problem in using the sound r makes. Instead of stating, "this is serious." She states rather clearly (to which my child for a time even mimicked) "This is sewwious." I feel that when creating the show they thought it would be cute and show children that not all beings speak alike, which is excellent to use in empathy along with the empathy given to the animals being rescued, however, in a way I feel it backfired.

While a majority of the show is indeed, excellent, it gets rather displeasing to keep hearing a character that will influence children speaking improperly. Perhaps if the creators repaired this quirk of one of the pets then the show would definitely be worth watching one hundred percent of the way.

Oobi

I'm still fully trying to figure out how Oobi got onto the air. Oobi, hands down has to be the worst program I've seen on children's programming in a long, long time. Oobi does instill valuable learning lessons, however with the 'me tarzan you jane' sounding sentences, the show leaves very little reason to let a child watch besides the use of hands as characters for imagination.

All the characters appear to talk in third person, such as Oobi wanting to tell his grandfather "Grampoo" that he loves him, he states "Oobi love grampoo." Instead of "Oobi loves grampoo." There's no real plot to Oobi either. It's just a hand show where they learn a certain subject each time they're on - such as different modes of transportation. I fully enjoy the idea of using hands with eyeball rings to instill imagination and the learning aspect is enjoyable, however, the creators need to see that children must be taught to speak properly. One of my friends has a six year old who is Oobi-obsessed and she got sent to a speech teacher for her improper speaking. I don't think the use was intentional, perhaps more aimed at a younger age group but slid over to a slightly older crowd and created havoc.

As I stated before, the programming of these isn't all bad, just poorly thought out in certain aspects. I just feel that those who created the program need to open their eyes, see what these harmless words and sounds are causing and act accordingly so that children don't confuse others with their speech. In all honesty these are minor changes that are simple to change and hopefully they do fix them. I'd hate to see children lose a favorite show.