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Let my bad parenting help you!
Jun. 2nd, 2010 11:24 pmApparently there really are parents out there who don't let their children watch television. This amazes me! If it weren't for the tv, I don't know how I'd ever make lunch. Plus, the shows on CBeebies are really, really good. They have earned their license fee a dozen times in the last year alone. Here are some you might try:
Pingu: I don't think this is a BBC show, actually (it's Swiss, for one thing), but it doesn't matter since it's in "pinguinese" rather than any actual language. Small children like penguins! Pingu has adventures! Also, the episodes are really short, which is good because in my experience babies get bored with TV pretty quickly.
Timmy Time: This is the preschool offering from Aardman Animation, the people who make Wallace and Gromit (they also make a series for older children called Shaun the Sheep). Timmy is a little lamb; he goes to nursery with a lot of other animals. The duckling and the puppy are his best friends; the kitten is his nemesis. They all have names, but since this show doesn't have language either, I have no idea what they are. It is adorable! Here are some typical episodes: Timmy only wants blue things! Timmy's jigsaw puzzle is missing a piece! They have show and tell! They play football and go on picnics!
I have now realized that we can watch episodes on iPlayer on the TV, which means that Spartacus will now sometimes grab the remote and say "Timmy Time! Timmy Time!"
In the Night Garden: It is difficult to explain the cracktastic wonder of In the Night Garden. For one thing, there is no consistant sense of scale: things are regularly bigger on the inside than the outside. This is especially true of the Tumbliboo's house, and BH thinks that maybe the Tombliboos came from Gallifrey. There is also Makka Pakka, who is obsessed with stacking rocks in towers and scrubbing people with his sponge. Iggle Piggle is Spartacus' favorite, because at the end of each episode, he's the one not in bed.
The characters don't speak in words, although each of them has a song which the narrator sings the first time each appears in an episode. The narrator is Derek Jacobi. We watched Gladiator the other night, and after all of Jacobi's lines, BH added "Isn't that a pip!" I can't wait to see I Claudius again! ("Claudius... I want... to be... a goddess..." "Well, isn't that a pip!")
Chuggington: This is probably aimed at older children, since it has actual dialogue, but it is about trains, so Spartacus loves it. ("I love trains!" is one of his favorite sentences.) Basically, this is like Temeraire, except with trains instead of dragons. And no Napoleonic Wars. So not really like it at all, actually. But still, traintastic! Three "trainees" are learning the ropes in a world largely populated by sentient trains and zoo animals.
(Animals are clearly VERY IMPORTANT for children's television, and there are a lot of nature shows on CBeebies; Little Big Cat Diaries is our new favorite, because it has cheetah cubs, and Spartacus has a book about cheetah cubs which he reads almost every morning. Wow, small children are so totally OCD!)
On a more serious note, I am kind of interested by the kind of childrearing advice people pick up on or choose to ignore: I mean, I see articles about how watching TV is horrible for children, and roll my eyes -- but a piece about how 5 minutes of crying will turn your child into a mentally damaged psychopath will turn me into a self-doubting wreck for 48 hours minimum.
Pingu: I don't think this is a BBC show, actually (it's Swiss, for one thing), but it doesn't matter since it's in "pinguinese" rather than any actual language. Small children like penguins! Pingu has adventures! Also, the episodes are really short, which is good because in my experience babies get bored with TV pretty quickly.
Timmy Time: This is the preschool offering from Aardman Animation, the people who make Wallace and Gromit (they also make a series for older children called Shaun the Sheep). Timmy is a little lamb; he goes to nursery with a lot of other animals. The duckling and the puppy are his best friends; the kitten is his nemesis. They all have names, but since this show doesn't have language either, I have no idea what they are. It is adorable! Here are some typical episodes: Timmy only wants blue things! Timmy's jigsaw puzzle is missing a piece! They have show and tell! They play football and go on picnics!
I have now realized that we can watch episodes on iPlayer on the TV, which means that Spartacus will now sometimes grab the remote and say "Timmy Time! Timmy Time!"
In the Night Garden: It is difficult to explain the cracktastic wonder of In the Night Garden. For one thing, there is no consistant sense of scale: things are regularly bigger on the inside than the outside. This is especially true of the Tumbliboo's house, and BH thinks that maybe the Tombliboos came from Gallifrey. There is also Makka Pakka, who is obsessed with stacking rocks in towers and scrubbing people with his sponge. Iggle Piggle is Spartacus' favorite, because at the end of each episode, he's the one not in bed.
The characters don't speak in words, although each of them has a song which the narrator sings the first time each appears in an episode. The narrator is Derek Jacobi. We watched Gladiator the other night, and after all of Jacobi's lines, BH added "Isn't that a pip!" I can't wait to see I Claudius again! ("Claudius... I want... to be... a goddess..." "Well, isn't that a pip!")
Chuggington: This is probably aimed at older children, since it has actual dialogue, but it is about trains, so Spartacus loves it. ("I love trains!" is one of his favorite sentences.) Basically, this is like Temeraire, except with trains instead of dragons. And no Napoleonic Wars. So not really like it at all, actually. But still, traintastic! Three "trainees" are learning the ropes in a world largely populated by sentient trains and zoo animals.
(Animals are clearly VERY IMPORTANT for children's television, and there are a lot of nature shows on CBeebies; Little Big Cat Diaries is our new favorite, because it has cheetah cubs, and Spartacus has a book about cheetah cubs which he reads almost every morning. Wow, small children are so totally OCD!)
On a more serious note, I am kind of interested by the kind of childrearing advice people pick up on or choose to ignore: I mean, I see articles about how watching TV is horrible for children, and roll my eyes -- but a piece about how 5 minutes of crying will turn your child into a mentally damaged psychopath will turn me into a self-doubting wreck for 48 hours minimum.
