Harmful Television Watching

I am in the market for a new television show for my children as Dora is getting really old. For me. Oh, the girls could watch Dora til the cows came home (and in one episode they did) but I'm getting really tired of watching the same exact storyline with slightly different characters inserted. The Dora production staffers are comprised of the laziest writers since possibly Three's Company. Although I did like Mrs. Roper... Dora and Boots save (insert baby creature) and bring him back to his (insert Mommy creature) and along the way Swiper tries to steal something from them, making the tragedy of a baby being separated from its mommy even more horrific. Although yesterday we saw one with a slightly different theme where a scary witch casts a spell on Boots rendering him comatose and Dora must become a "True Princess" to save him from eternal slumber.

"Boots Night Night!" "Boots Night Night!" my children screamed throughout the entire FIVE HOUR half hour program. That's it, I said to myself, we need something a little less fear mongering. Enter The Fresh Beat Band.

Talk about scary. They make The Wiggles look like U2. The lead guy is like Ashton Kutcher if Ashton Kutcher sustained a crushing brain injury but Hollywood kept giving him projects and Demi propped him up on the red carpet as though nothing was amiss.

The abomination that is The Fresh Beat Band is beyond my literary talents to describe. Thirty seconds into the show I was speechless, a rare condition. It sent my mind racing: Who are these people? How much are they being paid? What do their friends and families think? Do they date, and if so, what do they say they do for a living? Because you couldn't possibly tell the truth!

The Fresh Beat Band had my children's utmost attention for its entirety. And their mother's. It was riveting in the same way you wonder what idiots are holding up traffic just to try to get a glimpse of a bloodied victim in a car accident but as you approach you crane your neck and hit the brakes too.

Other shows I'm considering introducing:

Caillou: A bald little boy with a hard-to-spell name and slight resemblance to Charlie Brown flits around the neighborhood with his plain mother who could really use a makeover. The narrator is like a female Ben Stein except without a sense of irony.

Kai-Lan: Not to be confused with Caillou, Kai-Lan is the Chinese Dora but without a monkey sidekick, slightly better looking and with a more refined sense of style. We learn lots of Chinese words that we'll never use, because let's face, nobody speaks Chinese except maybe in China.

In the meantime, I've decided CSI: Special Victims Unit would be less damaging than The Fresh Beat Band. So I'm going to go TIVO that right now until I decide for sure on a new show...