A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving surprised me with its heart

Our son surprised us by asking to watch the Peanuts Thanksgiving special on Thanksgiving. 

Earlier this year, he’d wanted to see It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and we were surprised at how bleak it was. So we weren’t sure what A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving would be like.

While it’s probably the most prominent animated Thanksgiving special (there aren’t a lot), it’s no A Charlie Brown Christmas so let’s get a summary going.

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In A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, the conflict comes from Peppermint Patty inviting herself, as well as Maurcie and Franklin to the Browns for Thanksgiving dinner. However, Charlie Brown will be celebrating Thanksgiving with his grandmother. His hastily thrown togoether meal disappoints Peppermint Party but Marcie points out hypocrisy. In the end, Grandma Brown invites everyone to her condominium for a traditional meal.

While there is a scene where a chair comes to life and fights an epic battle with Snoopy, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving is surprisingly grounded. Really, if a group of elementary school kids were to try to throw together a feast, popcorn, toast, pretzel sticks and jellybeans seems pretty believable. The special feels even more slice of life than usual for a Peanuts special.

As a grownup, the conflict in A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving takes on a different tone. Peppermint Party invites herself into the Browns’ Thanksgiving because her dad has been called out of town and she’s all alone. 

While it is barely touched on, Peppermint Patty has a single parent home. (I remember Marcie’s mom made her a skating dress because Peppermint Patty didn’t have a mom) Unlike Charlie Brown being in the unrealistic position of getting a Christmas tree (something a grown up would be expected to do), Peppermint Patty’s situation is very believable.

And when Marcie calls her out on she imposed on Charlie Brown and then blamed him for not living up to her expectations, Peppermint Patty feels bad and apologizes. I can’t see Lucy doing that.

While the situation isn’t as ‘big’ as the Christmas or Halloween specials, the stakes in the Thanksgiving special are more grounded and thus hit home on a different level. I found it surprisingly effective.

A Charlie Brown Christmas was a medium-changing work that has informed animated specials in general ever since it’s creation. A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving can’t touch that but it surprised me with its sweetness.

Wow, the Great Pumpkin is BLEAK

 Since stories are already selling Halloween stuff and you can only watch The Nightmare Before Christmas so many times in rapid succession, we let out seven-year-old watch Its The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. It’s a special that neither of us had watched in at least a couple decades.

Wow. Was this actually aimed at kids?

The world of Peanuts is always bleak but there is usually some element of hope somewhere, particularly in the specials. And there are some many that there have to be ones I’ve forgotten or never seen. But the Great Pumpkin seems particularly bleak.

All of the characters are either mean or miserable, with the exception of Snoopy. It’s just a profoundly unhappy setting. In particular, the way that the world treats Charlie Brown is rough. Linus and Sally choose to ignore trick or treating and parties to wait for the Great Pumpkin. Bad things just happen to Charlie Brown. Every adult in his neighborhood singling him out to give him a rock is Kafkaesque.

The most redemptive character is Lucy. While she is cruel and bullying, she also gets extra candy for Linus and brings him home from the pumpkin patch in the middle of the night.

Truth to tell, given sophisticated jokes (needing to have a signed document notarized, denominational differences between Santa Claus versus the Great Pumpkin, demands for restitution) as well as the black comedy (as opposed to the slapstick of, say, the Three Stooges), I honestly wonder if adults were the actual intended audience for real.

The second season of the Hollow justifies the cartoon’s existence

 Last year, I watched the first season of the Netflix cartoon The Hollow. I just finished the second season. And it is ridiculously better than the first season.

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The whole schtick of the first season is that the characters are actually in a video game. And that’s honestly pretty much it. It had nice animation and was a pleasant distraction but it was pure fluff. In fact, since the characters start the game with no memories, there wasn’t even much character development. Everyone but Kai is static.

The twist is the second season, which is actually really easy to see coming, is that the characters in this season are actually digital clones of the characters from the first season, accidentally created by a glitch. But a big part of what makes the story work is not that they aren’t ‘real’ but how they deal with it.

At the start of the first season, the characters start off with no memories. This time, they have all their memories and we actually get to know who the characters are. More than that, we learn that some of them have known each other for years and that includes people on the other team. The opposing team from the first season were cardboard thin at best but actually get developed into meaningful supporting roles this time.

Major spoiler: I knew that this season would be more interesting when a major supporting character dies for real at the end of the fourth episode. It isn’t just game over or only the glitches. Things were now serious.

In other words, we are given characters who can develop and who we can care about and there are actual stakes involved.

While the resolution for ‘are we real?’ dilemma  was simplistic, it did remind me of Gilbert K. Chesterton’s Manalive. You don’t ponder the meaning of the universe if someone is shooting at you. Simple but it works.

Afterwards, I told my wife that she might enjoy the second season but she could skip the first one. The first season was fluff I had on for background noise while cooked or such. I actually was interested in this season.

I understand that the series has officially been canceled. Which I think is reasonable. Even with the improved second season, the Hollow is still simply good, not a classic. So, I am just happy the second season exists at all.

So Star Trek is Octonauts in space?

 Octonauts is underwater, old school Star Trek with funny anthropomorphic animals but no red shirts or prime directive.

While we tried having our son watch it two, three years ago, he wasn’t really interested in it. Now that we are delving into all the potentially educational kids TV that Netflix has, Octonauts has gotten some viewing.

The show, aimed at the five to seven bracket, is about a group of animals who have undersea adventures with the mission statement of ‘Explore! Rescue! Protect!’ Each segment features a different and very specific form of marine life and includes a few interesting factoids about them.

But man, does it have a Star Trek vibe like no one’s business. 

While Star Trek didn’t create the paradigms that have become synonymous with it(I keep waiting for someone to tell me The Voyage of the Space Beagle ripped off Star Trek), it did run away with them like a house on fire. And, speaking as a dedicated Doctor Who fan, I think Star Trek has done quite well by them. (To be fair, I haven’t seen a single episode of at least half the versions of Star Ttek out there)

What really screams original Star Trek to me about Octonauts is that the main characters form a aid-Ego-SuperEgo trio like McCoy-Kirk-Spock. This time, though, the medical officer is the Spock figure while the Id is a kiddie-friendly version of Wolverine.

I do wonder If the light-hearted action-adventure or the cartoonish anthropomorphism gets in the way of actual scientific facts. Still, I figure our son will at least remember the names of some sea life. And if he ends up liking Star Trek more than Doctor Whi, I’ll blame Octonauts :D

Should a preschool cartoon make me feel this cynical?

Our six-year-old spent a couple days binging on the Rainbow Rangers cartoon, even though he’s a little old for it.

It’s basically a preschool version of Captain Planet and the Planeteers with that CGI that makes all the characters look like they are made of plastic. It does have a theme song that has the ear worm of any three given Eurovision entries combined. Honestly, neither of his parents think much of it.

However, there is one thing about the show that I find striking. The closest thing the show has to a villain is morally dubious businessman Preston Praxton, who makes Mayor Humdinger from Paw Patrol look like Doctor Doom. Quite a bit of the time, the heroes thwart him by giving him a financially viable alternative to his environmentally devastating ways.

Okay, the tv show is for a younger audience so peaceful conflict resolution is part of the package. And, as an educational, environmental show, showing alternatives and not just saying pollution is bad is pretty important.

However, the extent that the heroes help him out is sometimes astonishing to me. In one story, they agreed to actually flat-out manufacture an alternative fishing net that was safer for turtles. Another time, they agreed to let him photograph them instead of wild animals. (I know it wasn’t meant to be creepy but they are nine-year-old girls!)

I honestly feel that the show leans towards teaching that industry and business are at least as important as saving the planet. I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing. I think appealing to enlightened self-interest may result in change, while appealing to altruism might not.

Should a program for preschoolers make me feel so jaded and cynical?

The Hollow as a weird world building exercise

I recently stumbled across a description of the cartoon the Hollow and ended up watching a bit of it, including the end since the description spoiled it for me :D It was an okay cartoon, good for background noise but not captivating in and of itself. But it did get me thinking.

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Okay, the characters are in a video game and they might even still be stuck in it at the end. In actuality, going in already knowing that made the show more enjoyable for me since that justified all the wacky world building. Each area in the game was very much it’s own genre and, taken on a whole, wouldn’t have made any sense except as a video game. Spooky Woods next to Decaying Creepy Amusement Park next to Wild West Ghost Town next to Invaded Space Stations. It’s either really bad or really brilliant world building. 

And it also made me think of older games where the world building was kind of shaky. The original Zork has magical rainbow wands, exorcisms, steam punk dams and the Cyclops explicitly from the Odyssey. While later games tried make it all make more sense, it was a goofy, kitchen sink setting where the only point was to grab all the loot you could.

However, what it _really_ reminded me of was the failed RPG experiment Sandman: Map Of Halaal. (http://www.gnomepondering.com/2016/05/sandman-map-of-halaal-weird-art-project.html?m=1) Man, that was a weird game on almost every level but the setting was the weirdest part. Casablanca mixed with early Disney movies mixed with Arabian Nights mixed with Einstein in a rocket ship topped off with psychodramas.

Okay, when I actually look back at Sandman: Map Of Halaal, it is much, much more deranged than the more mundane kitchen sink of The Hollow. It is literally like someone dumped random pop culture into a blender.

The Hollow, truth to tell, doesn’t have that interesting a plot and the character development is minimal. But the retro, kitchen sink setting did take me back to a different era of gaming.

The love in Archibald’s Next Big Thing is pretty big

I really didn’t have any interest in Archibald’s Next Big Thing. There are way too many kids shows out there to keep track of all of them and it didn’t look like anything special. However, my wife tried it out with our son. When they reached the point where a mole is crooning about stealing stuff to plug a drain pipe, she knew it was a show for  ur family.

It’s kind of hard to describe Archibald’s Next Big Thing. Archibald is an anthropomorphic chicken who gets into wild and silly antics. And that is the show in a nut shell but it doesn’t explain why we’ve enjoyed it so much.

The show has a lot of frenetic action and craziness, which is fun but far, far from unique in cartoons. And the show demonstrates a certain awareness of how silly it all is without being cynical about it, which is fun. But that’s still not it.

What Archibald’s Next Big Thing has in spades is sweetness without being saccharine. Archibald’s three siblings are aware of how much wackiness that Archibald can get into that they can easily predict what mess he’s in now. However, while they sometimes demonstrate resignation and even annoyance, they also never demonstrate anything less than total love for him.

I like how everyone, including Archibald himself, acknowledges that, even in a world of rock and roll whales and maybe unicorns, he’s pretty odd. He’s the Pinkie Pie of his world. However, like Pinkie Pie, he is accepted and even cherished. 

You know, the InBestigators is jolly good fun

Our son recently discovered the children’s show The InBestigators on Netflix. Frankly, his parents might be getting more out of it than he is. 

Imagine if Encyclopedia Brown If it was a comedy and Australian and possibly directed by Christopher Guest. Four fifth-grade kids solve problems around their school and neighborhood with frequent cuts of them narrating the events as a vlog.

The show embraces the mockumentory format a lot more than I was expecting. We watch the kids usually doing something else (like failing at origami or not repairing a printer) while they describe the latest case to the camera. Instead of just being an occasional confession cam, the vlog is a subplot.

Each of the detectives has a distinct and quirky personality. Ezra is earnest and obsessed with science. Ava is hyper and super social to a silly degree. Sporty Kyle has a heart as big as a hot air balloon and his brain is about as empty as one well. Maudie, who is the one who actually does the detective work, is also withdrawn and socially awkward. It’s not the best child acting I’ve ever seen but it’s several cuts above very nice young men and women doing their best.

The writing is beautifully, wonderfully snarky. I don’t think our five-year-old gets half of the jokes. I love it when a children’s series includes bonuses for the parents but does so by being witty instead of ‘hidden’ raunchy. The show is actually funny.

As wacky as the show is, there are some surprisingly serious topics discussed. In addition to cases about cheating in class or vandalism, the show delves into parents getting divorced and bullying and losing a parent. And the InBestigators doesn’t give pat, easy answers to those subjects.

The InBestigators isn’t our new favorite show but it is funny and discusses things kids need to deal with in a non-preachy way. Our family is glad we found it and another season or two would be nice.

Ninjago has turned around and kicked it’s way into our hearts

Lego has long been a part of our household. Honestly, as a toy that our son could get into when he was three and might be still enjoying when he’s a teenager, Legos are amazing. (And, by the way, trying to follow the instructions of a Lego kit with a small child makes you realize that Lord Business is the real hero of the LEGO Movie)

However, what made Legos really blow up in our home was Ninjago. And the TV show is entirely to blame. Don’t get me wrong. The toys are fun but the TV show is what made our five-year-old’s imagination go up to eleven.

Now, we had seen the Lego Movie and the Batman movie and other Lego cartoons. We had a sense of the snarky humor that defined Lego cartoons. (We later saw the Ninjago movie and everyone in the house thinks it’s much weaker than the TV show, by the way)

But Ninjago was different. It was funny and kid—safe but it had a much stronger sense of drama. In fact, at most, I’d describe it as an action dramedy that sometimes becomes a flat out drama. (Seasons five, eight and nine are particularly dark for me)

(I also have to add we have not watched any Bionicle, which also sounds like a more dramatic Lego cartoon so I can’t compare it)

My original one-sentence description of Ninjago was Lego meets Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. But, for many reasons, I would now describe it as Lego meets Avatar the Last Airbender. The show consists of story arcs that last one to two seasons and has a remarkably strong focus on character development. In fact, I’m convinced Avatar was a strong influence on Ninjago.

Indeed, trying to explain it to the grandparents is hard because the show changes so much from season to season. There is no ‘watch this one episode and you’ll get it’ because even the genres can change from season to season. The best I can do is Legos that fight :D

The relative complexity of the story-telling (contrary to what some fans say, this is still a kid’s cartoon first and foremost. Of course, I’m the guy who argues that My Little Pony:Friendship is Magic and Doctor Who are children’s shows (and I love them)) is what I think really hooked our son. He’s been given enough ongoing story to really become invested in it. And that has spilled out into playing with the toys and telling his own stories. 

I think that I didn’t get into a cartoon that was focused on long term story telling and character development until I discovered Robotech and I was about twice our son’s age. And, without rewatching it, I’m pretty sure Robotech is a more mature story, seeing as how it’s a war story that includes death, soap opera romance and near genocide. But I was, you know, ten.

Man, what will our son be watching when he’s ten?

Duck Tales, all about family

I was just young enough to have watched the original Duck Tales. By the time most of the Disney Afternoon came out, I was too busy to watch those shows. (A dear friend of mine has said that DVR fixed television and he's right.)

At the time, I didn't know who Carl Barks or Don Rosa were. I didn't know the rich heritage of comic books cartoon was drawing from. But I really liked it and it helped shape my idea of who Uncle Scrooge and the three nephews were.

To be honest, I have yet to really read the Duck comic books but I now have a much better idea of what they are like. And Donald Duck, with his short fuse and his determination, has become my favorite Disney character.

So, when I heard a new version of Duck Tales was coming out, I was interested, and when I heard that David Tenant, who was my favorite new Doctor, would be Scrooge, I was excited. 

I've now watched the pilot/first episode.

I think when you reimagine a property, it's dangerous to be too slavishly close to the original work and I also think it's dangerous to disrespect the original work. It's important to get a new audience but to also remember why the original work had an audience in the first place.

Let's face it, the core concept of Duck Tales is a family that adventures together. The new show pushes that idea even further into forefront. Well, at least in the first story. But there are signs that they are going to keep that up.

Famously, Roy Disney didn't want any of the big names (Mickey, Goofy, etc) to be in TV cartoons. (Obviously, that didn't last long) But that did mean Donald was limited to a couple appearances and his role was taken by his polar opposite, Launchpad McQuack.

The reimagining has Donald a main character and it looks like both his relationship with his uncle and with his nephews are his defining characteristic. He still has a hair trigger temper, the worst luck imaginable and the stoppable determination. But instead of pairing his fierce love for his nephews with a desire to murder the little brats, he's a total helicopter parent.

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At the end of the first story, we have a wham line of Dewie realizing that his mom also adventures with Uncle Scrooge. This is after we have learned that Donald has raised his nephews since they were in diapers and he has an old grudge against Uncle Scrooge. 

It's pretty obvious something happened to her under Scrooge's watch. Which also explains why Donald is so overprotective of the nephews. 

Thats a lot of heavy drama.

The original Duck Tales helped reshape the TV cartoon landscape but the world of cartoons has changed over twenty years. Fortunately, it looks like Disney has considered those changes in the reimaging. 

I was thrilled to get more David Tennant but now I'm looking forward to the actual tales of the new Duck Tales.

Welcome to Noddy's World. The rest of us just live here

Lately, our son's TV show of choice has been Noddy Toyland Detective. Frankly, we try and limit how much TV he watches so a new show breaking in doesn't happen that often.

While I had heard of Noddy before, I never had that much interested in the franchise. It always looked like it was too twee for my tastes, too much like Dot and Tot of Merryland, L. Frank Baum's most sickeningly sweet book. (Seriously, it makes the Wonderful Wizard of Oz look like Warhammer 40K)

And, from what I can tell, the original books really are that twee. However, since I can't seem to find any e-books of them, I haven't read any of them yet. However, in my search for them, I did end up finding out a lot more about their author, Enid Blyton.

Enid Blyton is one of those authors like Edith Nesbit who is a household name in England and probably a lot of other countries, like Canada and Australia, but doesn't seem that well known in the U.S. Then again, maybe I am an uncultured heathen who hangs out with other uncultured heathens. 

On the other hand, A. A. Milne might be in that position if Walt Disney hadn't personally loved Winnie the Pooh. I was surprised but fascinated to learn how much work Walt had put into Winnie the Pooh even though he didn't live to see the theatrical release.

Anyway, I had vaguely been aware of who Enid Blyton was but I hadn't realized she had written the Noddy books. Not to mention more books about kids having adventures then a Hardy Boys convention. Seriously, if she really didn't use ghost writers, she was writing a book in a week. Which means she was a one-woman Stratemeyer Syndicate.

And like the Stratemeyer Syndicate, she can and was and still is accused of writing drivel that lacked literary merit and supported stances that can be sexist and racist and classist. (The Three Golliwags is the extreme example) Still, she sold a lot of books and her works still sell by the bushel so I feel like we should honestly research and critique her work.

The other thing I've discovered is that Noddy Toyland Detective is the ninth TV show about the character. The earliest one goes back to 1955! Other words, I might not know very much about Noddy but there are generations that have been invested in the franchise.

More than that, Noddy Toyland Detective is a pretty extreme reimaging of the character. He's a detective instead of a taxi driver and the entire supporting cast has either been heavily revised or flat out replaced. Which means that it is probably an abomination in the eyes of older fans.

Still, our family has been enjoying it. And I am sure, in the years to come, there will be other franchises that have revisions that we won't be able to stand either.

We end up liking Shimmer and Shine, despite ourselves

Last August, Nick Jr. gave us Shimmer and Shine, a cartoon about two genies in training and the hijinks they got into. When we first watched it, neither my wife or I cared for it. However, sporadically watching it, the show grew on us.

The show is as formulaic as an algebra class. Leah and her goofy friend Zack try to do something and fail. She summons up Shimmer and Shine, her genii friends who grant her three wishes a day, to solve the problem. Shimmer and Shine, misunderstanding her wishes, make things worse while hiding from Zack. Finally, out of the wreckage of the wishes, they work things out.

Part of our issues with the show are the characters Leah and Zack. Not only are they two children who seem to live alone in their own homes, Zack is a space cadet only loosely connected to reality and Leah fails to show any realistic reaction to Shimmer and Shine messing up. 

The moral of the show is not that it's okay to make mistakes or everyone makes mistakes but that you can your mistakes work out for the best. That does beat teaching kids about giving up and quitting as a moral but I don't think it's the best lesson.

In actuality, it's the genies that we have to enjoy about the show. They are more developed and realistic characters. Their relationship as sisters and pet owners with a mischievous monkey and tiger cub creates an actual dynamic, as opposed to Leah and Zack's flat and empty lives.

As a gamer and fantasy reader, I also enjoy the vague but fairly consistent laws that define their magic. The genies have vast reality warping powers that are limited more by their understanding than anything else. (Which is why two thirds of their mistakes come from culture shock) They are only allowed to do three things per day for Leah who holds their bottle but they are able to do just about anything they want of their own volition.

Okay, they seem to basically have the same restrictions as the a Robin Williams genii.

According to Wikipedia, Shimmer and Shine has had very high ratings, so apparently other folks took to it faster than we did and watch it a lot more regularly. A new season has been announced that looks to be shaking just about everything  up.

For one thing, the new season will be in CGI, completely changing the look. It also appears we will have Leah and Zack ending up in the genies' dimension, having adventures there. New characters will be added, including the princess of the genies and an antagonist. In other words, it looks to be nothing like the first season.

I'm quite curious to see how this goes. On the one hand, it definitely livens everything up. On the other hand, wow, doesn't it break every series was built around.

If nothing else, I got to give the creators credit for being so brave.