Shark Jumps and Scandals - Part II

Here’s Part II of my little stab at one of those “Decade In Review” pieces. Part I covered “Cast Changes, Derivatives, and Shark Jumps.” Now let’s move on to those memorable scandals that rocked a decade of preschoolers. Sort of.

Falls from Grace
Won’t someone please think of the children?

Baby Einstein
Turns out that watching spinning toys and puppets on TV to a score of plinking, tinkling electronic Mozart doesn’t turn our kids into geniuses after all. Who knew? Earlier this year, after years of hounding by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, the Walt Disney Company offered refunds for Baby Einstein DVDs (up to four per household) purchased between June 5, 2004, and Sept. 5, 2009. It’s a shame about the kids not growing up to be Einstein after all. But at least those DVDs scored me a few extra showers and uninterrupted lunches during the toddler days.

Thomas the Tank Engine
This one is so sad. I still remember that cold, rainy night when my mom took The Boy and his cousin to the toy store and bought them each their very first Thomas trains. They were mere 18-month-old dumplings at the time, just venturing out into the vast world of consumerism that awaited them. But their joy in those trains was so earnest and sweet, and their grandparents were so excited to share the fun with them. My dad built them a train table for a special Grandma’s House attraction, and each birthday and holiday more trains joined the family.



Until June, 2007, when the manufacturer recalled 1.5 million Thomas the Tank Engine toys due to lead paint contamination. As the show’s narrator would say, “Fortunately, no one was hurt.” But it was no fun gathering up my child’s beloved toys and boxing them up for a journey to that big roundhouse in the sky. The Thomas people were considerate enough to send us lead-free replacements and an extra train as a free gift. About a week later, though, when we got a notice that the free gift was also contaminated with lead paint, the Thomas honeymoon was definitely over. (I do kind of miss the Alec Baldwin episodes, but we’ll always have “Thirty Rock.”)

Melanie Martinez
PBS Kids Sprout, the cable channel with 24-hour preschooler programming, was the first real-time television I introduced to The Boy. We’d cuddle on the couch after a busy day playing on Seattle’s rainy playgrounds and relax with a little “Caillou” or “Kipper.”

In those days, the shows were hosted by actress Melanie Martinez as a sort of fairytale babysitter. Not everyone can walk that fine line between cloying and sweet, but Melanie did it with ease. I don’t know if it was the rush of Baby’s First Television or what, but we both just loved her. I mean, look at her. She’s adorable:



Then one day, we turned on the TV and Melanie was gone. I had a theory. She’d recently added that insufferable scratchy-voiced puppet Star to the act, and when we didn’t see her on TV that day I actually assumed Star was the reason for her departure. I had this whole scenario worked out in which she’d insisted on bringing this irritating puppet on board and left over creative differences or some such. Just goes to show you how naïve and self-centered I can be. Nobody had a problem with Star. Star lives on to this day. But Melanie. . . that was a different story.

Melanie, it turned out, had appeared in a video on satirical Web site TechnicalVirgin.com (now defunct). The video was a spot-on parody of abstinence-only PSAs, featuring Melanie as a chirpy goody-two-shoes explaining how she chooses anal sex to avoid pregnancy. Yes, it was a little raunchy, but it cut right to the heart of the pitfalls of abstinence-only education. If anything, it made me like her even more. A babysitter with a “Daily Show” sense of humor? You’re hired!

But the good folks at PBS didn’t see it that way. PBS president Paula Kerger issued a statement defending the firing, stating “What we are looking for in the host of Sprout is someone that is really representative of PBS and Sesame and kids’ entertainment. She's not an actress – she really is supposed to embody the service itself.” I guess she must have missed Gina’s appearance in “The Sopranos.” Anyway, that was the end of that. To her credit, Melanie stood by her decision to act in the video in an interview with Feministing.com.

SpongeBob and Tinky Winky
SpongeBob SquarePants also appeared in an inflammatory video in the 00’s, and this one really got James Dobson’s knickers in a twist. The content seemed innocent enough; just a bunch of Nickelodeon characters encouraging kids not to beat the crap out of each other for their differences – including “sexual identity.” (Or at least that was Dobson’s understanding. No reference to sexual identity actually appears in the video.)

Seems innocuous enough to me, but I guess there are plenty of folks out there who still believe it’s okay to beat the crap out of kids who are (or who appear to be) gay. Otherwise, why all the outrage? But there was plenty of it, and an embarrassing amount of speculation about the cartoon character’s own sexual identity.

Even more ridiculous was the late Jerry Falwell’s outrage over Teletubby Tinky Winky. There was no inflammatory video this time; just the far-fetched suspicion that a character with a purple costume (!) and a triangle-shaped antenna (!) who carried a purse (!!!) just might be a subversive icon of homosexuality. In his defense, Falwell wasn’t the first person to connect the dubious dots. But he was the first to start the hand-wringing.

Technically this Tinky Winky incident was in 1999, but I’m throwing it in here anyway because I’ve got a whole new WTF perspective on it now that I’m a parent. Annoying as they were, Teletubbies did manage to do some spot-on representations of toddler/preschooler mannerisms: Laa-Laa’s giggly joy, Po’s soft voice, the way they all bumble around and chorus “Again! Again” whenever they like something. And then there’s Tinky Winky – taller than the others, but still very much in the goofy stage of childhood.



I always thought Tinky Winky and that red bag were evocative of a 2-year-old boy’s fascination with his mom’s purse. Or, let’s say, a certain 5-year-old boy’s fascination with the fancy serving tray we received at a holiday party Yankee Swap. Yep, that’s my boy. I thought he would burst into tears the minute he saw it wasn’t a box of Legos, but it was love at first sight. He gazed at the packaging and started making plans for all the fishsticks and peanut butter sandwiches we could serve on that tray. He even stood guard over it, holding out a fist whenever someone looked around for a present to swap. A less polite crowd might have made a gay joke. Never mind the more obvious explanation that children are easily fascinated with anything new and grown-up and fancy.

But that’s not even the most annoying factor here. Yes, Tinky Winky can like a purse and The Boy can like a fancy serving tray and these preferences are irrelevant to sexual orientation. But even if they weren't, who would give a rat’s ass? Tinky Winky’s not even real. As for my kid, I would strongly caution him against attending the University of Wyoming, but other than that I don’t see that sexual orientation would make much of a difference to me. And I certainly don’t see anyone’s sexual orientation as a joke.

Because, really, what’s funny about it? What’s funny about someone being gay? If you’re heterosexual, your sexuality doesn’t become a punch line unless you find yourself in a Tiger Woods-type scandal. But if you’re not heterosexual, your sexuality becomes a punch line the minute you don’t conform. And honestly, all this cultural fretting over whether or not a cartoon character and some purple-costumed creature are gay? What a waste of our time.

/soapbox.

Anyway. Where was I? Oh yes, my little “Decade in Review” post. Well … hm. “Yo Gabba Gabba” was pretty cool, wasn’t it? And how about that “Fetch! With Ruff Ruffman”? A reality TV game show for kids that’s actually educational. How cool is that?

Now, let’s forget our troubles with a nice They Might Be Giants video. Happy New Year!