Snapshot Chronicles

Susan Getgood's personal blog

Kids TV: Characters Parents Love

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Last month, I conducted two very unscientific Twitter polls about the children’s tv characters that parents dislike and like the most. I wrote about the hated characters on August 27th. This is the follow-up about the characters we like. Not surprisingly, there are some that appear on both lists, further proof that one person’s poison is another’s preference.

The top vote getters, with two each, were Wizards of Waverly Place, Phineas and Ferb and Spongebob. Everything else was mentioned once. Apparently, we often agree about the most annoying characters, but when it comes to what we like, our tastes are all over the place.

Here’s the list of single-votes:
Kipper
Little Bear
Curious George (with a shout out for the William H. Macy voice-over)
Ang (Avatar)
Dora
Handy Manny
Zack and Cody
Elmo
Sportacus (LazyTown)
Steve (Blues Clues)
Statler & Waldorf (Muppet Show)
The Count (Sesame Street)
Pepe le Pew and all the classic Warner Brothers cartoons
The Wiggles

I cast my votes for my favorites among the current crop my son watches — Wizards of Waverly Place and Phineas & Ferb — but looking at the list, I remember Kipper with great fondness. I also would give a thumbs up to the Avatar but my favorite character was the Uncle.

Here’s a clip from Wizards that amuses me nearly every time I watch it.

Eureka! It’s a good show.

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Just this year, we discovered the SyFy channel show, Eureka. It’s been on the air since 2006 but for whatever reason, we just hadn’t watched it, perhaps because it was on a weeknight, and our habit is Sci fi on Fridays.

But, desperate for something to watch last spring after all our favorite shows ended (for the season or for good, depending), we rented the first season from NetFlix. And quickly became hooked.

It’s not the best sci fi show I’ve ever watched. Farscape and Battlestar Galactica are more or less tied for that slot in my world view, for different reasons, with the original Star Trek getting honorable mention for nostalgic reasons. But it’s a good family science fiction show, and I like finding television that we all can enjoy.

Here are a few reasons why I like it:

The plots are always fantastic-strange, with some sort of mystery or conumdrum that needs to be solved, but they are also easy to follow. This makes the show accessible to kids my son’s age. Nothing loses the attention of a nine-year old like a convoluted plot. But it’s not dumbed down; they just keep things simple

While it is an adult show, it’s clear that the producers understand that they have a family audience; there’s no strong language and the youth characters are as well drawn as the adults.

The entire cast is excellent — even the smart house Sarah — but Colin Ferguson who plays the central character Sheriff Jack Carter, is absolutely terrific. Often cast in the role of straight man to the outlandish antics of the other characters, he can speak volumes with a wry look. I’m also particularly enjoying his romance with new character Tess Fontana, played by Jaime Ray Newman.

If you like a good sci fi mystery, I suggest you check it out, Fridays at 9pm on SyFy, with the previous week’s episode repeated at 8pm. There is an ongoing storyline, so it does help to watch in sequence, however, the episodes can be enjoyed stand-alone as well. If you’ve never watched, on September 4th, there will be a daylong marathon of viewers’ choice favorite episodes, with the final two new episodes airing on September 11th and 18th. The show has been renewed for a full fourth season.

BTW, I still think changing the network name from SciFi Channel to SyFy was a bonehead move.

Crawl back under that Caillou, Dora & take Max & Ruby with you

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After the subject of the children’s television series Caillou came up on Twitter last night — specifically how annoying the main character is — I did a completely random and totally unscientific Twitter poll about the kids’ tv characters that we, the parents, dislike the most.

The fact that one person’s poison is often another’s preference was acknowledged. I also asked folks to stick to the current crop of children’s shows, so this could serve as a public service warning to parents of children younger than our own, and promised to do a follow-up about characters we like. Someday. Even if it means I have to include the Wiggles. They’re okay but the guy in the purple shirt creeps me out.

I also stipulated that Barney was already in the Hall of Fame of most hated characters, so there was no need to waste your vote on the purple dinosaur.

With no further ado, the results.

The winner, with my vote cast as a tiebreaker, was indeed that bilingual whinger, pebble-boy himself, Caillou.

Tied for second place, with three votes each, Dora with special mention for the shirt that doesn’t fit (@ameliasprout), her huge head (@hellcat13), and yelling (@majorbedhead), and various combinations of Max & Ruby.

Elmo, SpongeBob and Sid the Science Kid followed, with two votes each.

One vote each: Pokemon (all of them), BoBo Brother Monkeys from Diego, the entire cast of Yo Gabba Gabba, Thomas the Tank Engine, Baby Bear, Wonderpets, BooBah Kids, Charlie & Lola, Kai Lan, and Max & Emmie from Dragontales.

Here’s a bit of my own special hell.

The Suite Life on Deck, the sequel to The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, featuring two of the most annoying child characters ever to spring from the minds of a Hollywood exec, Zack and Cody, and some pretty lame adult characters as well.

To conclude, because there is no other way to end a post about the most awful children’s characters, and with apologies to the pacifists among us:

Hollywood Radio and Television Societys 10th Annual Kids Day 2004

I hate you, you hate me
Let’s get together and kill Barney
With a two-by-four
Barney’s on the floor
No more purple dinosaur.

You know the tune.