Television

So the final season of Lost is well underway! I’m so excited to be part of a cultural phenomenon in the only way I can be now that I’m a parent: sitting on my own couch, after bedtime.

But enough about that. An issue far more important to all parents of small children, is what to watch/listen to while the kid’s awake. Such listening material must adhere to the following criteria: 1) it must not give the child nightmares (no Smoke Monster during the daylight hours); 2) it must not make it preferable for you to sever your own optical nerve/ reach into your ears to crush your own eardrums rather than experience that again. Here’s what we’ve tried so far:

The Wiggles: When young Fussypants became old enough to become a consumer of popular culture, I had to draw upon my very limited knowledge of current childrens’ shows to find something for her, and recalled a weird video I once happened to catch. Since Netflix had some instant-view Wiggles videos available, I tried Sing a Song of Wiggles first. It was…excruciating. Adults can’t watch this, at least this one can’t. But, anything for Fussypants, so I persevered. I don’t know if You Make Me Feel Like Dancing and Wiggle Bay are actually entertaining or if I’m just desensitized, but either way, I don’t mind sitting through them.

Barney & Friends: No. No. Just…no. (But she loves it of course.)

Thomas the Tank Engine: Oh, to be an anthropomorphic piece of machinery on an imaginary island, what a blissful life it would be! It creeps me out when George Carlin is the narrator, and I’m not sure why a small island needs such an overdeveloped infrastructure, but otherwise this is good stuff. It also reminds me of my trip to England in the year 11 BF.

Clifford, the Big Red Dog: You might recognize the voice of Clifford as John Ritter, of Three’s Company. You might also recognize the voice of Cleo as Freddiefrom A Different World. Or, alternatively, you might not be as old as I am. Regardless, I like that big red freak of nature.

Speaking of being old, now seems like a good time for an Old Lady Rant: I had exactly one children’s album growing up, an 8-track of Sesame Street Fever (and wish I still had it), and VCRs hadn’t even been invented yet. I watched whatever show happened to be on PBS when I got leave to watch television, and that’s the way we liked it! I’m a Grumpy Old Woman!

And now, turning to music:

They Might Be Giants goes without saying of course. You don’t even need the kids’ albums, if I can ever find Flood, I expect that to become Fussy’s new favorite.

Mr. Froggy’s Friends’ ABCs: The title pretty much says it all really. But I am impressed by their not onlygetting the apostrophe in the right place for both possessives, but also didn’t put an apostrophe between ABC and s. Now that’s genius.

Byz found this album more sinister. He wondered why the singer purported to converse with Mr. Froggy, although Mr. Froggy himself never speaks. Who is this Mr. Froggy, he wondered?

Well, I can’t think of any other kid media we’ve experienced around here right now, but that’s because a two-year-old is about to collapse into tears because I’m not making a plush bear give a check-up to a plush monkey. So I can’t really think at all.

What happens when a modern-day magazine staff drinks as much during a workday as they do on Mad Men. Results: what you would expect.

Contains some fairly minor spoilers for the series. via.

I hate to say it but…I think one of my former favorite time-wasters, Television Without Pity is getting kind of lame.

I started to get a Bad Feeling™ about it when it was acquired by some cable network that I know nothing about. Now, it seems to be owned by NBC in some way. I find that 30 Rock can be humorous about this uncomfortable situation, but it seems TWOP can’t.

I knew the situation was dire when I was trying to watch one of their little video offerings, and my mind kept wandering back to the work I was supposed to be doing instead of watching TWOP.

Now, it’s possible that I’m just getting too old to Get It, but on the other hand, I’m about the same age as the people who do TWOP. So maybe they’re getting too old. In which case we should understand each other pretty well, something like this:

TWOP: Hey, remember Trapper Keepers?

AT: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Alas, how things change. Maybe now creating class activities centered on original historic documents will become my time-waster, and reading about television will somehow become my job. And the transformation will be complete.

To try to describe this or even comment on its awesomeness would be a disservice to you. Just go and watch. Episode 2 became available today, Episode 3 comes on Saturday, and the whole shebang disappears on July 20. It’ll be available on iTunes too, but the website version is free. For now.

Everybody has theories about Lost. Here are mine. If they turn out to be right (which seems unlikely), I guess they’d be spoilers, now, wouldn’t they?
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Lost season finale tonight! I’m so excited!

I know there are many questions people want answered, but here are the top questions on my mind:

(1) What exactly were Sawyer and Miles feeding poor Aaron during the “day” they were looking for Claire? Dharma-brand infant formula?

(2) Why didn’t we get to see the two of them struggling with the diapering situation on their own?

(3) If Kate supposedly gave birth five weeks ago, how does she explain those abs? For that matter, how does Claire?

And, I guess there might be a few other minor issues to be cleared up too.

I should probably stay off the internets. I can already hear the crabbing about last night’s Lost inside my head. Spoilers below.
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As my 5-month old daughter (let’s refer to her as Fussypants) probably would have said, if she’d stayed awake long enough to watch Lost last night. Spoilers after the link.
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So Be Kind Rewind is coming out in a few short days, and I’m really looking forward to it. I think this the first movie of ‘08 that I’m excited about, in fact.

The premise (two dudes accidentally erase all their VHS tapes, and decide to re-shoot them all by themselves) might seem either far-fetched or hokey to you, or maybe you’re not a Jack Black fan. Even if both of those hold true (and I can understand being annoyed by Black at times, though I really think he’s good in quite a few things), I still think you should approach the movie with an open mind.

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