My daughter likes cartoons. Each morning she gets to watch a little television while the adults get showered, dressed, etc. From time to time I get sucked into watching a few of the shows my daughter enjoys. Some of these shows I kind of enjoy and some I tolerate.

First the shows I like. One show that I’m fond of is called “Charlie and Lola”. The show is about Charlie and his little sister Lola and is a cartoon done in a sort of artsy simple paper mache/drawing style.

One of the things I like about Charlie and Lola is that they talk in British accents and use words like “cross” and “squabble” instead of “angry” and “fight”. The show has a steady pace also and is not ridiculously slow like other children shows tend to be (more on that later).

Brobee from Yo Gabba Gabba

Another show that isn’t too painful to watch is “Yo Gabba Gabba”.  The characters are goofy as all heck and make you think the creators might be on drugs but the characters sing songs, dance, and learn about eating healthy food, not biting friends, etc.  Some of the songs are kind of catchy…which can be a good thing or a bad thing.  I’ve gone through a good bit of my day with a Yo Gabba Gabba song stuck in my head before, and while there are a world of more unpleasant things to endure, I didn’t much care for the experience.

“Little Einsteins” is cool just for the simple fact that the characters in the show fly around in a rocket ship.  The show also teaches children about a “composer of the day”, and an “artist of the day” playing a piece that the particular composer of the day wrote and exploring a work of art that the artist of the day created; which I think is a cool thing.

The next batch of shows aren’t my favorite but are still not too annoying to me.  First up is the “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse”.  The show includes most of the classic Disney characters you know and they usually are faced with a problem or obstacle that they need to figure out.  They have this robot thing (I think they call it Toodles) that they call upon from time-to-time throughout each episode that provides them with tools that help them complete the task at hand.  For some reason the Toodles robot is always equipped with exactly the correct tools they need for that particular episode…very handy.  It sort of reminds me of those James Bond movies where Q supplies Bond with all these goofy gadgets that for some reason are the exact tools James Bond needs at various points throughout the film to complete the objective.

Handy Manny

Next up is “Dora the Explorer”.  I think Dora is cool in that it teaches children Spanish in an entertaining way.  What I don’t like about Dora is that it goes at a snails pace.  There seems to be lots of repetition, which I suppose is good when you would like to learn a second language, but not when you just want to be entertained by a television show.  Maybe the problem is with me here; I mean…maybe I’m not really the target audience for this one.  The show does keep my daughter’s interest, so maybe it’s just me.  “Handy Manny” is another one that I just for some reason can’t really get into.  It also plugs Spanish in from every now and then for the children to pick up on.

The shows I have a hard time stomaching are shows that have live people in outrageously colorful outfits and showing overly exaggerated emotion.  One of these shows is the “Doodlebops”.  Most of the characters in the Doodlebops have a painted face and matching wild hair and get way too excited about things like finding an apple in the fridge.  I can’t really say too much else about the Doodlebops because I haven’t seen a whole lot of the show.

Another show that falls into this category of goofy, over exaggerated, non-cartoon shows is the “Imagination Movers”.  Imagination Movers I would says is a bit of a step up from the Doodlebops I guess…maybe a half-step up though.  One or two of the songs they sing are somewhat catchy, but the emotions these guys show are way too exaggerated.  Another thing that I don’t particularly enjoy is the fact that they general spend an entire episode trying to figure out something pretty darn simple.  For example, there is an episode where one of the Mover’s feet is stuck in a bucket and the whole Movers gang, for the rest of the show, tries to figure out how to get this guy’s foot out of a bucket.  Thumbs down from me.

Imagination Movers

Finally we come to the “Wonder Pets”.  I just don’t like these guys.  They creap me out.  The cartoon appears to be created from actual pictures of animals.  The pictures are shuffled together one after the other bringing the creatures to life.  Again, I’m guessing I’m not the target audience.  These guys just aren’t for me.

Wonder Pets

The one good thing about all of these shows is that they appear to convey a message or teach a lesson to children watching, something I don’t think many of the cartoons I watched even attempted to do (except for maybe the G.I. Joe PSAs).