"It's Not Fair! It's Just Not Fair! There Was Time Now!" or Where's My Good TV?

[Seil]

Title comes from an old Twilight Zone episode. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FUI90HIQt8&feature=related) Remember that? The Twilight Zone? Or how about when they'd show great movies like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebfLWAB8bY4)

My niece is in the other room watching American Idol, and soaps. Okay, there's less watching and more drooling on herself, but come on, she's not even a year old. I don't want her first memory of TV to be Simon Cowell's condescending remarks. If she's scared off from television, she'll become active in the community, get a decent education and go on to cure various diseases and win the Nobel for it, rather than nerdify and dwell on the internet like her uncle. For the sake of my niece, we need good television back!

[PyrosNine]

Do what I did for my sister's spawn!

Step one: Buy DVDS (Or USE THE EVILS OF THE INTERNET) to obtain childhood shows, from the first shows you remember (that were good). Some oldie tv shows are actually free for watching on Youtube, Joost, or whatever now.

Step 2: To keep it fresh, show episodes from different series one after another so she's not just watching the episodes marathon style. This can be done by burning stuff onto a dvd with a special playlist, or changing legit dvds after she's watched an episode.

Step 3: Remember, too young means too young to enjoy what she's watching. Drooly McDiaperpants can't understand the finer subtleties of Gargoyles. Maybe even not Carebears. In some cases, you might need to just get her some of those baby oriented shows that just play music and show shiny objects until she can understand vocabulary. Just don't watch it with her, or you will go insane. Unless you're high or something, but then again, you don't want to be high near a small child.

Step 4: NEVER NEVER NEVER buy cheap crap for infants just because it says for infants. For instance: Let's Play with PuppyDog, a cheap DVD my sister picked up for $3, with two faux japanese style characters, a man in a giant dog suit, and retardation. Babies don't know things. But babies are not retarded. Every episode goes like this:

Sue: What's that, Puppydog?
Puppydog: Wow, you found a ball Sue!
Matt: Is that a ball? What do you do with it, Puppydog?
Puppydog: Do you know what to do boys and girls? Yes! That's right, you can push the ball! *makes strong pushing motions* Can you push the ball Sue?
Sue: I sure can! *pushes ball*
Puppydog: Good! You *makes pushing motions* pushed the ball!
Matt: Let me try! *Tries to push the ball, but trips* Whoa! *falls on face*
Sue: Be careful Matt!
Puppydog: Are you okay Matt?
Matt: I'm fine! Pushing a ball is harder than I thought!
Then, to make feel not like a retard, Puppydog makes the audience make pushing motions, and then Sue pushes the ball again.
What follows is the true insanity:
To the tune of Row Row Row the Boat, Puppydog sings with children "Push push push the ball", with no other lyrics other than Push the ball, while it shows children doing things, occasionally pushing balls.

That doesn't sound too bad?

That is every skit on the 2 hour DVD defined, with only a few changes in subject. Sue will find something. Puppydog will say what it is and ask what to do with it, and Matt will utterly fail at it. He fails at picking things up, pushing things, being OUTSIDE of an object (how do you fail at being outside an object?) being under an object, pulling things, and then Sue will correctly do it again, just to rub it in Matt's face. Then Row Row Row your boat's tune will be recycled for whatever the hell they were doing, with children trying to look excited about whatever the heck they were doing, and are likely children related to the filmmakers who made this crap. Row Row Row your boat. Over and over again. No other tunes.

This goes on for 2 HOURS. Each Skit is little over 6 minutes. That is 20 times. And sometimes, because the niece didn't feel tired of whatever she was watching until she fell asleep watching it (she'd cry if the TV turned off) and Sis would restart the DVD.

This drove me more insane. This was more than even I could handle. I burned that disc, and made my nephew watch Kimba the lion, and found Jack's Big Music Show, which is the best thing for small people to watch EVER. Blues Clues too. Kids like music.

Failing all this: just make sure to send her vintage DVD's and guide her devopment in a small way with media. I've already Amazon'd Sailor Moon and My Little Pony for my Niece, and then we'll move on to Slayers, The Secret life of Alex Mack, and the original series of Pokemon.

[BitVyper]

If you get the special edition DVD, it's revealed that Matt is the reincarnation of Hitler during the extra skit, "atone atone atone for your sins."

There's also an alternate ending where they're in Omelas and Matt is the unfortunate one.

[Mike McC]

Television is dead.

Use Boxee (http://www.boxee.tv/) instead.

[Aerozord]

Yea you should probably wait until you atleast hit the 7 or 8 range.

Its what I did with my nephew and video games. Sat him down, loaded up Mario 3, and told him to keep playing until he realized every game he owns sucks

toss stuff at them too soon and while it will still be good, they wont understand how good. Sure they could watch it after the fact but, its kind of like explaining a joke. You will realize why its funny, but wont be as entertained by it

[Premmy]

blahblahblahdeblahblaah The Secret life of Alex Mack
And this is why we're besterest buddies.

[Seil]

Wasn't that the show on YTV when Snit and Phil were on there? The one with the blond chick with magic powers?

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Man Alex Mack was an awesome show. I think it was the first piece of fiction ever that made me realise my life was incomplete and totally worthless because I didn't have superpowers. 16 Years later and still no superpowers. What an utter dissapointment.

What's even worse is I never got to see the final episode of the series. Damn you Nickelodeon! Damn you!!

[Marc v4.0]

Dammit, if I have to act out every single episode of Gen 1 Transformers for my children, I will do it just to make sure they know of the glorious exploits and heroic sacrifices of the Autobots.

Optimus Prime is still my Hero, too

[Meister]

I agree with the general statement of the "quality" of today's TV but in this specific case I'd say just get your niece away from the TV and hand her some building blocks or whatever.

Also, consider this. In 25 years she'll remember whatever terrible shows they're going to have in 2017 just as fondly and nostalgically as you do Ghostbusters and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. If you're lucky one day she's going to rediscover older TV shows via QuantumTorrent and marvel at how much better than 2035's crap TV those old shows were, such as CSI: Miami and House.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I have constructed a full educational system through the medium of tv:
Science…Mcguyver
History…BlackAdder
Arts…Twin Peaks
Social Studies… Brideshead Revisited interspersed with the Young Ones
Languages… Allo Allo
General Education…Monty Python’s Flying Circus
Geography… Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego- either cartoon or gameshow

[Seil]

I actually found a few old Ninja Turtles VHS' not too long ago, so she's got those, as well as the two Ghostbusters flicks. However, I think I'm gonna follow Aero's suggestion and wait for a bit.

Also, Barrel's got the right idea.

Also, Fencer, I downloaded Boxee but it just seems to be a glorified media player that only runs things from my computer? Where's these TV and Movies it seemed to promise?

[Tev]

General Education…Monty Python’s Flying Circus
Geography… Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego- either cartoon or gameshowAnd make sure it's the original gameshow with Rockapella and not those two lame spin-off games they did for time and space.

Edit: There (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuzc4jgwlT8). Because they deserve more face-time.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

All I remember from that gameshow was the final round where you would have an area of the world and you had to put lights where the countries were and they were all easy as fuck except the US one where you had to do states and it was hard as buggery. Though in retrospect it was probably easier for US children.

[Seil]

For all you Mack lovers, YouTube saves the day again.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GljP4-6VhXM&feature=PlayList&p=07D9FCA3C4477C14&index=0&playnext=1)

[Aerozord]

All I remember from that gameshow was the final round where you would have an area of the world and you had to put lights where the countries were and they were all easy as fuck except the US one where you had to do states and it was hard as buggery. Though in retrospect it was probably easier for US children.

yea its not honestly. Memorizing 50 of ANYTHING is difficult. Northeast is a huge pain just to find al those tiny things, Wyoming and Colorado are not only right next to each other, but basically even the same shape. Gah I had an easier time with western Europe

PS not everything made today sucks, I mean these kids got Avatar. Even with nostalgia added in few shows compare to that

[Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope]

yea its not honestly. Memorizing 50 of ANYTHING is difficult. Northeast is a huge pain just to find al those tiny things, Wyoming and Colorado are not only right next to each other, but basically even the same shape. Gah I had an easier time with western Europe



Sounds like someone needs some Animaniacs. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNUDDaEOvuY)

[Professor Smarmiarty]

yea its not honestly. Memorizing 50 of ANYTHING is difficult. Northeast is a huge pain just to find al those tiny things, Wyoming and Colorado are not only right next to each other, but basically even the same shape. Gah I had an easier time with western Europe


If we have to know all of Europe and it's states that are a few km across you can memorise some giant states.

[Kim]

Memorizing countries was a lot easier when the USSR was around.

[Funka Genocide]

You forgot the essential Musical education of Beavis and Butthead.

[Aerozord]

If we have to know all of Europe and it's states that are a few km across you can memorise some giant states.

Memorizing countries was a lot easier when the USSR was around.

is why I clearified western europe. Eastern Europe has changed alot since then comparitively.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Memorizing countries was a lot easier when the USSR was around.

Or the Empire.

[BloodyMage]

Or Pangaea.

[Aerozord]

Kind of tempting to take over the world just to make 4th grade geography really easy

[Seil]

So Fencer, been trying to figure this out for a few days. How does Boxee work?

[Mike McC]

Like a cable box for the internet. You activate apps, and then browse then like on demand channels. It's pretty straight forward, I don't really know how to explain it better than that *shrug*. You can watch it on your PC, or use a TV out function to output it to your TV.