Threat Watch: VeggieTales

The most mind warping words uttered to a child on Saturday morning cartoons?

Remember kids, God made you special and he loves you very much.

From the article:

The wildly popular VeggieTales kids videos about vegetables who talk and sing and act out Bible stories are being edited for their run on NBC's Saturday morning educational program time, and the network says it's because of time limits.

In a statement on the Broadcasting & Cable website, NBC said its edits of the kids' shows were focused on airtime limits only.

"VeggieTales was originally created for home video and, in most cases, each episode is over 30 minutes long. As it appears …. VeggieTales has been edited down for broadcast without losing any of its core messages about positive values," the network said.

Phil Vischer, the co-creator of the characters, said that comment was "interesting."

"As a guy deeply involved with the project, I know that statement is false," Vischer wrote on his own weblog. "We sent them our first episode for TV, which was already edited to EXACTLY the right length, and they rejected it because, at the end, Bob the Tomato said, 'Remember kids, God made you special and he loves you very much.' They demanded we remove that line. The show wasn't too long, it was too religious."

He said the second also was sent edited for perfect timing. The response from NBC was an e-mail with a list of lines that needed to be removed, "each of them containing either the word 'God' or 'Bible,'" Vischer wrote.

Vischer goes on to note in his blog:

As I mentioned before, for the past 4-5 years Discovery Kids has provided NBC's Saturday morning block. These shows earned a rating of between .5 and .7 on an average Saturday. So how did VeggieTales do on its first Saturday? How 'bout a .95 for you! That's about a million households tuning in! What's even more interesting is the fact that the show after VeggieTales fell to a .65, and then 3-2-1 Penguins came on and the rating popped right back up to .95 again! So Big Idea is "rocking the block!"

Will NBC notice?

Some folks are unhappy that Vischer and Big Idea are allowing NBC to edit the show. While it's regrettable, I don't think it's a big deal. Kids who like the cartoon are going to buy or rent the DVDs. They will see the whole show including the Bible verses. Parents are going to enjoy the show on TV because it is funny, filled with sly jokes and references for the adults who watch with their kids.

Update: The Cool kids have picked up the story.

Momfidence

Myrna Blyth has a short article about a book I need to read, if only to innerly commiserate on the potholes of parenting. The book's title is: Momfidence! An Oreo Never Killed Anybody and Other Secrets of Happy Parenting.

From the book:

“Today’s diligent mom can’t just do the weekly marketing and drop food down hungry gullets. She must buy fresh and scan labels for lethal trans fats and the many disguises of 'white poison,' the staple formerly known a sugar, in order to prevent diabetes and heart attacks in her children forty years down the road. She must maintain vigilance against random toxins and schools with lousy test scores. And she can’t swat an errant bottom for fear of bruising a tender psyche (or of being arrested.)”

Says Blyth:

And she’s right. Moms today are full of worries about the fact that their toddlers can’t read, their eight-year-old won’t get into Harvard, or that their ten-year-olds aren’t on enough sports teams. “All this makes a parent's job so much harder,” says Paula who admits to a whole series of mothering no-no’s — feeding her kids cookies, letting them watch TV, and playing with Barbie dolls and toy guns . She has even stopped sending her kids to summer-enrichment programs. “They didn’t want to be enriched,” she says. “They said there was just no time to play.”

“I think moms should just wing it more and rely on instinct and common sense. Parents get so much advice from experts. But how may of these experts really live with kids who snarf Scooby-Doo Fruit Roll-Rups? What parents hear about in the media are really bad moms with big problems who need help. Or obsessive moms who are super organized and are trying to raise perfect kids. Neither are good examples. We just don’t hear enough about ordinary, mainstream moms who are doing fine.”

Paula lives in Chapel Hill where her two nearest supermarkets, Whole Food and Earth Fare, don’t stock Oreos, and where cars have bumper stickers that read “Proud Parent of a Baby who Can Sign 200 words.” She writes a column for Woman’s Day where editors are pretty vigilant about editing out her belief that there is little danger if kids eat raw cookie dough. No wonder she wrote this book “I want to help moms relax, be more confident and have more fun with their kids,” she writes. And the book really is both helpful and funny. What is the reaction she wants from the readers?

“All I want,” she says “is a sigh of relief.”

I made a friend a little while back. She moved to the island and on our children's first "playdate" we exchanged parenting stories and generally laughed about motherhood's pitfalls. It wasn't until lunchtime, when I hauled out the box of mac n' cheese I brought for my kids that the pleased exclaimation rang out: "Finally, an normal mom!"

It seems my money saving, off brand, box of faux pasta broke the final barrier. She had been languishing in the organic soy ghettos of south island momhood, where preservatives are tantamount to abuse and she wasn't sure if she would ever be accepted into the momfold.

Parenthood

I had a sudden vision of myself retired. I am going to be one of those querulous old ladies who write letters expressing their displeasure about the state of the roads to the local paper. I say that having just sent off my two cents to some local idiot commentators on the radio. I was driving back from my twice monthly mom group and, exhausted of listening to kid songs, turned on the radio. Two career guys were talking about whether or not at-home mothers are still sneered at for not holding "real jobs". My standard reply to such idiocity is that anyone who says full time parenting is not a real job has never done it for any length of time. I digress.

I picked up the Verbalist from school and came home and pounded out a letter while the kid's lunch cooked. I had just hit the "send" button when the Muralist ran out and uttered the words no mother wants to hear:

"Mom! The baby is drinking your coffee!"

Poker Next.

The Verbalist was playing a new game with the Muralist - 3 card monte. Actually it was three juice cups and a green Duplo block but the gist was the same.

Conversation

I am experiencing that startling time when a heretofore uncomprehensable child becomes understandable. Suddenly she spits out words or phrases that make sense. After a long tunnel of nothing but "mom", "dadda", and "thank you", suddenly a whole vista of words opened up before her which she has taken to with alacrity.

I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the omnipresent baskets of laundry to put away. In toodles the Littlest (aka the Shreiker, which is thankfully ebbing). Toodles is right. She doesn't toddle in the sense of half sure steps with a hitching walk; toodling is more confident than that and there is no hitch. I expect to hear the Jetson's car pppbbbbrrrrrrip! follow her around. Anyway, in toodles the Littlest and imperiously demands "Up!"

I pick her up. She points to a Noah's Ark coat hanger gracing the wall. "Ephelum," she intones with confidence oozing from every pore. I turn my blank stare to her. She gives me a slight frown and tries again with more emphasis, "Ephelum."

"What's that sweetie?" I ask. This was not the response she wanted to elict. Her chubby little finger stabs up at the hanger, "Ephelum. Sistah."

"Oh, elephant!" I exclaim comprehending; the Muralist's predeliction for elephants having boosted comprehension. Once the general vein of topic was established her words were easy enough to pick out: zebra, dog (really a lion), monkey, panda, giraffe and "gill".

"Gill?" I question. I scanned the plack until my eyes lit on Noah. I pointed. "Man, Noah."

The Littlest shook her head, "Gill."

"No, not girl. Man. Boy. Daddy."

She laughed. "Gammpy."

Grandpa indeed.