#5: Barney vs Teletubbies.....FIGHT!

Today I would like to speak briefly about kids TV programs, namely The Teletubbies and Barney And Friends. Now most of you will know that The Teletubbies is absolute pap, what I want to know is what inspired someone to put something on TV for kids which was so obviously written on a huge acid trip!  We will start with a review of the characters: Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa Laa and Po.  God forbid they have normal names!  In fact, they're not even names they're just noises really aren't they.  Tinkly Winky controversially carried a handbag which caused a bit of stir as he was a boy teletubby, but in this day and age it's not that unusual to see a man with a "manbag" is it?  The writers were obviously down with the kids and thought that toddlers needed to know these sorts of things early on so they are fully equipped to make their important life choices.  Dipsy had a very unfashionable cow print hat and was named Dipsy because the horn on his head looks like a dipstick.  He effectively drew the short straw as far as character names and props were concerned.  The girl characters were vastly overlooked due to the raving homo's mincing about taking center stage.  Standard.  Check out this world class nancy boy:

Given that the show was meant to be educational why did the Tubbies speak a language which was not even intelligible by the toddlers it was aimed at?  "eh oh" - what? "big hug" - no thanks Dipsy, get your green ass outta here!  A feature of the show was when the tubbies took time out of their busy days of DOING NOTHING to watch the tv screens in their bellies- Obviously.  They felt the need to repeat the clips up to 5 times, just to drill it in.  Having surveyed all the evidence I have come to the conclusion that the Teletubbies is an uneducational educational children's show unsuitable for children with hidden homosexual undertones and terrifyingly ridiculous characters.

Enter Barney (suitably named character) and friends (BJ and baby bop, letting the side down with ridiculous names).  If you have only ever seen a few episodes of Barney you will inevitably have wanted to scratch your own eyes out just to make it stop, but you would have been wrong!  Barney is in fact brilliant but you need to stick with it to appreciate it.  This was discovered my my auntie A and I on a holiday quite a few years back when one of my cousins was young enough to watch it.  We discovered that the makers of Barney are obviously absolutely terrified of offending anyone so have covered all bases in a desperate attempt to please everyone.  You have such a variety of kids that they look like a Benetton ad, the token black, token Asian, token ginger kids and then theres the token disabled kid and the token deaf kid.  All bases covered, kudos Barney, but thats not what makes this program great.  It's the brilliantly cheesy acting!  The kids are obviously told to act really happy and pleased about everything that happens so whenever they sing a song, for example, afterward all the kids go "yeah, that was fun you guys", "totally awesome" "I love singing" etc with smiles on their faces so strained that they look like they might herniate at any moment.  Even the deaf kid gets involved, signing away like a nutter!  It's this forced happiness that makes the show so great.  Once you've seen it a few times it becomes hilarious!  For these reasons I believe Barney to be the finest kids TV show around.

Rant over.

Peace out.

Luce x