Boohbah: Harmless Kids’ Entertainment or Pure, Unabashed Evil?

Several years ago, I sat in the living room watching a movie.  The movie finished and I switched to PBS just to see what kind of kid’s show was on.  What I found was unspeakable.

Here’s a small excerpt:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ-nif4rXGs

I wasn’t able to bring myself to watch the whole thing. Now, I’m just wondering what sort of insidious social programming this is? Is there some sort of subliminal message hidden in all of that? Is it a code?

If not, what DOES it mean?

This thing is scary enough to frighten me out of my wits. Even though it apparently doesn’t scare kids, one must wonder what sort of scarring it produces in a child.   Apparently, it is bad for kids to watch shows with clever dialogue, a humorous plot, quick pacing, and superb characterization, with a bit of cartoony violence mixed in (i.e. Rocky and Bullwinkle).  Too scary.  Too little unbridled, abstract, escapism.

What kids need is reassurance of the order of the world. They need a supportive, friendly environment that encourages them to learn, explore, grow! They need an ADHD/motion-sickness inducing casserole of motion, light, sound, and fury.

The Child Psychology experts have spoken, and they have given us “Boobah”, the embodiment of all of the above.

If something Rocky and Bullwinkle is in danger of causing unbalanced and violent children, then Boobah is likely, as we speak, producing an entire generation of delusional psychopaths, unable to see past a twisted frenzy of flashing colors, ready to do anything to make the colors stop, ready to crack at any moment.
So, what is it?  Harmless or unspeakably twisted?

I say it’s evil; that makes the show a whole lot easier to stomach.

Posted at 10:56 am EST on the 10th of November 2009 by M. C. DenHoed.

Under Literary and Cinematic Criticism, Sundry as , , ,

There are 23 replies.
 
  1. H. G. Roorda says on November 10th, 2009 at 11:34 am

    “They need an ADHD/motion-sickness inducing casserole of motion, light, sound, and fury.” I like that line.

    To play (a really crummy) devil’s advocate, what’s wrong with the show? If kids like it, do you really think it’s going to hurt them? Why shouldn’t they watch it?

  2. M. C. DenHoed says on November 10th, 2009 at 11:35 am

    Kids also like glutting themselves on chocolate and breaking things.

  3. H. G. Roorda says on November 10th, 2009 at 11:57 am

    But those things are obviously harmful. How do we know Boobah is harmful?

  4. John R. Ahern says on November 10th, 2009 at 12:18 pm

    You seem to have successfully called it a lot of names, but not given us any reason why it deserves those names. What’s so awful about it? Just because it makes you sick to your stomach? Well, green olives make me sick to my stomach, but I wouldn’t call them evil. And, with the Rocky and Bullwinkle comparison, exactly how realistic is it that 2 year olds are going to be edified any more with that than not-edified with this? I think the argument should be more along the lines of, 2 year olds shouldn’t be watching TV anyway.

  5. Erin says on November 10th, 2009 at 3:06 pm

    WHAT!!!!
    GLUTTING ON CHOCOLATE IS NOT OBVIOUSLY HARMFUL! I OBJECT!

    I do think that the Rocky and Bullwinkle will cause some sort of attention-span produced by a plot, whereas Boobah will ruin the attention span by not causing the kid to be patient and think at least a little bit.

  6. John R. Ahern says on November 10th, 2009 at 4:30 pm

    I’m still not seeing, Erin, how the excerpt Mark posts proves anything about attention span. Maybe I’m missing something, though. How is this any worse than Teletubbies, and how is it evil?

  7. R. A. Byrd says on November 10th, 2009 at 7:47 pm

    No, no, green olives are evil. As is everything else I don’t eat. And those annoying cinnamon/fall scented stuff that makes me sick *sage nod*

  8. Petrus says on November 10th, 2009 at 9:10 pm

    Now I am going to have nightmares all night. Thanks for ruining my life.
    THe most depressing thing is that this show has been running since 2003. What happened to censorship? It makes 1984 a welcome day.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boohbah
    Enter at you own risk. The content of the show seems occult to me.

  9. Petrus says on November 10th, 2009 at 9:12 pm

    I say it’s pure, unabashed evil.

  10. Sarah says on November 10th, 2009 at 10:09 pm

    Boobah is for a younger set than Rocky and Bullwinkle so I don’t think they are comparable. Very small children don’t have a whole lot of interest in plots, puns, or even most ridiculous situations. On the other hand, they could watch The Wiggles instead which has the redeeming quality of being Australian as well as frequently featuring real songs and actually entertaining at least some more mature people (this babysitter anyway, is amused by middle-aged Australians frantically running around singing bizarre songs). But anything meant to entertain very young children is going to have to be fairly disconnected and full of bright colors and whatnot because nothing else will work.

  11. V. K. Blake says on November 11th, 2009 at 1:29 am

    Or you could entertain kids with something other than TV altogether. ^_^ Sonja (who is 2) cares about plots and ridiculous situations, and has for some time.

    The thing with TV shows–any TV show, creepy or not–is that they don’t require any response from the kids. They’re free to drink it up in as low a state of intellect as they please. It seems that this Boobah encourages a lower mode.

    That was one of the most creepy things I have seen for a long time. (And it’s not like I don’t see creepy things. Ask Erin.) It looked like psychedelic drug use.

    Sorry this is really disjointed and not sensemake. I did just watch Boobah, after all. @_@

  12. Nathan says on November 11th, 2009 at 11:09 am

    I only watched ten seconds of the abomination, but it was enough for me to need my smelling salts.

    Anyway, yikers! I have been hearing of many modern horrors of television and technology on the child. My question is, why are the parents of these poor youngsters using *that* to placate their kids? Because the parents don’t want to be bothered; it’s all about the parents and what is convenient for them. The relationship between parent and offspring is broken, or rather, it’s never built up. And if that relationship, the first relationship a child has, is never built up, he is very unprepared for any other relationship. And since learning and education is based on the relationship between one who knows and one who is searching for knowledge, if the child has no relationship with his parents, his first instructors, he will have little relationship with later teachers and will not learn well.

    And if the kids are going to be watching anything, they should be watching Pixar in moderation, and spending the rest of the time reading or being read to (and not that modern trash; best go with Anderson, the brothers Grimm, the coloured Fairy Books, and lots and lots of poetry).

    (To ditto Vicki, I feel a little less intelligent since watching that. Where’s my Aristotle? I need tea. Or something stronger, like whiskey. Plato! Tolkien! Anyone for a cuppa?)

  13. John R. Ahern says on November 11th, 2009 at 7:13 pm

    Hm. I feel like standing up on a chair here and asking with no small amount of rhetorical fervor in my voice, “Where the heck is your evidence?” I mean, OK, it’s bad. But why? What makes it so awful? Aside from calling it “pure evil” and drug induced and nauseating? Just calling it that doesn’t make it so. At least as far as I know.

  14. V. K. Blake says on November 11th, 2009 at 8:27 pm

    Just don’t take off your shoe and hit the podium with it like Khrushchev. ^_^

    I did not say it was drug induced. But then again, I didn’t exactly say what I meant either. So let me say it again, but better:
    It looks like the sort of things you would see after having taken psychedelic drugs. And the voices of the children didn’t sound right either. They didn’t sound like happy kids, they sounded like ecstatic kids.
    That is not just insulting it, it’s offering phenomenal evidence. (I don’t mean phenomenal as “oh wow!” but as “relating to the senses.”)
    And maybe that doesn’t mean it’s bad. Maybe there is nothing wrong with psychedelic visions. I dunno. ^_^

  15. Carson Spratt says on November 11th, 2009 at 11:17 pm

    Miss Blake, I agree entirely. Read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. “It rots the sense in the head! It kills imagination dead! It clogs and clutters up the mind! It makes a child so dull and blind he can no longer undersand a fantasy, a fairyland! His brain becomes as soft as cheese! His powers of thinking rust and freeze! He cannot think – He only SEES!”
    As the Oompa-Loompas go on to explain, if the kids hit you with sticks for taking the TV away, shove them in a corner and give them a good, solid storybook. I hold that kids should not even be exposed to TV until at least the age of thirteen, by which time they have been trained enough to reject the bad stuff they see. And anyways, the kids should never be allowed to watch anything without the parents having already thoroughly analyzed it.

  16. Petrus says on November 12th, 2009 at 11:23 am

    MR ROGERS!!!

  17. Petrus says on November 12th, 2009 at 4:36 pm

    Has anyone ever read “When the Tripods Came” by John Christopher? Aliens took over the world via hypnosis on a tv show. The children that watched the show reacted extremely violently when they missed an episode, and were estatic when watching it. Just a funny coincidence.
    That lone child calling Boohbah is haunting my head.

  18. Lilly says on November 13th, 2009 at 2:14 pm

    O_O

    Creeepy.

  19. Lilly says on November 13th, 2009 at 2:18 pm

    “Plot: The purpose of Boohbah is to interact the unseen children with chance to be one with the Boohbahs. They will then be able to join the rainbow. Only the chosen unseen children that are able to enter the Boohball shall be seen and welcomed by all Boohbahs. The chosen ones will eventually be able to evolve into Boohbahs themselves if they so choose.”

    …

  20. R.L. Bertilson says on November 13th, 2009 at 7:26 pm

    I agree with Vicki strongly.

    On the whole, I think that letting young children (5 or younger, I think) watch any kind of television is rather stupid. Their brains are developing then, and television does not help development (and I should know, since I am a television and movie addict) of intelligence. I did not see any movies until I was perhaps 7 and I’m very glad about that. The movie that I *did* see back then, I did not understand, and I can barely remember it at all.

    Like Nathan said, I agree that young kids should not be allowed to watch anything, except maybe Pixar, in moderation. It’s not going to benefit them in any way, besides keeping them out of trouble. (Which, I believe, is one of the main reasons parents let their children watch TV.)

  21. R.L. Bertilson says on November 13th, 2009 at 7:30 pm

    Oh, and the best way to entertain kids is reading aloud. (Also mentioned by Nathan.) I enjoyed the times when my parents read aloud to me the most. And when they played with me. It’s much more enjoyable to be read to, and snuggle with a parent, than to sit lonely watching some mind-numbing program.

    Also, drawing on a huge roll of paper is the *best*. Seriously, if you have kids (or even know any kids), get them a giant roll of paper, that they can roll out on the floor, and draw on. It is tons and tons of fun, especially if you have siblings. ^_^

  22. Lilly says on November 16th, 2009 at 4:28 pm

    Gina, would you like to be one with the Boobahs?? :-D

  23. R.L. Bertilson says on December 14th, 2009 at 10:18 pm

    Augh! No.