Tired of those dead-behind-the-eyes pups in Paw Patrol?
Increasingly paranoid about the potential spontaneous combustion of pretty much anything thanks to Fireman Sam?
There’s only one place to go: CBeebies, that haven of mildly educational and relentlessly wholesome British distraction.
Over the last four years of watching CBeebies, a few things have accumulated on my mind about the BBC’s channel for under-sixes.
In no particular order…
1.Why are the presenters so good looking? The target audience is indifferent, so I take it all that symmetrical slimness is to provide exhausted parents with some eye candy to stop them flicking over to Netflix. Hard not to believe this is the same cynical reason they have Tom Hardy and Rosamund Pike reading bedtime stories, though they deny this is the motivation. If ever there was a reason to believe that TV is inherently trivial and trivialising, then hot kids TV presenters is it.
2.What is Justin Fletcher? Why is Justin Fletcher? Why does CBeebies sometimes show three different Justin-fronted programmes in one day? My feelings about this CBeebies phenomenon have gone from incomprehension to loathing to vague respect for his ability to so skilfully and joyfully execute all those annoying things he does. Something Special, featuring Mr Tumble and kids with disabilities, is obviously valuable. But I must say I find Mr Tumble’s hair troubling. He’s a clown, with the clothes and make-up, but, eh, he has normal hair? I don’t get it. Did he forget his clown wig? Was he somehow interrupted mid-metamorphosis, leaving him in clown-human limbo? It’s weird.
Mr Tumble: troubling hair
3.The theme tune of Peter Rabbit is awful – though not as awful as the constant threat of the main characters’ murder and cannibalisation.
4.Where in the World? – which follows children in different countries going about their daily lives – is wonderful. If ever there was a reason to believe that TV can be a unifying force for good, this is it.
5.Presenters wearing poppies I do not get. How under-sixes can be part of a national remembrance of war when they have no concept of death, war or even time and memory, is beyond me. Also seems a bit of a downer on the innocence of childhood: ‘Have you heard about dinosaurs? Here’s what happens on the farm! Oh, and now let’s learn about mechanised mass murder!’ They’ve got the rest of their lives for that.
6.I defy anyone not to be absorbed by Do you Know? which tells you how things – from locks to toothpaste to helicopters – are made and work. I’m guessing most grown-ups discover they don’t know anything.
7.Do we really need all the messages about playing programme-related games online? I understand – with melancholy resignation – that watching CBeebies is the first stop on kids’ life-long journeys of screen-addiction. But it’d be great if the channel was a little ashamed of this. An ad they ran recently, showing ‘bored’ kids in cars or in waiting rooms suddenly full of joy when a grown-up hands them a tablet showing Cbeebies, had me mentally throwing household items at the TV. It’s called daydreaming, numpties – it’s bad enough that your TV station is so enjoyable, you could try not hooking kids on other-sized screens too.
8.Dr Ranj’s songs on Get Well Soon have to be seen to be believed.
9.Finally, my favourite, the Go Jetters – so good that I almost – almost – watched a new episode without my kids. The ten minute animation features four adult-child explorer-astronauts travelling the world, led by an African-American disco-obsessed unicorn, saving global landmarks from being ‘glitched’ by Grandmaster Glitch, an egomaniacal toddler-super villain. The constant urgency to ‘save the tourists!’ feels a little colonial, but apart from this, the show is pure entertainment. I’ve even looked up some of the many places they go which I’ve never heard of. When they turn up at the Giant’s Causeway, it’s just surreal.
Good. That’s off my chest. Though this blog could have gone on and on. One thing I didn’t predict about parenthood is the massive role children’s TV comes to play in your life, never mind your kids’. This Guardian Long Read about CBeebies expresses this well, as it does the fact that letting your kids watch TV at all can feel like parental failure. Perhaps it is failure. But the TV alternatives to CBeebies – chopped up by advertising – are scary. If screens are going to take the slack for my parental weakness, then I want CBeebies to do it!
The world according to CBeebies is exciting and wonderful. It’s not the worst place for children, or parents, to be.
David Mitchell 