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Rock Critic

nobody@vox.com(pjbond) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:37:34 -0400

175. Rock Critic
Originally uploaded by tom gauld

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I'm still watching telly

nobody@vox.com(pjbond) — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 15:26:47 -0500

The weeks tick by and the Teletubbies no longer amuse us. Here's what's been on the box of late:

Dora The Explorer & Go Diego Go - god love them for teaching bilingual and, in Diego's case, conservational awareness but does it have to be so insipid? And well done on the giant money-spinning franchise but could you invest some of your loot in some acceptable script, art and animation? Unfortunately, despite it being such low quality tat, and despite my pointing out that "Dora is a girls' show", the little guy is suckered in by the simple repetitive interactivity and demands it on a daily basis. I rarely cave. Also: Diego's backpack can transform into any plothole-avoiding device? What do I say when my two-year-old starts asking how that happens? Go Diego Go enhances preschoolers' acceptance of improbable plot resolutions.

Lazytown - weird, slightly scary, puppet / human / greenscreen grotesquery. Actually what's more scary than any of the puppets, prosthetics or hyperdisco music is that it's created by - and stars - the Icelandic athlete Magnús Scheving. And his wife / daughter / robot Stephanie. It's like the Krankies on E. (Edit: that was totally unfounded and scurrilous. Turns out she's unrelated and, like, fourteen years old.)

Dittydoodle - cheap and nasty tripe stuck in the 70's. Not in a cool ironic way, but in a tatty, sub-standard production way. Seems to have been put together by people who perhaps saw a children's TV show once but have had no actual contact with any living child.

Blue's Clues - a modern American classic and another one of the little man's current favourites. Recently lost direction by mutating into the puppet show Blue's Room, which we won't touch.

Dancy Nancy

Jack's Big Music Show - great little show with quality music from diverse genres. Totally watchable, unlike other music shows like the Wiggles, the Doodlebops, or the plain offensive Hip Hop Harry.

The Upside Down Show - simple, quality production and another hit in the Bond household.

Charlie And Lola - absolutely bloody delightful.

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i'm watching telly

nobody@vox.com(pjbond) — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 23:58:03 -0400

I guess I've been watching more toddler TV than is good for me lately. Or good for the little guy. Still, brain-rot or not, this is what we see:

Backyardigans / Wonder Pets - two of the best of the new bunch. Clearly made with more love and attention than they need be.
Barney - the ongoing success of Barney can only be blamed on a billion prozac-eyed parents who simply do not care about their children.
Sesame Street - surprisingly better now than it ever was. (Edit: it's taken me till just this week to realize how Big Bird works. For years I just figured he'd been in some awful accident leaving him with this one withered arm and twisted spine.)
Teletubbies / Boohbah - two modern classics guaranteed to keep a 2-year-old amused. Try to stick to the original BBC Teletubbies as the redubbed PBS version is dumbed down for the American audience.
Clifford The Big Red Dog / Arthur / Caillou - simplistic animated marinade for tiny brains.
Dragon Tales - deserves to be singled out for being such low quality bollocks. Exibits many of the warning signs of being a Christian cartoon without being overtly religious.
Veggie Tales - nasty preachy god-bothering tripe based around a group of vegetables. Vegetables. Like anything more exciting might offend someone, although one of them is a tomato and so technically a fruit. Wait till his veggie pals find out. He'll be lynched. If he had a neck. Anyway, avoid this like a plague of boils.
Yoho Ahoy - bloody brilliant.
Plasmo - saw this once by accident and I've been trying to find it again ever since. Possibly they'll never repeat it or release a DVD because Plasmo's nemesis is a claymation vagina. (Edit: Plasmo is available on DVD in Australia.)

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new york 2001, new jersey 2006

nobody@vox.com(pjbond) — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 23:21:17 -0400

Aa_09-10-01

I'm taking out the trash and having a sly smoke in the back garden tonight and I'm caught a little by surprise. There, framed by a convenient break in the foliage, the distant towers of light from "Ground Zero".

Back in 2001 we were still living in Midtown Manhattan and I was drawing the second issue of the Vertigo version of the DC classic "Angel And The Ape". I'd transAtlantically transplanted to New York about a year before and this was my "I Love NY" book. As the anti-procrastination strategy of the time dictated I'd never leave a blank page for the next morning, so before hitting the sack on September 10th I inked up the first panel of page 4, an establishing shot of the New York skyline.

By the next afternoon the apartment was filled with refugees from the DC offices, unable to leave Manhattan, zombified, watching CNN and eating pretzels. I retreated back to the drawing board and finished the page.

In the interests of "taste" the World Trade Centre towers were patched over before the issue saw print, which now seems an even more crying shame than it did at the time.

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