First, some housekeeping. Thanks to my current connection issues, posting may be a tad more erratic than I’d like over the next few days. I have options, but a lot depends on how things work with my phone, Twitter and Jott.
Now, on to today’s reviews. First up, it feels a little weird to be writing this, but The PowerPuff Girls are celebrating their 10th anniversary today with the first new episode, The PowerPuff Girls Rule!!!, since 2004.
PowerPuff Girls go after bad guy mojo jojo
It airs tonight on Cartoon Network at 8 p.m., after a day of all the rest of the episodes, running in a marathon. I haven’t really looked at this show in a very long time, but it is funny, in an oddball way. Three superhero kindergarten girls, Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup, save the world from wacky, hideous villains, particularly Mojo Jojo, a super-intelligent chimp who still can’t get it through his head that the girls are going to defeat him every time – a point brought up in the special.
The big problem with the PowerPuff Girls is the violence. The girls are brainy as well as super-powered, but too often resort to punching the daylights out of the bad guys to save the day. On the other hand, it is cartoon violence, which means it’s mostly bloodless, and the fighting does make the show more exciting to watch – one of the reasons violence is kind of a problem on TV, in general. If, if, if your kids are not already watching other violent shows, then you might be able to make an exception for this one. It’s aimed at the early elementary set, but there’s enough wit behind the silliness to make it pallatable for older audiences, like you. Older sibs may be trying to get past “that baby stuff,” which is normal.
Also premiering today (check you local listings for times) on PBS Kids Go!, the (usually) afternoon block for early elementary age kids is the newly resurrected and re-designed Electric Company. What Sesame Street does to get pre-schoolers ready to read, Electric Company does for kids ages 5 to 8. The emphasis is on basic reading skills. There’s also a lot of fun, here, too.
If you remember its earlier incarnation from the 1970s, then you’ll recognize the same process of using music, sketches and a storyline to teach phonics and vocabulary. The humor is a little more mature, but there’s still that same sly wink at the adults in the show, for example the 24-second sketches featuring Jack Bowser, not to mention celebrity adults doing cameos, including Ne-Yo and The Daily Show’s Samantha Bee. Your kids aren’t going to get the Bowser reference (or they shouldn’t) and it may seem like a shock to see raunchy Samantha playing games with the kids. But it does make the show a lot more fun to watch, especially if you’re long past learning the short-u sound or what the letter h does to letters t, s and c.
Finally, tonight, we’ve got some inauguration fun for kids. On Disney Channel, it’s the Kid’s Inaugural: We Are the Future, at 8 p.m. It’ll be simulcast on Radio Disney and streamed afterwards on the Disney site (beware, it’s a rather noisy mess that only comes up when you play the Flash animation – their web designer deserves to be flogged for that one). Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Bros., Demi Lovato and my pal, Keke Palmer are scheduled to perform (at least Keke was on the Jan. 13 press release and the Palmers weren’t at church yesterday). Nickelodeon is running a bunch of interstitials today, starting at 4 p.m., but personally, I’m not sure it’s worth watching all those shows just to see the interstitials. More on the Inauguration tonight.
Anne Louise Bannon
Your Family Viewer
