Team Umizoomi
Safety Rating: Utterly safe.
Friendly Rating: Seriously high gag factor for anyone over 5 years.
Quality Rating: All the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
On Nickelodeon, 11:30 a.m.
It’s bright. It’s colorful. It’s a show only an uncritical pre-schooler could love.
A team of three tiny “superheroes” help kids solve problems using “mighty math powers,” such as counting and shape recognition. Milli can change the shape of her dress to match any pattern. Geo can build anything using his magic shape belt. He’s also the more active one – climbing down the billboard to find some missing shapes, while Milli stands above and oohs and aahs. And the robot Bot also features a male voice. So, yeah, I’m smelling gender-role issues.
On the plus side, the math curriculum is sound and the show features an interesting mix of live action and animation. But the show is trying to do for early math skills what Blue’s Clues and Dora the Explorer did for early reading and problem-solving skills – with the same faux interactive nonsense both of those shows featured.
Let’s be clear – I’m not dissing this show because I’m not the target market. I’m dissing it because I think it’s bad. Just because your two-year-old likes the show doesn’t mean it’s good. If you think it’s grating and obnoxious, it probably is. Two-year-olds don’t have the life experience to know better.
Yes, I get that repetition is an important part of learning. But this show goes beyond repetition to the point of beating concepts into the ground and then sitting on them until the proverbial cows come home. Bot has his “Belly Belly” screen, which is presented every time by saying it twice while Mille and Geo point it out. And it was presented at least five times in the premiere episode. Everything is “umi-this” and “umi-that,” particularly the viewers who are addressed as Umi-Friend. The characters are even more cheery and sweet than a certain purple dinosaur I have long disdained.
And let’s not even talk about the inane tunes – the sort that will set an adult’s teeth on edge in record time. Worse yet, none of the cast members can sing worth a lick. Whatever issues you may have with grating voices, even Elmo and Grover can sing on key. Alas, no one in this show appears to be able to.
Frankly, if your pre-schooler latches onto this one, it may end up one of those shows you record and save for that half-hour you’re trying to get dinner ready. You’ll want to find other ways to reinforce the math concepts than watching along. Nobody deserves that much damage to their blood sugar levels.
Anne Louise Bannon
Your Family Viewer
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