Oh, for duck's sake...

Before you ask, I didn't get to meet Martin. Something else came up that meant I couldn't go to the match at all. Its probably for the best. What if he can't actually fly? That would be a crushing disappointment. No, better that he remains someone to worship from afar.

Anyway, I'm far more concerned with the state of children's television.

Today I stumbled across a new kids tv show called 'Hana's Helpline'. Its a stop-motion animation series made by the same people who made 'Fireman Sam', one of my favourite programmes as a child. We had it in Welsh. It was called 'Sam Tan'. It was brilliant.

Hana's Helpline does not look brilliant. Here's a brief description from the website;

'Hana’s helpline is a new children’s TV series featuring Hana, a duck agony aunt, and her son Francis, who help animals that need emotional support. It deals with the kind of social and emotional issues that real children experience at the age they first start going to school. Hana is a duck that is always at the end of a phone. You can reach her in her chaotic office, on a radio phone-in programme, or contact her on many television appearances. Failing that, you can ring her on her mobile at any time and you’ll get a sympathetic response.'

I mean come on. Do kids really need a programme that 'deals with the kind of social and emotional issues that real children experience at the age they first start going to school'? The only real issues I had to deal with at that age were what crayon to use to colour in the sky (it was rarely blue - even then, I was pushing boundaries), and whether I could get my hands on more flapjack before nap time. Oh, that and being completely abandoned by my mother and being left with strangers. But a couple of days of colouring in and flapjack consumption soon helped me get over that.

My point is, I was too busy being a child to have any 'social or emotional' issues. I'm aware that I may be coming across as an old grump, but I didn't need a cartoon or television show to help me with my emotions. I didn't want one either. I wanted one that would help me understand how a clan of alien cat-humans could defeat an ever-living preserved corpse*, or one that showed me what would happen if the rollercoaster at the local fair transported you through a mystical portal to another land where wizards and sorcerer's might take an intense dislike to you, and nearly every attempt you make to get home is thwarted by the pathetic bleating of a baby unicorn**, or even just one about a closet homosexual having a barney with a talking skeleton***. I mean that's good telly.

For me, so long as they were aliens and/or robots capable of transforming in to cars, locked in a never ending battle with a formulaic 'baddie', the upshot of which being lots of fisticuffs, explosions and flashing colours, possibly with dinosaurs thrown in somewhere, and I could make my mum buy them in toy form in vast amounts, I was happy. But it seems those days are gone.

It may be that this is the result of the blame culture we live in. People are so convinced that children are influenced by everything they see and hear, they're paranoid that their little angel will watch The Disney Club, and immediately decide to mentally enslave the cat in an attempt to wipe out those pesky Valorians****. Either that or just get a bit hyper and kick their little brother in the face.

Or it may just be that the people making these programmes are inept and have lost all perception of what its actually like to be a child. Who knows?

Anyway, there are also some character profiles on the 'Hana's Helpline' website. I am so consumed by cynicism towards it that I have included my own interpretations.

'Francis is Hana’s son. He’s and intelligent sensitive boy who, like his mum, wants to help people.' - if Francis had been at my school, he would have been described as 'gay'.

'Muzzy is a small, shy mouse who is the youngest of Francis’s friends. He struggles to make himself heard and is often frightened of things that don’t bother the older children, such as thunderstorms. He’s very self-conscious about being small and is always eager to prove that he’s ‘a big boy’. - Muzzy will eventually grow up and spend thousands of pounds on a botched penis enlargement operation. This will lead to a documentary on Channel 5 entitled 'When major reconstructive surgery goes bad', and a lifetime of loneliness.

'Rosie is Muzzy’s opposite, a big panda who towers over classmates. Her size makes her quite clumsy but she’s very strong and everyone wants her on their tug of war team. She is often assailed with self-doubt but Hana is always able to give her a pep talk.' - Rosie is basically the chubby one then. Secretly, Hana is absolutely pig sick of her whingeing and will finally snap and tell her to just stop eating so much cake in a couple of years. A small positive is that Rosie will eventually be reunited with Muzzy during filming of the above documentary, after getting a gastric band fitted incorrectly, with horrific consequences.


* Thundercats
** Dungeons and Dragons
*** He-Man
**** Dino Riders. Ok so that one was pretty obscure. But I loved it.