The Daily Campus

You are right on about The Fairly Oddparents. It started out as kind of enjoyable, but quickly turned into an ugly mean mess, full of cruel humor, much of it dumping on girls in particular. Cosmo has to be the worst cartoon character ever, with an ear-splitting voice and a cruel sense of humor. His wife Wanda should divorce him, which would be one episode of that cruddy show I'd actually enjoy watching. Spongebob is vastly superior to Fairly Oddparents. At least it's actually funny and its main character is loveable and tries to do the right thing.

From the list of show you mention watching as a child, I am guessing you are at least 15 years my junior. So how is it that you turned into a grumpy old man before I did?

I understand and sympathize with you comments about Sesame Street. As a child of the '60s who did not turn into a googly-eyed pipe-eater, I also scoff at the new warnings placed on old Sesame Street episodes, even while I understand the reason behind these warnings, in the modern context of young children's programming liabilities. Yet as much as I resent the "may not be appropriate" labeling, at least it's just labeling, and not censorship -- at least those old episodes are still available.

But why all the hate for Ed, Edd, and Eddie, and Fairly Oddparents? "Absolutely no redeeming value" -- really?! To each his own, I guess, as matters of personal taste go, bit I am quite sure these shows do not teach kids how to be disrespectful towards their parents any more than Power Rangers or TMNT taught kids how to be superhuman mutant martial artists.

If you ask me, kis's television today is asking children to be less inteligent. Barney and friends has given the greatest contribution to this. Shows like Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego Go! feed the illusion that everyone is uninteligent. The greatest thing missing from children's entertainment is well thought out plans to get children thinking. The absurd humor of bugs bunny cartoons help kids to understand why things can be outlandish but still challenge the boundaries of reason and physics. When it comes down to it we have stopped writing for adults where children can be challenged to understand and have muted or dumbed down the content to the minimum that anyone would need to grasp to put a plot together.
Even the art is shows like The Fairly Odd Parents is so flat and simplistic it upsets me.
My suggestion: Show kids complex art and situations and challenge them to learn on deeper levels than counting the number of otters in the river (for those of you born after 1990, there are 2).