I have to complain about this hideously awful cartoon before I explode from the force of my own hate. If you are not familiar, Special Agent Oso is some sort of neon yellow bear with dark eye circles (I'm just going to guess he's an irradiated panda) and the story seems to be that every day he gets these special assignments to go help some kid or another accomplish some task or another. Each task always takes three steps no matter how simple or complicated; fine, whatever, this show is meant to be watched by people who still drool like a St. Bernard. EXCEPT if you were going to make a show in which you knew that whatever skill you set up for this toxic teddy to teach had to be summed up into three steps, one might think that you would make sure that said skill was able to be taught in three steps. One might also think that the people who write this show don't smoke the crack. One would be wrong.
AND mind-bogglingly enough, one would be wrong at both ends of this spectrum. While occasionally this show is able to find a task that fits nicely into a three step explanation, for example, washing a dish: scrub, rinse, dry, far more often they either extend a minute little task into a three step explanation or cram an impossibly complex task into a three step explanation that expects you to have started with all the necessary materials, an advance degree and, you know, a third arm wouldn't hurt (Consider growing an arm. Decide to grow and arm. Grow an arm. Three special steps!). So one episode might have our intrepid little atomic hazard teaching someone how to, oh, I don't know, move a pencil from one side of the table to another (Pick up the pencil. Move your arm to the left. Put down the pencil.) while the next episode has them flying to the moon. (Build a Rocket. Fly it to the moon. Get out and have picnic.).
Then, if that wasn't bad enough they throw in the episodes were the task at hand would involve either an extraordinary amount of natural talent or extensive diligent practice. In one episode they learned how to shoot a basket with three special steps. Put your leg forward; hold the ball up with one hand behind it, shoot the basket. SWOOSH; nothin' but net! Except, of course, when little Johnny or Suzy goes out to shoot said basket and realizes that Special Agent Nuclear Fallout Bear has been misleading them this whole time about the relative ease and difficulty of these tasks at which point Johnny and Suzy are set up for a lifetime of disillusionment and I have to deal with the guilt of being unreasonably satisfied with my rightness in the face of another's trauma. Thanks a lot, Oso.
I am sooo right there with you. I cringe whenever this show comes on. If only I knew of a way to complain to Disney about showing my toddler such an unintelligent show. If my little one can't pet an animal at the petting zoo without the help of a bear who needs "special training" (and coaching) then I am not doing my job as a parent.
Posted by: Samantha | August 23, 2010 at 09:55 AM
Lord help us all if it's normal for a kid (that's clearly got to be six or seven) to need help figuring out how to pet a dog.
Posted by: Monkee | August 23, 2010 at 10:21 AM