It's freezing outside [in DC. In August. They call this global warming? Feh.] so the kid and I will be liveblogging the premiere of The Most Important Children's Television Program Of Our Generation, Yo Gabba Gabba!. Stay tuned for what could be the most pointless blogpost of all time.
OK, here we go.
1031: cue music: Yo gabba gabba yo gabba gabba yo gabba gabba yo gabba gabba Yo gabba gabba yo gabba gabba yo gabba gabba yo gabba gabba Yo gabba gabba yo gabba gabba yo gabba gabba yo gabba gabba Yo gabba gabba yo gabba gabba yo gabba gabba yo gabba gabba
1032: starting with what they know, the promo that's been run 1mm times on every Viacom channel, party in my tummy
1033: sad carrots not invited? SPOILER ALERT: They get invited to the party. So yummy so yummy so yummy so yummy.
1034 some kid named Holland dances for like three seconds. Is she related to someone?
1035 Animation: animals are my friends. Bears are my friends, too. Mary Blair is my friend. too.
1036 snacktime, that cracker looks like a giant matzoh. Wait, so DJ Lance Rock is Jewish?
snacky snack snack snack snack snack. snacky snack snack snack snack snack.
snacky snack snack snack snack snack. snacky snack snack snack snack snack.
The kid is bouncing.
1038 some kid named Darla likes to dance, too.
1038 Put the toothpaste on the brush. put the toothpaste on the brush. brush brush brush brush brush brush.
1039 It's Dancy Dance Time. "Hi everyone, I'm Elijah!" [A on the Jewish thing: yes.] Doing the Puppetmaster. Eight times.
1041 everyone go crazy.
1042 Mark drawing us a potato bug. classic reference to Mister Rogers' opera, perhaps?
Now he's drawing the potato bug on a skateboard. So I guess not.
1043: why isn't Tootie eating her yogurt? SHE DOESN'T LIKE IT!!
try it, you'll like it! x4. x4 again. That should be 4^3. I think the number of choruses is growing exponentially. the last episode of the season will be 256 hours long. Forget Philip Glass; within three seasons, YGG! will surpass that 639-year-long John Cage performance, interspersed with cash register sounds of course, what a franchise!
1044 SPOILER ALERT: She likes it.
I like it I like it I tried it and now I like it x4
1045 some kid named Myles likes to dance
1046 making numbers from food on a plate. An obvious reference to Pablo Ferro's opening credits for YGG! evangelist Jared Hess's Napoleon Dynamite[see update below] [which were, of course, an homage to Ferro's legendary title sequence for Jeunet and Caro's Delicatessen. Ferro also did the handwritten opening sequence for Dr. Strangelove, which puts YGG! just three degrees of separation from Stanley Freakin' Kubrick. People, this is epic.]
[Parker emails with a clarification: the YGG! numbers-from-food segment was, in fact, made by one of the same folks who made the Napoleon Dynamite opening titles, but it wasn't Pablo Ferro, who only did the logo. It was Scott Windes, who did ND with Aaron & Yuka Ruell. Yuka also edited the episode of YGG!, which is now one degree farther from Gen. Turgidson, but like ten degrees closer to Pedro.]
1047 clean it up clean it up clean it up pick up the trash now. x100,000,000. [In your face, Laurie Berkner!] now the concept's becoming clearer, though. Each doll/character has its own diorama/set, which Lance Rock has on his giant buffet table. they walk freely between them.
1049 time to make funny faces. SPOILER ALERT: Those were some funny faces!
1049 some kid named Alison [sp? sorry, Alison, I was typing and missed your spelling] likes to dance.
1050 Papa Goon [?] needs to feed his starving family. famished hillbilly monsters? HILARIOUS! SPOILER ALERT: They eat tires, not fish!
Very The Rough Gruff Goat Brothers Rap-meets-Gregory The Terrible Eater.
1051 Let's go back and remember what we did today. recap? We barely did anything. the kid's bouncing like a jumping bean. Aha, the robot's a can of spray paint? Graf RULZ!
1053 psychedelic recap backgrounds, not quite Sesame Street 4-armed Indian Guru-psychedelic, but still. theoretically, you could just watch the last couple of minutes? Or the first.
1054 it's over. the buffet table is under the end credits.
1055: "Let's watch it again!" "we don't have tivo, kid." "what's tivo?"
1058: "Daddy, I need to go to the bathroom." Ah, that explains the bouncing.
I'm glad I'm not the only dad who is ridiculously excited about this show.
I'll withhold judgment until I've seen a few more episodes, but right now it seems like a concept with no content. My preschooler was mildly amused, but not sold either.
3. My father-in-law: Gregory Sievers (Artist)
2. Gregory's good friend: Dustin Lyon's (Artist)
1. Dustin's son: Justin Lyon's (Producer of Yo Gabba x2)
I guess that makes me four degrees away.
Since my daughter is not yet of TV-viewing age, I've so far been spared all of this, and references in dad blogs of things like Caillou, Dora, the Wiggles, and Yo Gabba Gabba remain (thankfully) mere abstractions. The closest the kid has gotten so far is about 10 minutes of nightly YouTubing of her dad's faves from childhood (Muppet Show, Sesame Street, Petit Ours Brun, Chapi Chapo, Casimir). So I'm not sure I'm looking forward to the day that I will be able to make any sense of the above post. But if you enjoyed it, Greg, I'll take your word for it...
On another note, whadya mean, it's cold in DC?!? I was in Reston all week and it felt like the hot, sticky swamp the place is built on.
[that was then. it's 69 degrees and cloudy. it's like Seattle for ugly people. -ed.]
I'm glad I haven't had to make any decisions on these shows yet, as the little of them I saw pre-baby drove me crazy. So far my girl (at 16 months) has only seen that spongey robot dancing to Spoon on the youtubes.
[just saw that, the official version. the original is better. -ed.]
the moment i was waiting for was the mark mothersbaugh segment so i could tell my 4.5 yr old son about 'this really cool band he was in called devo.' this segment actually reminded me more of bill cosby's picture pages, y'know, where bill drew with mortimer the pen that made a cool noise when he wrote with it.
overall, i was disappointed due to the surprisingly annoying music throughout the show. still, will tune in for more. looking forward to next monday's episode 'sleep' when Smoosh performs.
despite that i find it disturbing that the characters' mouths don't move, thank goodness they're not creepy like those heinous boobah things. the show is visually captivating, but for the most part, devoid of substance. see-saw. yes-no. the jury's still out. we'll see...
I've been waiting for this show to get on the air since it was announced last year. Now, not so much. My 2yo daughter saw it when it came on yesterday morning and I didn't get to see it until late last night since I came home at 9:30pm.
Let me just say, I agree with Mark E on this. The show feels hollow at times and then there are segments that seem like they've been packed tightly together.
I would say this episode was more like a test screening than a pilot episode.
With that said, the kid liked it and it's a break from Cars 24x7 so it's good for me, too.
Saw it on the DVR with my daughter last night---oh so bad.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one
I agree that it can be a little repetitive but...I like the focus on music and dancing, which I think is GREAT for kids. It's not as "academic" as the equally funky The Electric Company of my youth, which is fine. The messages are simple and I think it's good for the kids to hear those things from someone other than the 'rents: Clean up, be nice, don't push etc. I hope they make more of them. Oh, and I wish I had the daily enthusiasm of DJ Lance.
My daughter is not even old enough to watch tv and I am mad excited about this. I hope it is around long enough for her to get a chance to enjoy it.
I'm super late coming in on this post (and this blog) but I found it by doing a mighty Google search for "snacky snack". Man, this show is tremendous. I JUST saw it the other day by accident and it was a watershed moment in my life. My poor son is only 9 months old so he just doesn't quite get the coolness oozing from this fine production, but I'm downloading them all for posterity so one way or another, he'll get to experience it. And it is an experience.