Category archive: tv

May 16, 2013

#firstworldproblems

Ogilvy Brasil is bringing the cutting edge of first world diapering technology home with this Huggies concept whereby a robotic urine sensor sends an alert to your iPhone when your kid needs a change. It's called Tweet Pee, which...
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May 2, 2013

That's 'Emmy-Nominated Fresh Beat Band' To You

Big news from the TV front this week: Kevin Clash, who has already made history as the first male professional in a major American puppeteering league to come out as gay, got nominated for two Emmy Awards. After he...
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April 10, 2013

'The Private School Has No Connection To The Disney-owned Network'

Way back in the day I used to work on an education-related startup at Disney, and I think that their focus grouping Sofia The First at pre-schools is as hilarious as it is appalling.The children are students at ABC...
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January 31, 2013

Star Trek Viewing Order, Or The Trouble With Tribbles

It's taken a while, but I think the debate has been won for the optimum viewing order of Star Wars: it's Rod Hilton's "Machete Order", IV, V, II, III [as flashback, explaining Darth's reveal, but also leaving it hanging as...
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MORE SCREENTIME FOR YOU!

Amazon Studios is commissioning pilots for five preschool TV/video series from the creators of such hits as Blue's Clues, Dino Dan, and--whatever, I'm sorry, I can't stop staring at Kidscreen's terrifying stock photo here: Is that a still from some...
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January 23, 2013

Where Is The Kid-Size Lunar Rover Replica?

Alright, people, do not tell me that in 40+ years no one has produced a kid-sized version of the Lunar Roving Vehicle here on Earth. Because I will not believe it. Apollo 16 lunar rover dash cam [kottke] Lunar...
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December 24, 2012

The Sprout Snooze-A-Thon Is The Clock For Toddlers

The artist and musician Christian Marclay's epic, 24-hour, real-time film, The Clock, has been playing at museums and galleries around the world or almost two years now. It uses hundreds of film clips showing clocks and watches to mark...
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December 21, 2012

This Clorox Dads Commercial Is Outrageous

ly funny. And you know what's even more outrageous? That I'm only finding out about it today, more than a year after it was released. I mean, come on, a guy shouldn't have to watch TV, open the occasional publicist...
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December 19, 2012

Monday In The Studio With Larry

List of TV Shows Mandy Patinkin ACTS In That I Have Not Seen Nor Do I Plan To, Ever 1. Chicago Hope 2. Homeland 3. "Children Will Listen," the finale from Stephen Sondheim's 1988 fairy tale mashup musical Into...
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December 14, 2012

How Do You Tell Your Kids About Mr. Hankey?

I figure now while we're still in the middle of Hannukah is a good time to ask. In our house, we've just made Philip Glass a holiday tradition from the start. The real problem, though, unless you own the...
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December 5, 2012

The Coming War On Spongebob Christmas

NICKELODEON DEBUTS FIRST FULL-LENGTH STOP-MOTION SPECIAL, IT'S A SPONGEBOB CHRISTMAS!, DEC. 6, AT 8:00 P.M. (ET/PT) John Goodman Lends His Voice as Santa Claus in Half-Hour Special; Companion DVD, CD and Ebook Round Out Holiday CheerThere's a Spongebob Christmas...
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November 25, 2012

Charlie Bit My Wheat Thins!

Watching K2's unprompted, awesomely and unexpectedly combative re-creation of the Family Guy Wheat Thins commercial is the closest I think I've ever come to regretting my perhaps overly principled decision--made, I might addd, before YouTube itself existed--to not pursue...
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November 20, 2012

Vintage Plywood Rocker Surfaces In Microsoft Ad

As his mind was lost in thought, calculating how much toner the kid in this Microsoft Windows * commercial is burning through, eagle-eyed DT reader Erik was snapped back to reality by this nice, vintage-looking, kid-sized plywood rocking chair....
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November 12, 2012

Eric Carle X Game Of Thrones

I don't watch Game of Thrones, but this is how I imagined they talk, and I'd sure like to send Eric Carle and his band of marauding ladybugs there. So win-win. If Westeros had a picture book [mrstater's tumblr...
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October 16, 2012

Sesame Street Old School, Volume 3 Is Brought To You By The Letters WB

Alright, people slightly younger than myself, this is it: proof that there is, in fact, no school like the old school. Sesame Street Old School: Volume 3 is shipping on November 6, from Warner Brothers Home Video. Volume 3...
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October 10, 2012

We're All Jackasses Now.

Colin Furze is a British stuntyob who looks like Ze Frank, but acts like Steve-o, and whose schtick is that he collects WTF Guinness World Book records on YouTube. His next target, on Oct 14: World's Fastest Pram, for...
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October 8, 2012

Hulk Hogan Of Children

We try not to judge. That said: parents,if you get this costume for your kids, you're horrible. twitter.com/DadCentric/sta...— DadCentric (@DadCentric) October 9, 2012 Yes, well, yes, obviously, but I'm also posting this because I've really wanted to use the "Children...
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October 5, 2012

I Want My, I Want My, I Want My Mernet Larsen

Aw, 2003 Is it a coincidence that I click through to Mernet Larsen's amazing geometric figure paintings just as I'm in the middle of arranging a custom kitchen delivery? I don't think so. Mernet Larsen: Three Chapters, runs through...
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September 20, 2012

9yo Japanese Rockers Can't Get No Satisfaction BECAUSE THEY'RE NINE HELLO

Here is a Ryunosuke Bando, fronted by Osaka 3rd grader Yamagishi Ryunosuke, tearing it up on some random Korean variety show. I kept watching to see if they're just cold faking it like a mini Milli Vanilli, or to...
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September 18, 2012

Full Spectrum Yo Gabba Gabba Vans

Because of this early post about custom-painted Yo Gabba Gabba Vans, DT gets a lot of lost YGG sneaker traffic. It's taken me four years, but I'm finally getting around to fixing that Googlish dead end. At the Vans...
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September 8, 2012

Et In Arcadia Eh-Oh

Adam Roberts makes the case that the anti-utopian warnings of the Teletubbies' infantilized cyborg pseudo-natural culture surpasses both H.G. Wells and Aldous Huxley in their intensity:But neither writer explored the logic of their own premises as far as do the...
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September 7, 2012

Baby Hjölster Aims To Redefine Your Sense Of Personal Space

Andy posted the Baby Hjolster to HowToBeADad almost six months ago. I assume the Kickstarter campaign will be announced as soon as they resolve the prototype's door jamb and urinal glitches. BULLSHIT KNOCKOFF UPDATE: Wow, so NBC stripped the...
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August 31, 2012

One. One Muppeteer, RIP

Jerry Nelson, the veteran Muppeteer who created Count von Count, and various other Sesame Street characters from Sherlock Hemlock to Mr. Snuffleupagus, passed away last week at the age of 78. Which means we may never find out why he...
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August 21, 2012

Dharma Mums: Monica & Joao's LOST Nursery

Considering how extensive Monica & Joao's movie and music collections are, I would expect this level of careful detail in whatever theme nursery they decided to make. It just happens that they chose Lost, and so there's a perfect-looking...
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August 10, 2012

Very Superawesome

I'm sure there were some negatives that year, too, but 1973 was when Stevie Wonder was on Sesame Street....
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August 7, 2012

Hey Blueberry Boy! Pancake Mountain's On YouTube

Hey, Pancake Mountain gave itself a media upgrade. The awesome, if somewhat dormant, DC-based indie music kids TV show has a YouTube channel! Oh, wait, I knew this. It's been around for five years. I guess I mean that,...
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August 3, 2012

Don't Take A Baby To A Tennis Fight

Seriously. Someone has a newborn baby at the Federer-Del Potro match at the Olympics. A crying baby. At a tennis match. At Wimbledon. And my mom tells me it's been there for a while, in other matches. so it's apparently...
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July 12, 2012

'Summer Vacay Like a Kardashian!'

So literally, ten seconds after I finish my Single Laughing Dad post this morning, I check my email, see the subject line above, and it's a contest announcement from Poshbrood, which is offering one lucky winner the chance to "live...
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Arrested Blogging Development

I feel terrible, and personally responsible, because, what with the extended holiday week, and the kids out of summer camp and all bouncing around the house and in my grille, and the panel discussion I have to get ready for...
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July 11, 2012

The Real Dadbloggers Of Utah County

Single Dad Laughing. There, I typed it. Wasn't so hard after all. In the last few weeks, I've heard rumblings about a big, Year Of The Dadblogging Gang Wars trend piece in the works which, well, with SDL and Dan...
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July 10, 2012

Team Disney World Police!

Uh, really have no idea what to make of the unlicensed appearance on North Korean state television by costumed versions of various Disney characters, including Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Winnie the Pooh and Tigger. But I think I do remember...
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June 25, 2012

Our Long Central Park-Roaming, Jew-Hating Elmo Nightmare Is Over

photo of restrained Elmo getting loaded into the wagon via @kathleen_loftus' twitter Gothamist has a round-up of tweets and YouTube videos of the nutjob in the Elmo suit who'se been prowling around the Central Park Zoo, and who finally...
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June 8, 2012

Remixster Rogers

Kudos to PBS Digital, whatever that is, for not trying it themselves, but instead getting the originator of the Profoundly Autotune The Childhood Icon genre, John D. Boswell of melodysheep, to remix Mister Rogers. Judging by the half million...
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May 30, 2012

Related By Birth

Wow, yes, wow, this is an incredible video of an elephant giving birth in the Elephant Safari Park in Bali, which, well, wow. But I guess I didn't know nothin' about no birthin' baby videos all over YouTube. Because,...
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Sesame Street Is Brought To You Today By The Letters GTMO

I realized this morning, when I turned off NPR for the third time on the way to preschool, that for a lot of information I want, regular, old linear media is annoying because it's too damn slow. And its...
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May 25, 2012

FaceTime With Elmo

Blues Clues and Dora got a generation of kids to think they're talking to the TV, and now those kids are all grown up, and making iPhone apps. Including Elmo Calls, which basically simulates a FaceTime chat with the...
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May 17, 2012

The Last Wiggle Standing

The Wiggles have been trying to morph from actual people into mindless, mass producible, perpetually monetizable branded characters for years, even before "Greg Wiggle" got sick in 2006 and was replaced by Sam Moran as "The Yellow Wiggle." And now...
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May 8, 2012

But Why Are You Hunting Wabbits?

The ending's a little heteronormative, but Bill Benzon's New Savanna blog post is probably the most extensive discussion of myth logic in What's Opera, Doc? you'll find anwhere:At this point I see a pile of questions which I'm not prepared...
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May 7, 2012

Sesame Street X Beastie Boys

I can't, I won't, and I don't stop posting Beastie Boys mashups with kids TV shows. So here is Wonderful Creative's version of "Sure Shot," as performed by the cast of Sesame Street. Sesame Street Breaks it down [vimeo...
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May 3, 2012

@CountVonCount

Seven! Seven wonderful tweets! Ah ah ah ah!— Count Von Count (@CountVonCount) May 2, 2012 1,400 followers in a day for tweeting nothing but numbers! Ah ah ah..ha h I am doing it so wrong....
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May 2, 2012

U.N.C.L.E.

K2 so desperately and hilariously needed to go to the bathroom, but she also wanted to know rightthisminute why they had canceled "that movie," The Man From U.N.C.L.E.. Because we found this coloring book in a box outside the library...
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April 26, 2012

Area Man Says That Gender Reveal Cake Is A Freakin' Uterus, Dude

Look, I'm outnumbered 20:1 by the Duggars alone, so I know DT's not gonna put a stop to the reality TV-style, socio-emotional construct of the gender reveal party, at least overnight. But if just one more expectant parent thinks of...
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April 25, 2012

Take Care Mommy!

I delete a shit-ton of these things just from the subject line alone, so kudos to these folks for getting me to read the salutation...Hello Mommy Blogger! :D You have ventured to create a successful empire of pregnancy-mommy-influence. Your decadence...
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April 23, 2012

An Important Life Lesson From The Parents Of Baby Cha-Cha

Tara Ariano reports for The Awl, from a bar in Orange County somewhere, where the kid who was Dancing Baby is paying his way through UC Irvine by doing public appearances. His dad Steven got him the Ally McBeal...
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April 10, 2012

Plushie Purple Panda Pittsburgh Preschool Pandemonium

See, this is what happens when PBS takes Mister Rogers off the air. How is a preschooler these days supposed to know what the hell a giant, mute droning, alien Purple Panda even is? And no offense, David Newell,...
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April 3, 2012

Pinball Number Count Remix Compilation

We've come a long way from DJ Food. In 2003, Sesame Workshop released a CD boxset, Songs From The Street: 35 Years Of Music, that included DJ Food's remix of the classic Pinball Number Count, which was performed by...
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March 13, 2012

RIP Blossom Dearie

Just a couple of minutes ago, I learned that jazz/cabaret singer Blossom Dearie passed away three years ago last week month--holy smokes, I can't believe it's March already. Also 2012-- at the age of 84. Not being much of...
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March 2, 2012

DT Friday Freakout: Babyccino Edition

I may add to this later, but it's a start: Dude, male birth control pills, transurethral ultrasound AND babyccino? The only way Colbert could be begging any harder for a Daddy Types link is if he had Uma on to...
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February 29, 2012

Just Some Good Old Boys, Never Meanin' No Harm

Do you know there's a channel that shows all old dukes of hazzard episodes? It's keeping me up very late— David Netto (@DavidNettoSays) February 29, 2012 Looks like David Netto is adjusting well to life not designing cribs for Maclaren...
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February 27, 2012

RIP Jan Berenstain

Daddy Types is sad to relay news of the passing of Jan Berenstain, at the age of 88. Our thoughts are with her family, and we take comfort in knowing that Mrs Berenstain has joined her late husband Stan in...
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