Observations on Diego: i've seen too much

Over Christmas break we found out that Maggie is a fan of Diego from Go Diego Go. Grandpa Evanson had DVRed a bunch of episodes. After seeing a couple of episodes, Maggie asked for Diego almost every day.

i may be projecting my own feelings onto Maggie, but i think that she at least likes Diego more than Dora. i feel a little better about that. Diego has animal stories and she can be quite cute as she says and signs all of the animal names. Her dancing and singing to the music is pretty good too.

Laura and i had avoided those kinds of shows for a long time; not having cable and much less TV in general made it easier to avoid the 30 minute commercials for kids. But now, Maggie's hooked.

To keep Maggie content from time to time, we have checked out a few DVDs from the library. I have seen too much Diego. ¿how do i know? i know because i have questions, queries and complaints about the strange place Diego comes from.
- gravity is SLOW: rocks, branches, ropes, and animals take FOREVER to fall.
- BRANCHES are DANGEROUS and apparently quite loosely connected to trees: i have seen parrots, marmosets, chinchillas, sloths, kinkajous (and possibly other animals too) barely escape these perilous limbs, and i haven't seen that many episodes.
- Diego is not very bright and needs more parental supervision: Adults are hardly ever around and for some reason and Diego is not the sharpest kid. Apparently he's to slow to realize that it's easier to get down a SNOWy slope with a SNOWboard than it is with a telephone. (idiot!)

And i keep waiting for the real animal lessons to kick in. i am a biologist after all.

Diego: Baby kikajous are afraid of harpy eagles!
Why?! Because harpy eagles EAT baby kinkajous!

or ¿how about this correction?

Diego: Help get the baby mountain gorillas out of the net before the poachers come back to cut off their hands to sell as ashtrays!

well, maybe those lessons won't happen anytime soon.

in the week or so before our requests for Diego from the library came up, Laura tried to find some episodes on YouTube. She didn't find any real episodes, but rather an abundance of odd Diego and Dora iterations.

i've seen a few video mash-ups, and have never been very impressed. i don't really like the music much, but i must say that this one isn't bad. they really synched up the audio and the video. watch for a bit. Laur and i got a chuckle out of it.



0z iEiO