I Wonder About These Pets

Unless you are under the age of five (or live with someone who is), you may never have heard of The Wonder Pets. The abridged introduction is that the Wonder Pets are a band of schoolroom animals that Laura Croft themselves into a variety of adventures when everyone has left class for the day. The main characters are a guinea pig (Linny), a turtle (Tuck) and a duckling (Ming Ming). They work together to solve critical world issues like getting baby cows out of trees and convincing seals to share.

As adults, usually the time we spend in front of children's television shows is simply providing our offspring with an organic seat cushion. What we gain from the experience is the illusion of spending Q.T. with our young while allowing our ears to revel in the quiet and our brains to grind on subjects like how and when that stain got into the rug. For me it's good practice for my wife's upcoming family reunion: I smile and nod, laughing at the right places all the while secretly praying to God to open a wormhole connected directly to the Sunday night trip home, vainly struggling not to gouge my eye out with a fork.

The Wonder Pets is just one of the many reasons we don't leave utensils near the couch. It's not as vapid or cloying as The Teletubbies, but the two 12-minute episodes per half-hour also don't leave you with anything that lasts, either. Nothing that lasts, that is, except for a four-line theme song stuck inside your skull like a booger that just keeps switching from hand to hand with no intention of ever being flicked off. At least with Blue's Clues you end the time spent having learned some new words or new activities. Also, it's interesting to find out that paprika is made when salt and pepper get horny.

I try not to expend too much processing power on the flavor du jour of toddler television, but after some consideration, I think I kind of hate this current collection of caged critters. My problem with The Wonder Pets is not necessarily because it preaches subjects that put my fur up like extreme environmentalism (which it sometimes does) or because it's deeply entrenched in the gospel of group-cooperation-to-the-point-of-self-uselessness (which it always is). I was also quick to lower my eyebrow after the entire half an episode dedicated to songs about peeing - culminating with every major character doing doodle on some family's back lawn.

No, my problem is that The Wonder Pets are completely, thoroughly, 100-percent benign. They don't inspire any thought or conversation of merit, they don't teach anything practical, and worst of all, they don't have any real value past the reminder that Western civilization has pulled down and locked the lid of the hand basket. If there was at least a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle-like toy manufacturing engine driving the enterprise I could rest in that familiar country, but as of this writing Toys R Us has exactly nine Wonder Pets toys for sale on their website. The Power Rangers have had more product recalls than The Wonder Pets have total pieces of merchandise.

As much as I deplore The Wonder Pets' banality, though, my kid loves the little buggers in equal measure. Ming Ming is crack to a four-year-old. So we watch. I suggest other activities with some success, however, through the entire time we are doing other things my son regales me with stories of how The Wonder Pets saved the unicorns from certain extinction or how you should always congratulate yourself on a job well done by eating some celery.

Oh, well. As long as he doesn't take to peeing in the back yard.