Ceaseless Idleness

The new electric company is pretty urban. It’s interesting, has cool effects and the “Electric Company” is actually a group of kids who have special powers. There’s a “bad” group of kids who don’t have powers but play tricks on the Electric Company and deceive them, etc.

The effects are pretty good, and straightforward, and the actors are solid in selling words. It’s all about words and reading, which I didn’t remember from the old Electric Company (I remembered Dracula and Spider-Man, but that’s me), but it turns out they were all about words, too.

The old EC seemed to be aimed at teens and adults – I’m surpised it lasted as long as it did, though my 4-year old liked the Spider-Man sketches we watched on YouTube, like this one:

But it looks dated. REALLY dated, almost so dated it’s good again because it’s such a time-piece. The new one will probably look dated in 20 years if the urban vibe is not as prevalent then as it is now. There’s a beatboxer on staff who does some sketches but mainly beatboxes. It gives me hope that I, too, an ungainly white person, can also beat the box. Actually when I try it with my 1-year old he’s ok with it.

Their songs, though, generally, are pretty terrible, homewritten high-school play quality. Anyway, the new one is fun enough to watch and has clever enough dialogue (the one I watched yesterday had a running gag about an alien who passed gas through his ear which smelled like toast and thought of noodles to calm down – that’s pretty good stuff). The old one is pretty bizarre, in a good way. Take for instance, one of the most widely respected actors today, Morgan Freeman, who was on it all six seasons according to IMDB, playing Dracula taking a bubble bath in his casket.

Bill Cosby, and as voices Mel Brooks, Gene Wilder and Joan Rivers, on – not as guests, but regular players on the show. So it has more than “geez those weird 70s” historical value, and makes more sense than HR Pufnstuf.

I have a 3.5 year old kid who loves the Wiggles (wikipedia, home). Has for about a year and a half – which is long legs for a kids’ media. I’ve seen most Wiggles videos and most that I’ve seen I’ve seen more than once. And here are my observations:

Old School v. New School

There’s a huge divide between early Wiggles and later WIggles.

• Noxiousity: Early Wiggles stuff is less obnoxious than later. It’s the classic band idea – they’re interesting and fun when they have no budget and are charming and lo-fi. We also started with the earlier ones, so that may be a factor. Later Wiggles are much more edited, fast, everyone very close to the camera, bright colors, worse songs, and more educational content. Early Wiggles were slow, simple, and song-based (and the songs were good).
  OLD:
  
  NEW
  
• Greg-less: Greg, the lead singer (yellow shirt) dropped out of the band for health-related reasons. His voice is nice and gentle, and he’s an old dude like the others. His replacement is younger and has a nice choir voice. But that’s the problem – he’s younger and sounds better, he looks more rehearsed and dances well. A lot of the appeal of the Wiggles for me initially was, what the hell are these guys doing singing kids for songs? Yeah, the songs are catchy, but what the hell are four male adults doing singing songs to kids? They’re kind of goofy, they miss steps (purposely, apparently, to make them appear more human to kids. Worked).  In retrospect I think they were pretty genuine – they were goofy. Sam, for all his theatrical skills, is not great at being goofy. He’s like an MC for an awards banquet.
• The Captain and Anthony Show: Later episodes seem to be narrated and driven by Anthony. While Anthony appears to be the band leader, this is less obvious early on since everyone seems to play equal roles. Later, not only do Murray, Jeff, and Sam have less to do, but Captain Feathersword is in ALMOST EVERY SINGLE SKETCH. A little Captain goes a long way. He’s obviously a gifted entertainer and always stays in character in really silly sketches, but he takes the scenery out to dinner and eats it. That Anthony also appears in almost every sketch was annoying to me until I saw their live concert video – Anthony runs the show, but he does it very well and very conscientiously. There’s a reason he’s the leader, he seems to have boundless energy and enthusiasm.

We still watch them (see how I make it sound like I have some say in the decision), but I’d be hard-pressed to want to listen to a whole CD of Sam’s singing – he just sounds normal, a theater-ready performer. Greg’s voice (and interactions with others) had some character, some grittiness. Poor Sam, too nicety-nice.