Tot TV Watch

qubo begins its Space Age Summer tomorrow on ION. The qubo block of shows air on ION on Fridays, NBC on Saturdays, and Telemundo on the weekends. The current line-up includes My Friend Rabbit, 3, 2, 1 Penguins, VeggieTales, and Jane and the Dragon. On July 4th (5th and 6th for Telemundo and 12th officially for NBC) two shows will be added to the line-up. The two shows are Babar and Zula Patrol. Neither show is entirely new, but they are good editions to the qubo line up.

Babar is an animated show based on the classic children’s book series by Laurent de Brunhoff. The show is about Babar, who is king of the elephants, and his family. The episodes are usually about Babar teaching those around him, especially his kids, lessons of life based on his own life experience. In turn the show also teaches the viewers the same lessons of life, which includes topics like jealousy and false accusations.

The other new to the qubo line up show is The Zula Patrol. This outerspace set show teams up with 3, 2, 1 Penguins to make an hour long space age block, which is what makes the Space Age Summer thing make sense. The Zula Patrol is originally a PBS show and as you can expect from that it is quite educational. The main educational category for the show is science with the obvious emphasis being astronomy. The show is a space adventure show with the Zula Patrol going on missions to save their planet called Planet Zula and the universe in general.

3, 2, 1 Penguins! is made by Big Idea, who also makes the VeggieTales series. It originally began in 2001 with DVD releases of the episodes like the VeggieTales series. Unlike the VeggieTales series, which is basically the DVD stories on TV, this series has developed into a TV series in its own right with new episodes airing on TV before DVD releases. 3, 2, 1 Penguins! currently airs on Fridays on ION and Saturdays on NBC as part of qubo. The episodes are always the same on Fridays on ION and Saturdays on NBC.

The main characters of the show are Jason and Michelle, two human kids that are twins. The show usually begins with them at home and their Grandmum trying to teach them a Christian value related to the situation going on through the use of a Biblical quote. Usually Jason does not take the quote to heart and as they are zapped into a spaceship toy and go on an adventure to help the penguins that run the space ship the lesson the quote is teaching is learned the hard way. The penguin space crew is made up of Captain Zidgel, Engineer Midgel, Doctor Fidgel, and Kevin.

The show definitely has a Christian values aspect to it just like VeggieTales, although it is slightly less obvious. Each episode does teach about a certain value and has a Biblical quote related to it, which is usually told by Grandmum. It is obvious enough that if you are not raising your kids Christian you may not want them watching it, however, it is mostly about values that kids of all beliefs should learn and are not specifically about Christian beliefs.

I kept waffling about if VeggieTales counted as a television show, but with the new Indiana Jones movie recently released this VeggieTales parody came to mind as a good one to review on this blog. After looking at the episode list of what VeggieTales DVD stories have aired as part of the VeggieTales shows on NBC and ION I decided this one definitely fits with in with my kid’s tv blog.

VeggieTales - Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Samson’s Hairbrush is a parody of Indiana Jones with Larry the Cucumber playing Minnesota Cuke, who is an Indiana Jones like character. The DVD also contains another VeggieTales story about Junior Asparagus dealing with bullies. The lesson taught in this DVD is about dealing with bullies as God would want you to.

The Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Samson’s Hairbrush parody is one of the most interesting ones done in the VeggieTales series. It has some adventure to it with Minnesota Cuke getting artifacts such as a golden carrot and Samson’s hairbrush for the Moose Lake Children’s Museum.

The silly song on this DVD is “Pizza Angel,” which is also among my favorite of the VeggieTales silly songs. It is Larry the Cucumber singing about wanting his pizza to come as he waits forever for the delivery guy to come.

Besides the great stories that teach kids how to deal with bullies, this DVD also contains a lot of special features. My favorite being the audio commentary, but there are also some fun things for kids such as a Catacomb Game, Worm Pit Family Activity Idea, and Petunia’s Worm recipe.

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