Happy October, courtesy of my daughter’s plastic-free, Montessori-friendly toy collection.
(My daughter has a huge collection of these toys, thanks to the efforts of my wife, and I credit them for our toddler’s unusually large vocabulary: Around six months, she was constantly picking up these toys and showing them to us to learn their names. And yes, for the record, some of these are here just for the picture: We keep the small ones out of her reach for now to avoid choking hazards.)
‘Fancy Nancy,’ Episode 1: A Discussion
I’m not sure what kind of review this is going to be because I haven’t decided yet what I think of this show. I hated it at first, and then it grew on me.
Under discussion here is Fancy Nancy, a show on Disney Junior. I need to give a little background in case you’re wondering why I’m talking about a CGI Disney Junior show on a blog largely dedicated to magical girls and other weebery.
To put this in terms that my fellow weeaboos can appreciate, it goes like this: Have you read Yotsuba&!? And did you like it? Well, there are a whole bunch of books just like it in the kid lit section at your public library.
In fact, I would recommend that serious anime fans explore some of the chapter books and junior novels at the library, mostly just to find out what they’re missing. American writers of children’s literature give the impression of being people who’ve actually observed children closely before attempting to impersonate them on paper, whereas Japanese creators of manga and anime give the impression of being people who’ve heard rumors of children but have never actually seen any. The next time somebody asks me to justify why I think Cardcaptor Sakura or Lyrical Nanoha is poorly written, I think I’ll just wave a Judy Moody under his nose and say, “Here! Read this! Then you’ll understand!”
“First my Striker terminal, then this, this little slap at my industrial complex. You’re a flea, Jonathan Power, and I’m going to swat you!”
I played this in a VCR, and I have no equipment to capture images from it except by photographing the screen, so please excuse the picture quality.
Anyway, I absolutely love Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, an ill-fated children’s television series that ran for one season in 1987. It was the first—and last—attempt at interactive television, something that many at the time mistakenly assumed was the future of TV. Costing a million dollars an episode, sparking controversy for its violent content, and plagued by continuous fights between the writers (led by J. Michael Straczynski) and sponsor Mattel, the show was destined for early cancellation. Continue reading “Was Cleaning Out Some Old Stuff, and Look What I Found!”
