ABC

A few days ago I happened to turn on ABC3. It was Horrible Histories. It's like historical playschool for 10 year olds.

There were some incredibly simplistic explanations of post-renaissance rege-politics, to the point when I began to suspect that they were in fact catering to the playschool set.

Apart from the use of the word factions.

I began watchign as Henry VIII and Elizabeth (the original) danced around singing
"We're Tudors
Britain's biggest feuders
And just like barracudas
We kill with methods foul.
We're Tudors
Every enemy a Judas
But at least we're not as rude as
Simon Cowell"

The scansion was questionable, as was the historical context, but let's not go into that...

I chuckled.

There was then a show called 'The Time Compass' which actually did cater to the playschool set which gave a laughably simplistic explanation of the Carolingian era.

Apparently when explaining the feudal system of government, they no longer use the feudal pyramid I was taught. They had something called the feudal wheel. I didn't like it.

They then went on to attempt to explain the complex machinations of the Yoritomo shogunate in monosyllabics.

Onto ABC2. There was a show of unknown provenance concerning a character named Myrtle the tortoise. What's wrong with Myrtle the Turtle?

There was the Soup Opéra from France 3 Limousin productions. I love french animation. There's always that little bit of unexpected pizzaz.

And then Sesame street. Who in the name of *numerous expletives deleted* is Murray? He sure as hell didn't exist when I was 3.

I don't like the new theme song. Too much syncopation. Or the title animation. Too modern.

ARCHAISM, PEOPLE!!!

Anyway.

Holy *expletive*! Elmo is a Gordon clone! That was rather unexpected.

At least the count is as politically incorrect as always. Thank heavens for Bela Lugosi in Nosferatu.

Ooh! Big Bird.

Everybody then did the chicken dance before reading Humpty Dumpty.

Who should then arrive but Humpty himself, along with all the king's (talking) horses and all the king's men. He's a bit of a fop. The horses and men are all from different areas of the isles. From what I could hear, there was a scotsman, and a liverpuddlian horse.

And everyone was wearing a showercap so that they'd look bald like Gordon.

There was some filler stuff, and then a short clip about the letter of the day (I). It was a quasi-detective show, involving a private eye (get it???) dressed as the letter i. The person in the suit was George from Grey's Anatomy. There's another show I'll never be able to watch in the same way ever again.

Elmo and four ducks then sang a country song with a ukelele.
"Elmo had four ducks
Four birds of a feather
To waddle with
And quack together
But then one day
It swam away
Oh Gosh, oh gee
Elmo just had three."

And so on in the tradition of
'n little ducks went out one day
over the hills and far away
mother duck said "quack, quack, quack, quack"
but only n-1 came back"

Number of the day was somewhat unorthodox in the fact that it was 12. At least they used a good old-fashioned 90's video to show us.

We then followed a littel girl to her toddler's yoga class.

What is this?

I'll tell you what it is. It's modern. And I don't like it.

There was then a marvellous 90's video about 'when you grow up' involving some good old fashioned R&B (and by that I mean rhythm and blues. Not the modern crap)

Not entirely a fan of modern sesame street, although I did like that word of the day was 'Mustache'

Unanimous

As those of you in the NSW secondary school system will know, today was the first day of the holidays. And while I was meant to be frantically doing my extension History major work today (I decided to take the easy option and differentiate some logs. Is it just me, or is that abjectly depressing. Aaaaaanywhom...), I instead decided to watch some TV whilst eating lunch.

The issue is that since we upgraded to digital, we have been unable to receive channels 7 or 9 or any of their subsidiaries. Thank the heavens for ABC2. I flicked through our meagre assortment of channels and was underwhelmed by the results of my trawl.

ABC had some crappy children's program. There was no way in hell I intended to watch anything involving some bogan 20something year old and a bunch of 'ninjas' (and yes, the derisive quotation marks were entirely necessary).

ABC3 had some preteen cartoon. Enough said.

SBS was showing the Turkish news...

SBS2 the Russian news...

And channel 10 had Dr Phil whom I hate with the burning passion of a hundred suns. It's his Texan accent. It rankles me.

But, praise unto the heavens, ABC2 had Sesame Street.

I missed the beginning of the episode, but from what I could understand, Elmo and Zoe were truing to convince Sully to sing with them. The issue being that Zoe (along with her pet rock and a singing chicken) wanted to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, whereas Elmo (and Dorothy and a singing pig) wanted to sing Row, Row, Row Your Boat.

It was gripping stuff.

Then Sully said that he wanted to do the triangle dance, which as it turns out, Elmo and Zoe had no qualms engaging in. They voted on it, and since they all wanted to do the triangle dance, Sully proclaimed it to be unanimous.

After they danced, who should arrive but LL Cool J who then explained the concept of unanimity (if one can use such a genitive) to the viewers with the help of Elmo and Abby.

What's that I hear all you GenY kids say?

Who the *numerous expletives* is Abby?

That was my question as well. To quote Wikipedia (something which I think is giving me a skin rash as we speak - I hate wiki.), Abby's full name is Abby Cadabby and she was:
Created to increase the number of female Muppets. Daughter of the fairy godmother, who is spoken about but never seen, she "has her own point of view and is comfortable with the fact that she likes wearing a dress"

After a brief bit of what was meant to be comic relief, but to me was actually tense psychodrama between LL Cool J and Oscar the Grouch, Elmo, Zoe and the letter A decided to watch a movie about the letter A.

It was an episode of "A's Anatomy" starring Dr. Grover.

It was thought provoking.

Elmo and Zoe then voted to watch a movie about the number 9. 9 then showed up being a bit Bolshy (I love that adjective) and said it wanted to watch a movie about sheep. They then proceeded to vote unanimously to watch a fusion movie.

It was a cartoon of a guy singing
"How may sheep will jump over my head before I fall asleep at night time? The answer, my friends is nine."
to the tune of 'Blowin in the Wind'.

Everyone then unanimously voted that they would say goodbye to everyone whilst doing the limbo under Alan's broom.

It was an awesome episode. I must say I'm not a fan of all the newfangled animation (I prefer the more archaic Sesame Street of my childhood), but they've kept all the ethnic minorities which make Sesame Street great, so I'm still happy with the end product.

Although I'm never going to be able to watch NCIS LA in the same way ever again.

And then later, as I was watching 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart', Jon was making fun of the French because Nicolas Sarkozy had been a douche towards the Americans on their own soil (although what did they expect from a right-winger with a faintly comical nose who spent about 500 Euro of taxpayer's money per minute on his almost Latinate inauguration...But I'm getting off the point).

Basically he [Stewart] said:
"Serious;y, France, you're a country who's been outflanked twice from the same side in 25 years. Here's a clue, guys, THEY'RE COMING FROM BELGIUM."

So true.