However, sometimes big sister Kizzy takes the helm as controller of the remote which is usually when I start to bristle. Also, a couple of CBeebies offerings overwhelm me with the desire to throw things at the TV (don't tell my husband, he'd actually come out in a cold sweat if he heard me threaten his 47" plasma!)
So here is my list!
1: Sonny with a Chance....arrgghh!!! With it's cheesy "Check it Out" catchphrase and the awful Demi Lovato, this show just makes me want to bury myself alive. It's trying to be a clever parody of children's TV sketch shows, but it just epically fails. It's not clever enough to be satire, so it falls into all the traps of cringe making TV itself, with none of the heart or originality of the Amanda Show (which is the kind of show it's attempting to mock). Although she is nauseatingly annoying, I feel so sorry for poor Demi. Actress, singer, Jack of all trades, master of none, child/woman. She's just left rehab after months coping with "physical and emotional problems". A victim of the too much too young American Teen Dream...and star of an incredibly bad TV show!
2: Gigglebiz...we all love Justin Fletcher on Something Special. His TV show does so much to break down barriers and the children all adore him. Then why oh why did he have to make Gigglebiz. As far as I can tell it merely a self-indulgent vehicle for Justin to crack poor jokes and cross-dress. Just no, Justin!
3: Mister Maker...being a person of a certain age, I was brought up with Vision On and the late, great Tony Hart. He was like a stern uncle who was very good at drawing. Over the years the format of art shows for children has changed, becoming funkier, funnier and more child friendly. Sadly the latest incarnation for creativity for toddlers has totally eroded the genre away to nothing more than a weird, talentless shouty bloke making rubbish out of otherwise useful household objects. When he turned a fiver's worth of Vileda washing up sponges into an abomination which was meant to be a portion of fish fingers and chips, I had to shout out "Why???" We're in a recession. Don't waste useful items and turn them into utterly pointless bin fodder!! I can only imagine the amount of small children raiding the kitchen for things to destroy in the name of Mister Maker!
4: Zingzillas...This could almost be good. Introducing different genres of music as diverse as scat to bhangra, to a young audience. Why or why did they see the need to do this via the medium of actors dressed in giant monkey suits? The costumes are silly, their mouths don't move right and they are just so annoying. With the incredibly catchy ear-worm of a theme tune, this show drives me insane. Children aren't idiots, they don't need OTT characters with grating personalities to deliver an appreciation of music...strip it back and maybe it'll work!
5: Sarah-Jane Honeywell...as sweetly sickly as her name suggests, this perky little bundle of energy is the total antithesis of me! She first came to my attention in Higgledy House in 2005, where she was the cutesy, girly sidekick to Justin Fletcher. Her peppy, childlike persona belies the fact that she is in her late thirties. She now graces our screen in an all in one red superhero outfit in Mighty Mites. It upsets me greatly to think of her as a full grown woman with a full grown woman's needs!! It's sooooo wrong!!!!!!!!! I leave you with her single from 2008...an uplifting ditty to fill you with joy and make you forget the recession, the weather or the state of your post Christmas finances! (In googling this, I just discovered that Sarah Jane plays Panzee the chimp in Zingzillas...that figures!)
Link up at Kate's to find more annoying children's TV stars and programmes that blight our lives!
