MovieChat Forums > Comedy > Show your kids some good old comedy!

Show your kids some good old comedy!

posted 10 years ago by binapiraeus
6 replies | jump to latest

The Dubliners used to sing "Give your child a jar of the porter" - but even better, give them some REAL old comedy to laugh instead of that trash that Nickelodeon 'feeds' them with every day, those so-called 'teen comedy serials' like "Bucket and Skinner", "How to Rock", "iCarly" a.s.o., where 18- and 20-year olds behave like babies in a nursery school, shrieking hysterically, running around like half-wits, but at the same time playing it 'cool' and 'mean' and intriguing just like they do in the soap operas made for bored housewives - believe it or not, that stuff is literally poisoning their minds!

My own 13-year old daughter was JUST beginning to behave somewhat seriously and logically - until she 'discovered' that daily nonsense; and now she's developing back into a spoiled 3-year old... I think the only 'antidote' is to make them familiar with some of the good old comedy, no matter if it's simple slapstick with Laurel&Hardy, Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin (the only one she's responding to, fortunately - because besides the laughs, there's also a social and human message behind it!), crazy screwball comedies from the 30s, or the all-American humor of Doris Day, Lucy Ball and Jerry Lewis.

Because this kind of comedy still was INNOCENT, and today's 'comedies' are taking away our children's innocence: they laugh when everybody's mean and nasty to each other, when teenagers think of themselves as the kings of the world, when the only 'important' issues are what to wear and how to make parties and how to behave impossible at school and to ridicule your so-called 'friends' - kids want to laugh, they NEED to laugh; but let's make sure that they laugh about something that doesn't destroy their character!!

Let's be realists, let's demand the impossible.

[–] binapiraeus 10 years ago

Yes, THOSE were real nice movies for kids! And even the comics were MUCH different then, like Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny or The Smurfs - instead of today's "Gormiti", "Monsuno" and all that other monster stuff; there are VERY few nice of them now, like "Sponge Bob" or "The Penguins of Madagascar" or "Kung Fu Panda"; and for the small kids, the IDEAL thing would be "Teletubbies" - which doesn't seem AT ALL popular on IMDb, though...

Let's be realists, let's demand the impossible.

[–] OldManWithDominoes 10 years ago

I like the Teletubbies

[–] binapiraeus 10 years ago

Yeah, they're cute, aren't they?! And in my opinion the VERY best in recent years that you can find in TV entertainment for pre-school children, real scenes of British kids' life mixed with the magical world of the Teletubby land...

Let's be realists, let's demand the impossible.

[–] binapiraeus 10 years ago

That's good, everybody needs a little laugh sometimes! Is that 50s or 60s? Because I'm not too familiar with that era - I'm too old-fashioned...

Let's be realists, let's demand the impossible.

[–] binapiraeus 10 years ago

Yeah, some of them are indeed - the one I like best is "Where Were You When the Lights Went Out"...!

Let's be realists, let's demand the impossible.

[–] mjd_subs2 10 years ago

You've described the exact reason that my children aren't allowed to watch television. We have a Netflix account and I control everything in the queue. It didn't start out that way, but I was FLOORED the day I bought a Muppets movie for my then 18 month old and one of the characters said something along the lines of "twist my nipples." It had the Jim Henson name, but it was definitely not a Jim Henson production.

I bought my kids some of the cartoons I liked as a kid such as Woody Woodpecker, Tom and Jerry and Casper, the Friendly Ghost. I've shown them old episodes of Sesame Street and, my favorite, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. They saw Morgan Freeman in something recently and I told them that he used to be on a show titled "The Electric Company" but those are now distant memories of good, decent television for children. It's sad really. On one hand, we are allowing the media to train our children to be materialistic, mean-spirited snobs that dress like tramps and hooligans, but then question the value of sex education. We, as a society, can't have it both ways.

I don't know if they exist in many areas, but we have a local Meetup (through Meetup.com) for "Families That Don't Watch Television" in which we get together to spend time doing family related activities that don't involve the "latest icon" in children's television. It's nice to spend time with other parents who "get" it.