My little Ellie has started watching TV. I'm not the one primarily responsible for monitoring her TV-watching habits, but this much I know: she really likes Playhouse Disney, the set of weekday-morning cartoons on the disney Channel, featuring Little Einsteins, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, My Friends Tigger and Pooh, and Handy Manny (except she doesn't like Handy Manny so much as the others).

Probably her favorite is Little Einsteins, a show that features four artistically inclined youths and their friend Rocket, who is a seeminly omnipotent rocket. I like Little Einsteins because they make an attempt at exposing the audience to culture, picking an artist and a composer of the day (take that, Sesame Street and your letter and number of the day!). Even if they do put silly words to great music,* at least it's still great music. And the animation, unlike the other Playhouse Disney shows, which are clearly cranked out by a low-budget computer, shows some creative skill.


But the more I've watched Little Einsteins, the more I worry about what it's teaching my daughter. They may have music and dance and art down pat, but they leave something to be desired in logic and problem-solving. Yeah, I know it's just a cartoon, but when the Einsteins** are flying in Rocket and they come face-to-face with, say, a tall building that they need to get to the other side of, instead of flying around it or using Rocket's rocket boosters to go a little higher, they say, "Oh no! We need to get over the building! The only way to do it is to clap our hands really fast. The faster we clap, the higher Rocket will go!" Or maybe they need to sing a high note to be able to swim across a river. Or they need to raise their hands really high and that will make the sun not shine so hot on the ice sculpture they don't want to melt. Or something equally ridiculous.

So I ask myself: it is good for Ellie to know the theme from Verdi's Aida, but is it good enough to outweigh the bad of one day my sweetie telling me that if she spins around in a circle, her room will be suddenly cleaned up?

To be continued...

*I don't know if I can ever hear Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake theme again without hearing the words, "Oh, don't feel sad, baby booby bird! We will get you to the ballet on time!" See, there was this blue-footed booby who needed to perform in the ballet, and, well...

** There's no indication that any of these children are German or Jewish or in any way related to Albert Einstein. They don't do physics or really any sort of science. The only reason they are collectively called the Little Einsteins (not to be confused with Baby Einstein, which has the same situation) is to make parents think their kids will be smarter for being exposed to them. As I explain in the text, this is not the case.