Thursday, January 13, 2005

Barney's Bad Manners

We have a Barney's Manners DVD that the kids love. I like Barney, I know its not hip to say that but he's kind and polite and kids tend to learn from him (Suzanne learned the alphabet song from some PBS program and it might have been him). If you want to get academic about it, you could say Barney is a Christ-figure -- he's loving and kind and ridiculed by many for this. But thats a discussion for another day.

What I don't like about this DVD is that it begins with an advertisement extolling the virtues of Barney. Thats fine, but I don't want to watch it. The DVD does not allow me to skip or fast forward this message. Fine. The part that chaps me is that after the ad, the DVD menu pops up, it does not play the program -- those sneaky bastards force me to watch the ad because I have to be there to push the play button after its over (I suppose I should teach the 4 1/2 year old to do this -- its not beyond her). Its annoying -- Barney stealing 90 seconds of my life that could be spent blogging.

Oh well, its better than the ads for DIK entertainment that precede Madeline videos. Those ads are for lots of videos for older kids; they are noisy and violent and scare the children in the age range for Madeline. Bad marketing if you ask me. At least we have videotapes of those which can be fast forwarded.

Well, maybe I dump my kids in front of the TV too much. But Barney reinforces the values that I teach them...opps, been watching that ad too much.

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