Preschool shows cleanup

It has been discussed on the wiki that the trope pages of shows aimed at younger children have repeated issues, ranging from misuse of darker tropes added to make the shows seem "cooler" to presumably older audiences, to massive amounts of complaining on more-maligned series. I have also noticed large amounts of natter, formatting, and ZCE issues on some of these pages.

Inspired by an idea from ~War Jay 77, this cleanup has been created to help deal with all of these issues, as well as others that come up in regards to these pages.

I will start with Pinkalicious & Peterrific, which mainly has a problem with Bold Inflation that needs to be cleaned up. Sample entry:

• Narm: This show is full of it. Scenes where Pinkalicious gets sad, are a little hard not to snicker at due to Pinkalicious' incredibly hammy delivery.
  • The entirety of Peter's Blues. The episode kicks off with Peter being depressed over simply being depressed. The moment where Mayor Martinez cries over her favorite pencil breaking and threatening to shut down Pinkville takes the cake.

The notifier didn't work :( Good thing I stalk the entire left-side fora

Let's get this cleanup on the road.

I'll start.

Wonder Pets! has a bit of a complaining problem about Ollie and about the show's Aesop about teamwork. I took it to the complaining cleanup thread, and they agreed that it was overly negative but couldn't agree on what to change since Ollie is kind of supposed to be annoying in-universe.

Unsurprisingly, Dora the Explorer's page has a bit of complaining and snark.

Like this:

• Bag of Holding: Dora's appropriately named Backpack was shown in the last Dora/Diego crossover special to have bear milk inside it. Cue blatant lolwut reaction from parents. "Anything that you might need, I've got inside for you." She says it in her song, people.

Edited by ccorb on Jul 2nd 2021 at 10:46:22 AM

What is this, 2007? Slice away.

EDIT: Added to the Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Jul 2nd 2021 at 10:59:24 AM

• Hypocritical Humor: In "Caillou Joins The Circus", Caillou claims that he doesn't want to cut toast into duckies because "that's for babies", despite the fact that Caillou had thrown a tantrum moments before over not getting to go to the circus until the next day.

This scene isn't Played for Laughs.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Jul 2nd 2021 at 1:13:49 PM

Yeah, that's just bashing. Easy cut right there.

From YMMV.Super Why:

• Uncanny Valley: Boy, is it ever.

An example, but it is a ZCE and a bit complainy. The Super Why! pages have many ZCEs.

A Rewrite:

• Uncanny Valley: The Super Readers can come off as quite uncanny to some viewers, likely due to their eyes and how the characters suddenly come into the screen at the end of some stories.

Edited by callmeamuffin on Jul 3rd 2021 at 9:59:39 PM

to the rewrite.

This is on Ni Hao, Kai-Lan:

• Broken Aesop:
  • In Kai-Lan's Playhouse, Hoho learns never to hit anyone and vocalize his frustrations. The problem is that Hoho was standing between two friends a moment ago yelling - not saying, yelling - "I CAN'T GET ANY OF THE THINGS I WANT! I JUST WANTED THE YELLOW PAINT!" and Kai-Lan and Rintoo just stood there ignoring him. The episode's Use Your Words moral seems stupid in light of this, as does Rintoo saying he had no idea Hoho was even mad even though the monkey stood two feet from him and jumped up and down yelling about his anger.
  • It's symptomatic of the show's use of That Makes Me Feel Angry. The characters often show in words or actions exactly why they're frustrated or upset. Yet viewers are still told that "We gotta, gotta try to find the reason why," even though anyone with even the most basic empathy should have already figured it out.

First one might count but the second feels like natter.

Thanks, I've removed the second part. I think the first part might need to be rewritten, but I'm not sure...

This is on the same page:

• Dysfunction Junction: These kids have personality issues. They're headstrong, impulsive, and have short tempers. Kai-Lan is the Only Sane Woman of the gang, and so she rarely ever has a personal problem to solve.

Complaining, and the characters are children. Of course they're dysfunctional, they aren't old enough yet to be as functional as an adult. Cut.

I found this on YMMV.Daniel Tigers Neighborhood

• Shocking Moments: In "It's Not OK to Hurt Someone", the character who Daniel wants to hurt is Margaret.

This is completely incomprehensible to anyone who doesn't know who Margaret is and why him wanting to hurt her is so shocking. Is it even a genuinely shocking moment to begin with, or is it someone trying to make the show more tense than is actually is?

Ignore, the ZCE cleanup thread answered the same request better than I.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Aug 9th 2021 at 9:01:08 AM

I added it, and I found it genuinely shocking. Sorry. Maybe add that Margaret is only one year old. Does that make it more clear?

Your comment honestly has made me wonder—do Shocking Moments count as "Moments" pages like Awesome, Heartwarming, etc. do? If that's the case, we might be able to keep that example since we have determined (as far as I know, based on prior discussion in the Moments cleanup thread) that Moments pages are mostly not subject to the same clean-up standards as Nightmare Fuel is, as in an example could be kept even if it's just one person's opinion.

Yes, Shocking Moments is a "moments" page, albeit a new and underused one.

I think it's keepable but needs more context, about why he wants to hurt her for example. Explain what's so shocking about it.

Found this on Series.Sesame Street:

• Nostalgia Filter: Arguably, what some adult fans who object to the modern Retool are looking through.

Isn't this trope in universe only? Also, Examples Are Not Arguable

Edited by PlasmaPower on Aug 12th 2021 at 6:34:53 AM

Cut cut cut, that trope is In-Universe Examples Only.

On Caillou, his folder contains this example:

• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He can be rather selfish and whiny at times, but he's still a nice and well meaning kid. Averted in Season 3 or 4 where he's more of a Nice Guy.

Caillou is only four; he obviously lacks an understanding of what he's doing. "Jerk" is way too strong a word here. I'm not saying there can't be malicious small children in works, but a preschool show protagonist sure would never fit such examples. There's even an Innocently Insensitive example above this entry which makes that clear. Also averted examples shouldn't be mentioned; Took a Level in Kindness is more appropriate.

Edited by TVGuy2001 on Aug 14th 2021 at 12:05:51 PM

Yeah I think you can cut.

I tried to bring this up in the Nightmare Fuel cleanup thread but it got overshadowed very quickly.

In YMMV.Yo Gabba Gabba:

• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Toodee and Brobee almost getting hit by a car can induce Adult Fear in older viewers.
  • Plex manages to "die" three times. He gets hit by a snowball, runs out of battery power, and gets knocked over by Brobee. While he is a robot, it could distress younger fans. Luckily, he comes back every time.