I shouldn't watch childrens television.

My almost three year old son loves his cartoons.  Sometimes I can get behind it.  Sometimes I wonder what the hell he's watching, and if I was the same way when I was his age.  Part of the problem is that I tend to apply logical thinking and look for deeper meanings in some of the things I see, more as a fun intellectual activity for me.  

My man Smiles McFeety has a couple of favorite shows. A Disney Peter Pan spinoff, Jake and the Never Land Pirates (which I, for some reason, can mostly put aside my ridiculous thinking and get behind), Adventures of Chuck, Bo on the Go! more recently, amid a smattering of other kid friendly Netflix available fare.  But how kid friendly these shows really are is a question in my mind, that is up for debate.

Aside from the obvious misrepresentation of colonial era piracy, Jake is full of colorful characters, is surprisingly well written for a kids show, and does offer a surprising amount of continuity.  This is one I'm afraid to Google any information about it just because I don't want it ruined for me, the internet being what it is and all.  The music is exceptionally well done, and it's not uncommon for me to sing along with my kid when watching the show.  Even the villain characters are likeable.  Captain Hook is still a jerk, but he's a likeable jerk most of the time.  A lot of this comes from a stellar cast of surprisingly famous people.  David Arquette, Sharon Osborn, Tori Spelling, Josh Duhamel, Jerry O'Connel, and even Adam West pop in from time to time to voice characters.

Watch out for this guy though.  No one, ever, should trust Cubby.

And then it starts to get weird.  Sinister, even.

The Adventures of Chuck and Friends is a kid friendly post apocalyptic tale of a group of kids who have to deal with their leader being a total dick all the time, and casually reinforcing outdated stereotypes.  I wish I was making this up.

Anthropomorphic cars and trucks live in a near utopian society where the only conflict ever seen is when the lead character, Chuck, does something to upset his surprisingly loyal friends, who still hang out with him despite the fact hes always a grade A jackass.  We get that the show is named after him, and he's the central character, but every single conflict, difference, or disagreement from this show stems from the main character bullying his friends into doing what he wants.

Wait, what?  Post apocalyptic?  Follow me for a sec.  A couple episodes in, we meet an elderly school bus.  This school bus isn't large enough to let the child we see in, but is perfect sized for human children.  As we've never seen a single human, adult or otherwise on this show, and none of the child-vehicles show any evidence of going to school, we can draw a couple of conclusions.  At some point, cars and trucks became sentient after the fall of humanity, but still seem to cling to human tropes.  Did a couple of people upload their consciousnesses into smart cars and evolve a society from there?  Did AI evolve to resemble human thinking and thought, 'Hey man, cars are cool!'?

Those two idea are (very thinly, mostly in my head) supported by our own modern day stereotypes.  The cars and trucks seen on the show are analogous to certain preconceived traits/personality types.  The pickup truck speaks in a southern accent and idioms and has cattle horns, as if they couldn't figure out a way to make a cowboy hat work.  The street racer car is of Japanese decent and likes shiny, flashy things.  The garbage truck is seen as constantly smelly and unintelligent.  There's a band tour bus that shows up one episode that speaks in your expected surfer/stoner tones.  No band, just the roadie.  The guy with the German name only speaks in harsh, unintelligible honks and is always angry.  I wish I was making this all up.

Yep, I totally can ruin everything.

Bo on the Go! is one of my dudes more recent interests.  It's the story of a warlock (who insist his charges call him 'The Wizard'.  I know what you're up to, warlock!)  who keeps a young preteen succubus named Bo (who doesn't know what she really is) locked in a castle with only a young dragon.  The show is supposed to promote healthy activities and developing motor skills like getting up, moving around, running, and jumping, but after about 5 minutes or so of this, Bo runs out of energy.  She needs the kids watching to get up and move around, so she can steal their energy ("When you move with me, you give me energy!"), so they can complete whatever menial task The Wizard sets up for them that episode.

The kids are supposed to set up a 'Bo Zone' where they can move around unhindered and perform movements and jumps and arcane hand motions to summon Wizard and transfer energy to Bo.  This sounds like a kid friendly, eldritch, potentially demonic summoning circle to me.  Obviously the terms warlock, succubus, and most of the arcane elements I've posited here are never mentioned, but seriously, read between the lines.  It's plain as day to anyone with a passing interest in the supernatural side of crytozoology.

The stuff of Nightmares in its nascent form.