Call CPS

On numerous occasions in the past I’ve taken issue with kid’s shows. Not on this blog, mind you, but I have. Just trust me on this.

For the most part, my grief with kid’s programming is the way that it paints the parents. They’re almost always morons. Sure, they often throw their inane two-cents in, “Don’t leave the house without a sweater,” “We’ve all had our heart broken at one time or another, it’s called growing up,” or “A real friend wouldn’t shiv you with a screwdriver and leave you for dead in a ditch on your birthday…” Just stupid crap. And at the end of the episode the kid usually learns their lesson which is “I should have listened to mom and/or dad.”

But really, should we expect them to listen to mom and/or dad? Mom and/or dad is usually caught up in their own juvenile escapade…if they’re present at all. I mean Kim Possible’s lucky if here parents even make her a meal. And she’s out risking her life everyday, sometimes way past bedtime. What kind of parent allows their high-school aged child do that?

A bad one.

And don’t get me started on Ron Stoppable. That kid’s inept and his parents don’t care that he almost dies once a week. There’s clear neglect going on there.

The ones that really get me are the tween “sitcoms.” Especially shows like “The Suite Life of Zach and Cody,” and “Lizzie McGuire” (thank god this one’s gone). The adults on these shows are absolute idiots. No wonder their kids are so self-centered and idiotic.

I’ve ranted and railed against these shows citing that they don’t stack up to the shows that I used to enjoy. Sure, the adults on “You Can’t Do That on Television” were absolute nincompoops, but it didn’t stop us from learning valuable lessons. Lessons like don’t say “water” and “I don’t know.” Don’t eat at Barth’s because people puke in the burgers. You can always talk your way out of being executed by a firing squad… Important lessons.

But this past weekend my eyes were opened. Because Halloween is around the corner, I popped one of my favorite holiday classics into the ol’ DVD player, and I was hit with a startling epiphany.

The “worst adults in a children’s show” award goes to the grown-ups in “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.”

Sure, the adults in the peanuts cartoons don’t really exist. They don’t even have voices, they all sound like trombones being played with a plunger. But at least there’s no pretense of parental supervision. I can forgive this fact. I can even forgive the fact the Lucy has to retrieve Linus from the freezing cold pumpkin patch at 4 in the morning when she realizes that he never came in the house for bed. Sure, his parents probably should have noticed, but in their “defense” they were probably pretty hungover from some kind of Halloween party. I’m sure that Mr. Van Pelt had a little too much egg nog and Mrs. Van Pelt spent the entire night explaining to the other women at the party that her husband is just a “really friendly drunk.” And I’m positive that by the time Mrs. Van Pelt finally figured out which of the women at the party now had the Mr’s house keys and got him out of there and into bed, the last thing on her mind was her delusional child freezing his butt of in a pumpkin patch.

But there is one thing that I can’t forgive.

It’s trick-or-treat time in Peanuts land. All the kids are wearing lame outfits. Poor Charlie Brown had some trouble with the scissors. He made a ghost costume with about 20 eye holes. But hey, it’s a ghost costume. A stupid ghost costume. Half the neighborhood is wearing one. Shouldn’t Charlie Brown get some points for being original?!

He’s the ghost of a potato!

But no. He gets no points for originality. He gets teased. I can understand this coming from the kids…

But what kind of sick, twisted adult gives the poor mentally challenged kid a freaking rock for tricks-or-treats?!

And not just one adult did this. The entire neighborhood did. They had to have planned it, right? I don’t know about you but I don’t keep rocks next to my Halloween candy. The adults had to have organized this before hand.

It’s obvious that Charlie Brown was targeted. He was the victim of some heartless neighborhood campaign to humiliate the unpopular kid.

It’s sick. And it’s wrong. And the wawa adults of Peanutsland should be ashamed of themselves.


Fun Fact: the “meanest parent in a Christmas special” award goes to Donner the Reindeer, Rudolph’s father in the Rankin Bass classic “Rudolph the Red Nosed Raindeer.”

Never has parental shame been so clearly manifested in such an abusive manner.

Well done Donner. Congratulations.