by John Zienkosky

Created on: April 05, 2009   Last Updated: April 06, 2009

After more than a decade of watching children's programming with my five children at various stages, I have come to the conclusion that the main problem with it is there is too much of it. It is an incredible smorgasbord of programming, waters that must be navigated by the children with the help of parents.

Now, I know there is a lot of bad programming out there for children. So much of it is mindless drivel that has been recycled ad nauseam. When I watch children's TV it is hard to swallow some of the world citizen drivel and all the humanistic preaching that it and other shows like it contain. These kinds of shows sometimes appear to do little more than preach to our kid a values system that may or may not agree with your own; so you better be paying attention. Other programming may have a good message but the packaging is terrible. You as a parent must sift the wheat from the chaff.

Older cartooning was great, of that there is little doubt. Popeye, Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner, Rocky and Bullwinkle to name a few. But we had our share of duds as well, just not as much of it. We had 3 channels on Saturday morning and that was the extent of my cartoon watching anyway. But recently I learned that a law is in effect that every cable channel must run at least 5 hours a week of children's programming. Now, that is a stupid law and waste of taxpayer money when you have channels in existence like Nick and Disney feeding programming 24/7. And that is my point, there are already too many avenues for children's programming and many are rushing to continually fill the gap, many times with whatever drivel they can jam into the timeslot.

Having said that, I must say there is some outstanding programming on as well. At the top of this list would have to be SpongeBob Squarepants. If you don't know anything about this cartoon you must correct that deficiency in your life. This cartoon has it all for children and with its constant innuendo keeps the adults entertained as well. I have often said that SpongeBob is the smartest program on TV. Set in Bikini Bottoms which is at the bottom of the sea with a supporting cast that is second to none, the nerdiness of SpongeBob is offset by some outstanding characters. In the interest of brevity I will list them:

Plankton: Would be evil tin pot dictator bent on world domination but hampered by the fact that he is one inch high. He is also owner of the Chumbucket, Crab's competition.

Mr. Crabs: Penny pinching owner of the Krusty Krab

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