The Critical Frog: SOAC Act 3: Frog Tries Not To Be A Jerk

There's a fine line between being critical and just plain being a jerk, and there's nothing I hate doing more than walking that line (except George of the Jungle 2, but seriously, screw that movie). This is much more prevalent when a cartoon or film shows and stars characters dealing with real-life issues- issues that could raise a lot of controversy and aggression towards me if I step out of line. And lucky for us, today I'm going to get those out of the way. There aren't many shows left after this, so let's get to it.

Punky
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What exactly do I mean when I say walking the line? Well, Punky is a show about a girl with Downs's Syndrome. It's good that a show is drawing attention to this, but here's the problem: it never directly addresses the issue. There's no difference between Punky and any other character: she just acts like every troublemaking kid in the 90's era of cartooning. She dances, plays with her friends and dog, and finds solutions to problems, all while overcoming her syndrome in my eyes.. That is, if I didnt have to play the intro to know that she had it in the first place.

As far as kid's shows go, it's not too bad. As a representation of Down's, however? Well....I believe the great Danny Sexbang put it best: "I think our friends out there with (Insert Medical Condition) deserve something much better than this."

3/5
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Dr. Wonder's Workshop
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Being deaf is a condition that I could never take, given my line of work. The fact that not too many films or cartoons will originally broadcast in a method that allows the deaf to fairly judge and enjoy them. This is the problem that Dr. Wonder's Workshop aims to solve, by not only starring an entire cast of deaf characters, but by having the show's characters sign out their lines rather than say them (a voice-over is provided for us listeners). And it works.

I'm not sure who came up with the idea to broadcast Dr. Wonder's Workshop, but they're a good person in my book. Appealing to the deaf culture and giving sign language it's turn on the screen was a big leap for children's television, and while a decent show by itself, gives Dr. Wonder it's place on the channel and a welcome distraction for the hearing-impaired. The only main question here is what exactly they produce in this workshop- and to be fair, I have no clue.

The story of the workshop is simple: Dr. Wonder and his employees (Token Women, Token Old Man, Token Black Guy and Token White Guy) do things around the workshop while teaching lessons about responsibility, honesty and safety, with interwoven bible stories and interviews with other users of sign language. We learn how to be careful on the internet when going to sites you do not know (but Drwonder.com is safe, of course), how to prioritize work before play, and more importantly, exactly how much the two male employees want to go to a St. Louis Cardinals game. No matter what the situation, lessons are learned and signed. It's interesting to mention that even Dr. Wonder himself has slips in judgement, and winds up making mistakes- not just leaving that to his assistants.

Is there a future in television for the deaf culture? Maybe. If shows can take the success of popular cartoons lately and mix that in with sign language, then we could easily be capable of making shows accessible before subtitled DVDs need to be purchased. Given, it would be hard to adapt some of these to fit the method (how do you sign with hooves?), but Dr. Wonder's Workshop is a nice start.

4/5
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Who Do Ewe Follow/ Lassie
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It's a bad sign when the network occasionally replaces your show with a public domain one from the early days of TV. It's even worse when even the TV guide thinks it's your show that's playing. And it gets much worse when you realize that the public domain show is much more entertaining than yours.

Who Do Ewe Follow is one of those shows that even the networks are ashamed to admit are theirs. It's as staple as you can imagine, the songs are weak, and the animation is mediocre at best. A flock of sheep deliberately ignores their herder and constantly mess up, while a pack of wolves attempts to eat them with similar results. Cue the bible jokes and end the review.

To be frank, I'd much rather talk about Lassie than this. The only problem with that is that nobody wants to hear me talk about Lassie- everybody already knows what people can say about this. Guess we could hand it to SOAC for having some sort of quality control. Now all we need to do is get them to knock a few of these shows off their list.....

0/5 for Who Do Ewe Follow/4/5 for Lassie
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Well, that's it for this edition of SOAC Network. I've covered everything I need to say about the network, except for one show- which I'll explain next week. Until then, happy holidays!