Mama-Come-Lately

Even if you don’t actually sit down to watch kiddie shows with your kid, you will be within earshot of a considerable amount of treacly kiddietainment. After six long months of exposure, I’ve come up with the best way to cope with the despair that inevitably arises on hearing the Ice Skating episode of Caillou for the umpteenth time: Figure out what drugs the main characters are on.

Taking Caillou as an example, the mom is clearly on Valium. No other way she could remain that cheery throughout days of thoughtfully disciplining her four-year-old while wrangling a toddler. Dad is tripping — how else to explain his ability to flip between Zen and zaniness?

Over on the island of Sodor, Thomas and his friends are partaking of something that makes them simpleminded in the extreme. I’m going with weed. And Sir Topham Hatt? Clearly a raving drunk — why else would he talk to steam engines — and believe that they talk back to him?

And finally, Super Why. Collective hallucinations among friends who believe themselves to have super powers, including the ability to enter books and talk to the main characters they find therein. Three words: group Peyote trip.