Whatever happened to quality kid's programming? I grew up in the early 90's, with classics like "The Adventures of Pete & Pete", "Animaniacs" and one of the best TV-series of all time, "Batman: The Animated Series", which was arguably better than any of the films at the time.
Out of curiosity, I watched the pilot and clips from other episodes of the Disney XD sitcom "Kickin' It" the other day. This is the definition of what is wrong with entertainment these days, particularly entertainment aimed at children.
It's one of the most condescending, lazy, and at times even blatantly upsetting children's shows I've ever seen.
The series basically follows Jack, a martial arts expert and the new kid at school. He joins the Bobby Wasabi (Ugh) Katate Accademy along with other social misfits, and the series follows the group, headed by Rudy, an irritating character who is a walking clumsy 20-somethign cliché.
The characters are all lowest-common-denominator clichés. Ex. Jerry, an annoying lone-wolf type who oozes nothing but lines of dialog we've heard hundreds of times before. Or Milton, who along with a father is clearly a fairly racist, geeky depiction of a certain religion.
Ad to that the incompetent writing (the pilot is almost a word-for-word rip-off of "The Karate Kid" at times), and some truly awful "Yellow Face" racism by the character of Bobby Wasabi who pops up from time to time, (I don't care if the character is meant to be Asian or White, he's clearly a white man in Yellowface) and the show actually becomes upsetting to watch for older viewers.
The production is also incredibly lazy. From the aforementioned rip-off scripts, to the DOA jokes, there's no effort put into the production at all.
What happened to quality children's programming? Seriously. This is a 2 out of 10, tops.
Out of curiosity, I watched the pilot and clips from other episodes of the Disney XD sitcom "Kickin' It" the other day. This is the definition of what is wrong with entertainment these days, particularly entertainment aimed at children.
It's one of the most condescending, lazy, and at times even blatantly upsetting children's shows I've ever seen.
The series basically follows Jack, a martial arts expert and the new kid at school. He joins the Bobby Wasabi (Ugh) Katate Accademy along with other social misfits, and the series follows the group, headed by Rudy, an irritating character who is a walking clumsy 20-somethign cliché.
The characters are all lowest-common-denominator clichés. Ex. Jerry, an annoying lone-wolf type who oozes nothing but lines of dialog we've heard hundreds of times before. Or Milton, who along with a father is clearly a fairly racist, geeky depiction of a certain religion.
Ad to that the incompetent writing (the pilot is almost a word-for-word rip-off of "The Karate Kid" at times), and some truly awful "Yellow Face" racism by the character of Bobby Wasabi who pops up from time to time, (I don't care if the character is meant to be Asian or White, he's clearly a white man in Yellowface) and the show actually becomes upsetting to watch for older viewers.
The production is also incredibly lazy. From the aforementioned rip-off scripts, to the DOA jokes, there's no effort put into the production at all.
What happened to quality children's programming? Seriously. This is a 2 out of 10, tops.