Watching Morning Toons....

I tell you, having days off certainly lets you see quite a few interesting shows that you'd normally overlook. (Especially since I don't have kids, and hence don't monitor the shows for the really little kids.)

Cartoon Network has been running a weekday morning show for little kids for the last few years. Tickle is the current name of the block. Peculiarly, the channel runs perpetual parental humor hints at the bottom of the screen. (This part is called Tickle U, and they must be getting a grant for it. Still, I suppose they may be a blessing to really harried young parents.)

Following up on Krypto the Wonder Dog, Alan Burnett has another little kid show -- Firehouse Tales. This pretty much tries to be an American Bob the Builder or Thomas the Tank Engine, except with CGI. I can't tell you how charming the firetruck characters are, with their big googly eyes! But what really strikes me is the exaggerated realism of the backgrounds. It's set in Burbank and surrounding areas, and even I, who visited Burbank all of once, can often tell the exact street that the trucks are traveling by the landmarks. Furthermore, just like in the real LA, the trucks have to take the highway every five minutes to get everywhere. There are tons of ramps and tunnels as well as surface streets, and always, the mountains rising up into the wide Californian sky.

There are a lot of tiny little shows with short segments, too, like the African art-styled show Yoko! Jakamoto! Toto! features the eponymous characters (a bird, an armadillo, and a monkey, respectively) having adventures in which the only conversation consists of saying one of the above names in various tones of voice. It's actually a lot less annoying than Pokemon or Teletubbies doing similar things, and it's clearly for the really young.

Gerald McBoing Boing is a cartoon about a kid who communicates with the rest of the world solely through making sound effects noises. (This is actually pretty cute, too.)

Little Robots looks like stop-motion, though I guess it must be really good CGI. It's about a bunch of little toy-sized robots living in a junkyard, who have built a little town out of junk and spare parts. They apparently live under a dome, and hence have a machine to switch from day to night. The details are really charming.

There's several more shows, but I'm a bit too lazy to watch or describe them all!