ELMWOOD PARK - After days of enduring hours of children's programming, 30 year old Elmwood Park resident Jack Dooley suffered complete numbness through his entire body early Friday.
The condition manifested in the ladder portions of the morning, and left the father of one motionless.
The only portion of Dooley's health that wasn't affected was his voice.
After hours of sitting on his couch, Dooley, a father of a 21 month old child, spoke with reporters from Chicago Tough.
"I think this started last Saturday."
Dooley's family noticed a swift change in his demeanor after a half hour viewing of 'Sid the Science Kid'. In this particular episode, Sid and his family were celebrating the holidays.
"Sid celebrates three holidays. Chanukah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa. Three. How can somebody celebrate three holidays? That's not even possible. He doesn't even have anybody of color in his family. How do you have two parents and three holidays? I guess one of th parents must have had the oft-combo of Jewish/Kwanzaa celebrator...which, you know, is so prevalent in today's society. It's good that PBS was able to satisfy the Christian/Jewish/Kwanzaa families that celebrate three holidays....Anyways, Sid has like six different
menorahs and some weird Kwanzaa candle set...and they were by the tree. I didn't even know what they were celebrating. Then they all started singing. Then they went to see the science teacher, who I'm pretty sure is having a romantic relationship on the side with Sid's mom. They're all really excited about science...they found out about weather. Sid had to go to Minnesota and he started bitching about how cold it is in Minnesota, and how he didn't want to leave his warm weather home...I just started getting so angry...this kid is such a wuss..."Brrrr. I don't wanna go to Minnesota! It's so cold in Minnesota." Blatant anti-Minnesotan bias. I hope PBS can live with themselves after that blatant attack on the Land of 10,000 Lakes...Anyways, they started talking about snow and weather, and how snow falls, and what's a freezing temperature...then they started lighting candles again for this little jagbag family's three holidays...then, some dance...and Sid's happy...and...I don't know...that's when I first started to feel it. It was a slight numbness...but it went away."
Dooley stated that he didn't feel the numbness again until hours later when a three hour marathon of 'Arthur' came on the airwaves.
"Arthur gets an allowance and likes to buy ice cream. I was okay with it, but his sister kind of made me want to throw my television out the window...she's always trying to grab attention...after awhile I just started feeling this deep seated hatred towards her. Her names is D.W. Those are good initials. My initials for her are D.W.O.S.T.T.A.T.F.W.T.S.I.A.A. (Which stands for Dumb Waste of Space To Take Away Time From What the Show is Actually About.) Arthur spends his episodes around his parents and friends. These aren't normal parents...they're the type of parents that make you thankful for having your parents. Are they teaching parents to be this dull? Are there parents across the nation who go, 'Those seem like nice boring parents. Maybe if I acted like those two, I'd be a better parent.' His mom is an accountant...which...is...um...really exciting. Arthur has different projects at school that he gets really excited about. His friends are really bad influences...they like going home and working on school projects...I slowly started to lose the will to live...then, thankfully, I had to run to the store to grab some groceries."
The grand slam, though, was late Friday. While flipping through channels, the child demanded to watch an episode of 'Yo Gabba Gabba'.
"This is when it started. I've never seen this show. All I remember was a boom box and some black guy wearing tight clothes dancing around. Then they started showing all of this psychedelic stuff with four year old kids dancing about. This guy, DJ Lance Brock...I'm pretty sure he keeps those kids under that table. Then I heard yelling...some people named Muno and Toodee. I think there was a Foofa....then I remember they were teaching these kids this dance that no kid could ever do...it was like some Broadway number...then it was Dancy Dance Time. Then we endured this 15 minute song about 'not biting your friends'...which is really great for our son...because it will teach him to not bite kids. You know...because of that horrible 'kid biting epidemic' our nation is currently going through. Then the guy just picks up all of his stuff and leaves...and it's over...and I'm staring at the TV...I can't even reach my Ritz and cheese...that's when I knew something was wrong."
Dooley said that he had just started to regain feeling before a showing of Caillou aired.
"I'm pretty sure that if Iran were to take over our nation and create a state-run television service that their first form of business will be to air non-stop episodes of Caillou."
It was Caillou that led to Dooley's complete numbness.
"He sounds like a child who got kicked in the nuts. Every sentence ends with an upward
sound. Like, "I like choCOLATE." "Where's MOMMY?" "Where is my FOOD?" "Why can't I reach the CONTROLLER AND TURN THIS GODFORSAKEN CHANNEL?" Okay, he didn't say the last one, but it was going through my head. Anyways, I guess this was created by some Canadian network...which if you look at the credits, its French Canadian writers...hence, the name Caillou. Guess that's just another reason to hate the Quebecois. Anyway, Caillou's exciting homelife features his exciting mother who is an exciting homemaker that provides tons of excitement for Caillou's extravagant lifestyle of grilled cheese and total chaos. The chaos features games of catch, walks to the park, and lessons on sharing...which is fine for children's programming. But Caillou, as if he needed more balls-to-the-wall excitement, is stuck playing games with his two year-old sister. And let me tell ya, this daughter is off the chain. I don't know how they control her. She's really good at sitting, occasionally crying, and saying simple words...which makes for riveting television. I think our son learned a lot from the 'let's play catch episode and go to the park'. The episode hit a screaming crescendo when Caillou's grandmother came to go bird watching...you should've seen all of the different birds. "What bird is THAT BIRD?" "I like bird watching." "Grandma, when will we do something EXCITING?" That's the last thing I remember...bird watching...then I couldn't move."
The Dooley family usually only watches a total of only two hours of children programming a week...but for some reason, the hours shot up to six during this week. Dooley says that he learned his lesson.
"We're gonna be much more active. This will never happen again...this is the biggest mistake of my life. Maybe we'll just go to the park. Partake in some bird watching...once I can get to moving again."
(DISCLAIMER: If you really think the above was a true article, please see a doctor.)
Filed under: Uncategorized
Tags: Caillou, PBS, Sid the Science Kid, Yo Gabba Gabba
It reminds me of how lucky I was to just watch Ray Rayner and Bugs Bunny in the morning.