When the little man was still wee I made the unwise decision to purchase some Richard Scarry videos…based on hazy memories of loving the books when I was kid. So I figured the videos would be all right. The husband still glares at me and shakes his head whenever one is playing (he’d had the good sense to hide them some time ago, but the little man wheedled and whined until I retrieved them. I’m such a sucker). Naturally the boy loves whatever gets on our nerves the most. The videos are dreadful. Really poorly done, jerky animation, with about 5 frames per second, if that. And who the heck dresses lowly worm? Without arms or legs it’s gotta be awfully difficult for him to wriggle his way into pants, shirt, tie, shoe (singular) and hat. And why is Hilda the Hippo on stage singing a song about a circus seal and a zebra in the zoo? In Hilda’s sick world who is it that decides bunnies, owls, cats, mice, and even worms make the cut to live as “people” but that other animals are relegated to second class citizen status? All right, maybe it would be best for me to take a few deep breaths and slowly walk away. Or, better yet, get us out of the house and into the unseasonably cool outdoors. When I did that last night we were treated to the sight of a rainbow over the Mississippi River…which I half-assedly photographed.
