Enid Blyton's Famous Five series of books has been "updated" in a new Disney cartoon.

It just doesn't - and can't - work.

I read the Famous Five series when I was young. They were great books, set in a simple time before materialism and technology. The Famous Five is about a time when children could roam the countryside without neurotic parents wondering whether they had been snatched by paedophiles. When children weren't wrapped in cotton wool and bubble-wrap and kept in doors all day long. When they were free.

This, however, just appears to make it all about gadgets and computers rather than just being outside and having fun. Besides, children should read the Famous Five books rather than watching yet another cartoon.

XKCD: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

Well, there's definitely more than two results on google for "died in a blogging accident" now!

indexed.

XKCD: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

XKCD
Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).

indexed

XKCD - Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).

XKCD - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

XKCD - A hilarious webcomic "of romance, sarcasm, math, and language", and has the following warning:

Visit it here.

DangerMouse is possibly the most classic of all classic kids shows. Few have never heard of DangerMouse, and pretty much everyon will know precisely who you mean when you say "Penfold". It was also the first British cartoon to break into the American TV market.

DangerMouse

There is few classic kids shows that can beat the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Named after famous renaissance artists, they are "heroes in a half shell". My favourite Ninja Turtle was Donatello - he was by far the coolest of the gang.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Since there is so little news at the moment, that for the rest of the I'm going to run a series of posts [every other day or so] on classic childrens TV shows that I remember watching when I was a kid, with the help of Asp. Starting with Chip'n'Dale, which I remember watching every Saturday morning:

Chip'n'Dale Rescue Rangers

A new website, funded by the Department for Health, aimed at 4-7 year olds, and:

"strives to encourage healthy eating and an active lifestyle in a fun and informative way. We hope that by visiting our interactive site, children will become familiar with healthy living messages and develop positive habits that will follow them through to adulthood."

Named "The Great Grub Club" (with the really unimaginative tagline "Being healthy is fun!") it appears to be working on the premise that children react well to cartoon characters, and so by making cartoon characters who are health conscious they can make kids want to be more healthy and eat more fruit and veg. With names such as Snack the Dog and Professor Foodsmart, the cartoon characters encourage children to cook and even grow vegetables. And, of course, a website aimed at making children healthy would be complete without a section on exercise.

Do they really, seriously, think that a bunch of cartoon characters are going to make children want to eat healthy? I mean, come on! Children don't tend to react well to that sort of blatant pro-healthy stuff, especially when the characters are only known through one website! It is simply a waste of money to use only a website to get this message across. It needs to be in the form of a TV programme really, or else kids just won't take anything away from it. An example of this is the success LazyTown had in Iceland.

It is, of course, a good thing to be pushing for children to eat healthily, but it's not children who are deciding what they eat. Also, children - and adults - like junk food because it tastes good. Children, certainly, don't have enough awareness to be able to equate that with any badness. Children won't switch to wanting fruit and vegetables rather than burgers, pizza, or chips, and certainly not on the basis of a rather garish website and accompanying cartoon characters.

Source: BBC