Indulge me if you will in another moment of children's television criticism. After all, I have children and a television; therefore I am eminently qualified.
My withering gaze falls upon two shows in particular: "Dora the Explorer" and ""Go, Diego, Go!"" both of which are produced by the same group. In addition to the cheesy animation, the glacial pacing (especially on "Dora", the makers of "Diego" seem to have realized that to appeal to hyperactive--read all--young boys you need to pick up the pace a bit), and the insipid plotlines, my wife and I get irritated by the watered down language. Yes, they are shows for kids, but that doesn't mean they have an excuse to be stupid. It's a bit silly for programs that aspire to teach children about exotic animals, different cultures, and even another language to have to settle for such dumbed-down mediocre usage of the English language.
The one area where this is particularly galling is the use of adjectives. Here's a short list of recently noted abuses:
muddy mud
icy ice
hilly hill
watery water
Okay, I might be making the last one up, but the others are all too real examples of incredibly lazy writing. Muddy mud? Oh that's just mud, but over there that's muddy mud. C'mon, you can't come a better descriptor?
Someone needs to unpack their adjectives.
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