Has Mickey Mouse ever been proven evil?

[LROM]

This is not a general question about the pros & cons of letting young children watch t.v., this is a specific question about Mickey Mouse & friends, and maybe about other children's t.v. in general.

When I first started letting my LO watch t.v. (which I know has been proven a bad idea for children under 2yo, but I honestly don't know how to get her to sit still in the morning long enough for me to do the final running around before leaving for work/daycare without it!) when I first started, I really really did NOT like the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. It just seemed boring and a little creepy.

I didn't even turn it on for awhile because of above feelings, but little by little I find that my LO just LOVES the music (they always do at least 2 songs the same every episode) and will just sit transfixed, more so than for any other show targeting small kiddies.

Then just now, on New Years' Eve as I'm about to leave work... I find myself singing "The Hot Dog Song"!!! YIKES! Hot dog hot dog hot diggity dog...

And that combined with the level of glee DD gets from the show makes me just worry that each of our brains are being turned to blindly obedient mush and that we'll be in a Stepford Wives-type of robot way by next month!

Have any children's shows ever been shown to have subconscious messaging about products or vacations? Shown to just generally be evil? I'm serious in my questions, even though I'm slightly amused at my panic...

[fairejour]

We let our little one watch the old Mickey and Donald stuff. We love it. It is language free (for the most part) and just silly.

I like videos better than tv. It makes me feel better.

[Landover]

Both of my kids love Mickey and it is one of the few shows I let them watch. I like it as it is easy to understand, sweet, and fun. We have all done the hot dog dance together.

Aside from both of my children often acting like crazy, wild, egocentric, psychopaths.... we are all still okay.

[sewchris2642]

There is nothing subtle about Disney. It's rather blatant. After all that's why Disney owns it own cable network. For me, Dylan did watch the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse at age 2. He loved it. And asked for everything shown in the commercials. Didn't mean that I bought any of it.

[~Kristina~]

As far as vacations go...I used to watch the Disney channel growing up and never had an interest in going to Disney until I was 20. My first visit was when I was 24 and I've been 6 times since then...I just turned 30 on the 18th.

[Landover]

Interesting point about the commercials. That is part of the reason I like the show. We tape it on the DVR so there are no commercials before or after and the show is non-stop for 20-25 minutes without any commercials. DS. at age 4, has yet to see a commercial. He knows some disney movie characters from books, but he doesn't watch disney movies, etc.

[tbone_kneegrabber]

"Hot Dog, Hot Diggity Dog" is a They Might Be Giants song. They seem to recently be doing some Mickey Mouse Club things (I haven't seen it I only know one of the cd's we have has a Mickey Mouse song that we always skip)

[lolar2]

That song is by There Might Be Giants. It's a great song.

My theory on Disney is that they put their rookie writers on the tween/ teen shows-- Wizards of Waverly Place, Hannah Montana, Jonas Bros, all those annoying shows with stilted dialogue. Then when the writers get more experienced and skilled, they either go to the kid shows like Mickey Mouse, or to the adult shows like Lost.

I have no basis for this theory except that the kid and adult shows are so skillfully written and the tween/ teen shows are so annoying.

[NellieKatz]

Two books will open your eyes to what the big companies will do to gain our kids' brand loyalty and (some say) deliberately cause rifts between the kids and the parents. Born to Buy is one of them and the other is Commercial Kids. And there's an interesting site called Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood: http://www.commercialexploitation.org/

Quick answer to your question: I wouldn't put it past NEW Mickey Mouse to be evil, commercialism-wise. I'd expect it. Stick to the old stuff, on video.It's marvelous.

[soxthecatrules]

We watch Mickey and friends every morning. DS has never asked for anything from the show. Now....Disney/Pixar and "Cars" is a whole different story!!! Almost ashamed to say that DS is a walking advertisement. But, he doesn't watch the movie much anymore.

The character I wonder about being evil is "Thomas the Tank Engine". Maybe not so much Thomas himself, but, some of the secondary characters are really mean spirited and I don't like some of the language used.

[SquishyKitty]

Mickey Mouse is totally sending subliminal messages to your kids to eat more nitrates and pig lips. Turn it off immediately.

That being said, DS loved the Wiggles as a toddler and preschooler. I can't tell you how many times I went to work singing the Fruit Salad song. At least they were only brainwashing us to eat more fruit.

[Megan73]

Originally Posted by Landover

Interesting point about the commercials. That is part of the reason I like the show. We tape it on the DVR so there are no commercials before or after and the show is non-stop for 20-25 minutes without any commercials. DS. at age 4, has yet to see a commercial. He knows some disney movie characters from books, but he doesn't watch disney movies, etc.

The whole SHOW is a commercial for the Disney brand and its branded characters.

Originally Posted by NellieKatz

And there's an interesting site called Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood: http://www.commercialexploitation.org/

This is an excellent site! Check out the fact sheet on toddlers and TV.

[AutumnW]

I'm not sure about shows in particular but Disney in general gives me a bad feeling. There are all of those rumors you always here about nazism etc. but my husband and I have a friend in the intelligence dept of the Army who was one of the youngest ever given top secret clearance when we were like 19-20 and he would never tell us anything of course but he did say one time that he had a whole filing cabinet on Disney and we wouldn't believe the kind of stuff they were up to. We haven't spoken to him for a while because he has been doing undercover work in Afghanistan but I trust him still.

That being said my son does watch old school disney movies from time to time like Cinderella.

[thehighernest]

Originally Posted by Megan73

The whole SHOW is a commercial for the Disney brand and its branded characters.

I would agree, but I still find this less offensive somehow than all the other commercials for toys and cereals than I've seen when I've screened shows on other channels.

We're trying to move away from watching so much tv (mostly me), but on mornings when I've been awake since 4 am with a teething baby or in the evenings when my husband's run out of things to do, we've been known to watch an episode of the Clubhouse or Little Einsteins (also because of the music, clapping and tapping, which our son loves).

Ashamed to say it, but we get a kick out of the Hot Dog song too (and we love the two kid-oriented They Might Be Giants CDs we were just gifted for the holidays).

[Hoopin' Mama]

I'd get videos like Kipper before I'd put a toddler in front of Mickey, mostly because there are commercials on that channel, right?

I like the slowness of Kipper.

[VisionaryMom]

Originally Posted by soxthecatrules

We watch Mickey and friends every morning. DS has never asked for anything from the show.

I agree. Yes, there are items with Donald, Daisy, etc. on them, but the show itself really isn't an advertisement. My children have watched it, but they've never asked for a single Mickey item, though they've seen them in stores.

LROM, I don't think having a song stuck in your head is a sign of anything other than a catchy tune. It's the same as singing the last song your heard on the radio all day or not being able to get Twinkle, Twinkle out of your head because you sang it on the way to preschool.

Originally Posted by soxthecatrules

The character I wonder about being evil is "Thomas the Tank Engine". Maybe not so much Thomas himself, but, some of the secondary characters are really mean spirited and I don't like some of the language used.

Thomas was written in the early 1900s by a minister in England. The language and "lessons" really represent that type of religious environment to me. Some are better than others. There definitely are some stories that DS and I discussed after reading that we didn't agree with one facet or another.

[lonegirl]

There are many things out there that can be considered evil...Mickey Mouse (and kids shows in general) are not.

Annoying? Yes some can be....
Evil....no
Besides there are lots of kids progamming channels that have no advertising per se. I chuckle that whenever Tyr sees a commercial his general reaction is "but mommy we already have that!"

[Marsupialmom]

In the old old days someone else could entertain while you did what you need to do.

Have you thought about making music disc? Or a video without commerical?

[soxthecatrules]

Originally Posted by BrandiRhoades

Thomas was written in the early 1900s by a minister in England. The language and "lessons" really represent that type of religious environment to me. Some are better than others. There definitely are some stories that DS and I discussed after reading that we didn't agree with one facet or another.

I knew this and that doesn't bother me, per se. What bothers me about some of the videos are when one character calls another stupid or tells the other one to "shut up".

[NellieKatz]

It's funny you should mention Thomas. That is the ONE brand that I let him watch without restriction (on TAPE....not TV), precisely because I approve of the content, the language the creativity, etc. My son (now 6...but watched it when age 3 and 4) picked up fantastic story-telling skills and good language (i.e. the language is not dumbed-down for kids) from that tape.

We bought all our Thomas tapes via yard sales or else I made them myself via TV when he wasn't looking (he grew up never knowing this stuff could be found on TV, thus I controlled when it was watched), and we only bought the trains and stuff (mostly yard sales and well-to-do relatives at birthday and christmas).....he grew up with me not buying tie-in products for the most part, so he has not learned to make the connection between like-the-movie, buy-the-junk. (we haven't gone to McD's either, so not exposed to the heavy cross-selling there)

But yeah, I thought Thomas taught good lessons. The characters who displayed lousy personality traits always get their come-uppance in the end, or see the error of their ways. And it was not dumbed-down (I thought Bob the Builder was UNENDURABLE for this reason) so my child picked up some good storytelling skills.