For Spring Equinox, I decided to dig up an old guilty pleasure that I've since abandoned when I was in my high school years. Up until around Sophomore year, I used to watch Nick Jr. cartoons aimed at preschoolers and stuff. If you asked me about a show that aired on Nick Jr. I might give an opinion on it like I'm some children's cartoon connoisseur. And if there was a cartoon that I kinda hate was Peppa Pig. The British cartoon was originally produced by Astley Baker Davies, but later got bought up by Hasbro of all people...Yeah like in my opinion, don't watch Peppa Pig, the art style is ugly as sin, Peppa's head looks like a whistle, the morals are kinda questionable (especially when you take note that an episode got banned in Australia because it teaches kids to befriends spiders, and in Australia, spiders are never your friends) I hate George's crying, and the narrator is so fucking annoying and unnecessary. Like if Peppa's dialogue was written like a book similar to the early seasons of Thomas and Friends, or was framed like Caillou where it's a story within a story, then I would understand it, but there's no context for the Narrator existing in Peppa Pig, and the Narrator just explains the obvious. Like No shit, Sherlock, it doesn't take a genius to see that Peppa and George love muddy puddles. I remember the last time I ever look at the TV guide for Nick Jr. and it was just oversaturated with fucking Peppa Pig. Occasionally there would be Blaze and the Monster Machines or Bubble Guppies, or maybe some Team Umizoomi, but those are like oases in a desert full of pork.
Don't even get me started with "Peppa Pig effect" Where since 2019, there will be kids who religiously watch Peppa Pig and soon adopt British English vernacular and pronunciation. Hell, I caught it too when I was binging Peppa Pig as evident in the way I spell some words. I spell color as "colour" when I write stuff on paper. This isn't evident in typing because my PC autocorrects to the US Spelling rather than the British spelling, but my teachers did notice the way I spell some words, one of them even asked me if I was Canadian or British (Canada also spells words similar to the British, we call it the Commonwealth way of spelling)
Then when I go on Wikipedia, I found out that Peppa is fucking huge in China to the point you got the People's Liberation Army endorsing it?! Imagine being so big that a country's military starts endorsing you...Like Jesus, just put on the Ni Hao Kai-lan or Fresh Beat Band or something...Watch some Yo Gabba Gabba...
However, Astley Baker Davies made another cartoon that, sadly still uses the Peppa Pig art style, but it's slightly less bad than Peppa. It's Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom. The Premise is that the show takes place in a miniature kingdom where everyone is very small like a few inches tall. There are two types of people in the kingdom, Fairies, who can fly and use magic, and Elves, who don't fly or use magic*. The show does give off Zelda: Minish Cap vibes, though there's no Ezlo to be iconic or anything. Honestly, the episodes of B&H are a lot more interesting than Peppa, and we don't see Peppa so that's a win for me, though if you ask me, the only like good part about the show is Nanny Plum. She's the housekeeper of the Little Castle, and she is the caretaker of Princess Holly (one of the two protagonists of the show). Nanny Plum is super sarcastic, cynical, and at times, such a huge asshole (mostly towards the Wise Old Elf in particular), but she is so iconic. The show's writers must've been having a lot of fun writing her
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