When I was pregnant with my first son, way back in 2001, I had no intention of ever letting him watch television. Expose my precious baby’s developing brain to the mindless crap that spewed from the idiot box? Not I!
Instead, I would spend all day, every day lovingly teaching him to calculate sums with the wood abacus I’d handcrafted out of the olive tree in our yard. The olive tree that was nourished by my buried placenta, of course.
That grand notion didn’t last long. In fact, it disappeared the second I realized that the idiot box was an unpaid babysitter who let me spend a few minutes alone to finish a thought and put my shirt on the right way. After that, I loved kids’ TV! Yay for kids’ TV! Kids’ TV was the best! Well, some of it, anyway.
Because while my boys had many favorite shows during their toddler/pre-K years that I, too, enjoyed, there were a number of them that made me want to scrape off my skin with a dull butter knife while tonelessly humming funeral dirges from Medieval Europe.
Here, in no particular order, are the worst children’s TV shows from the 2000’s that made my life a living hell.
1. Teletubbies
Looking like what happens if a human were to be impregnated by a tub of Play-Doh, Tinky-Winky, Dipsy, Laa Laa and Po are the non-verbal stars of a show best enjoyed if you’re under the age of 3 or an adult riding the train to heroin town. The Teletubbies have televisions in their tummies, and gaze at a giant baby face sun whenever a windmill is not summoning them to frolic. Wow, exciting. But one time Jerry Falwell famously called Tinky Winky a “gay role model,” so who knows; maybe I missed a lot of the deeper Teletubbies subtext.
2. Oobi
Want to recreate this “award-winning” (?!) show at home? Glue plastic eyeballs to your knuckles and shout words like you just learned English on the subway this morning. Boom. Done. Starring “non-fur muppets” or “skin puppets” (two phrases I would expect to see on the backs of Lithuanian XXX tapes), this moronic show once made my distraught husband actually say, “Now I wish I didn’t have hands.”
Related: 11 of our favorite classic TV shows, now streaming
3. Lazy Town
I don’t even know where to begin with Lazy Town. Some of the characters are animated/CGI, some are real actors, and the hero and villain both look like pervy John Waters if he were a gymnast who bought his clothes from TackyCircusPants.com. This show is supposed to encourage kids to eat healthy and exercise and not be lazy, yet it also calls fruits and vegetables “sports candy.” Wha? But I will say that it always made me lose my appetite and run away from the television when it was on, so — mission accomplished!
4. Max and Ruby
Max and Ruby are bunnies who were abandoned by their parents, and now they live alone until the state finds out and brings the van. Max, the mute younger brother, is a sociopath waiting to happen, while his older sister Ruby will one day drink herself to death because of her raging control issues. That said, years of being subjected to this show helped me perfect an excellent Ruby voice that I now use to terrify my children whenever they’re relaxed and happy.
5. Doodlebops
The three Doodlebops are a pop band from Canada whose aim is to get kids up and dancing to their positive music. They also look like the last faces you’ll see before you’re strangled to death by bath salt sniffing addicts at Burning Man.
6. Barney & Friends
I am 100% anti-gun. I have never even touched a firearm. However, if a shooting range ever offered up the chance to blow away a giant stuffed replica of Barney, a dinosaur who talks like he’s missing 15/16 of his brain and who sings the most annoying friendship song ever sung in the history of the free world (including That’s What Friends Are For) well, guess what, people? Right.
7. The Wonderpets
On paper, this show that was created by the Avenue Q and the Spamalot people sounds like a winner. In reality, watching a turtle, guinea pig, and a duck with a speech impediment go on missions to rescue animals will make you want to file an abuse report with PETA. Yes, I’m se-wee-us.
8. The Wiggles
The Wiggles are grown-ass men from Australia who sing songs about fruit salad and dress in primary colored shirts and the black pants usually found on waiters at Chili’s Grill & Bar. I actually thought they were kind of okay until a friend of mine described, in vivid detail, the erotic dream she had about the Red Wiggle. Then, I could no longer let my children watch them because, ewwwww. Where did he learn to do those things?
9. Little Bear
This animated show based on the Maurice Sendak book series is actually very sweet. However, you may agree that after repeated viewings, the helplessness of the characters can get a little tedious. Case in point: During the episode in which Little Bear and Duck stood on a river bank fretting about how they’d never, ever get across the water, my own mild-mannered father finally snapped and screamed, YOU’RE A BEAR AND A DUCK. SWIM, YOU MORONS. JEEZUS H. WHY AREN’T WE WATCHING SESAME STREET? That about sums it up.
So there you go. That’s my list. What kid shows made you wish TV had never been invented? Tell us so we can all share in your unhappy memories!
Wendi Aarons is an award-winning humor writer and blogger living in Austin with her husband and two kids. You can follow her on Twitter @WendiAarons, and find her work in pubs including McSweeney’s, LifetimeTV.com, the US Weekly Fashion Police (she’s that funny!), on Austin’s NPR station KUT, and in her column on Alpha Mom.
I love Wonder Pets. My kids are teenagers and yet, every morning when I serve Cheerios for breakfast, I sing “This. Is. See-we-al!”
First of the wonder pets are a great show and should not be on this list and Oobi also and max and ruby these shows should not be on this list
Dude those are literally my 3 favorite shows
This list is perfect. And I would add Calliou, because his whiny voice made me run to shut the TV off, thinking “I do not need any ADDITIONAL whining in my life as a parent!”.
The wonder pets and the lazy town is my childhood it should not be here because it’s the best kids show I ever watched.
Caillou. Hands down.
For a little while … I had WonderPets as my ringtone … the phone, the phone is ringing … 😉
After that I suffered thro being on a PTA board and so downloaded ‘popular’ just to annoy them in meetings.
I think maybe you need come down Because some of them teach them lessons so not all TV shows are bad
When my sister (who is no longer with us) had access to a lot of high-grade marijuana to manage her symptoms, she loved to watch Teletubbies.
The makers of teletubbies were probably often on something!
Wait. Where’s Thomas the Tank Engine I’d Like To See Derail?
You forgot Calliou. Makes me want to stab pencils in my eyeballs and ears!
BOOBAH. Also, Wubzy Wubzy Wow Wow. Too intense.
Gotta go with Cailliou! Worse than all those other shows combined.
I don’t even have children of my own, just four godchildren to whom I am very close and who all loved Wonder Pets. Every time I heard those vermin (the Wonder Pets, not the actual children) screeching the Teamwork Song, I knew what it felt like to want to kill.
You obviously have never seen The Backyardigans.
Whaaaa?? I love the Backyardigans! Encourage great imagination, has great music (always different songs, no repetitive crap). Love it! ??
I learned quickly after my first child, that I very much disliked MOST of the cartoons on Nickelodeon and Disney. I see value in repition for kids, but literally couldn’t handle anymore after some time! DORA, Go Diego Go, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and the list goes on. By the time my second child came around, I avoided those networks and choose cartoons from PBS channel. Those were much more tolerable for me. Except Thomas the Train. Horrible horrible.
I second Caillou. I won’t let my kids watch. He whines nonstop and is mean to his sister and is NEVER disciplined, but catered to. His whining is catching as all it took was 2 episodes my mom let my son watch to turn my sweet boy into a whiner. I knew right away what he’d been watching. I can always tell which of my pre-k students watch it too. They all adopt the whine!
I also second the Thomas. Dear Lord, that show is BORING!!! Thank goodness my son only took to liking the Thomas toys and not the show.
How about You Gabba Gabba?
Yes!!!
Or as I call it, NO Gabba Gabba.
“Dora the Explorer!” Get lost and Stay Lost; “HR Puff n Stuff” (or something like that); Anything titled “The New Adventures of” , “…. & Friends) or any “Baby Character” versions of any any of the good cartoons. All bad. I do like Blues Clues though..
Amen to Dora!!!!!! And I would add Go, Diego, Go to that list as well! Ugh
LOVE this article!! But I’m questioning the lack of Calliou on this list. I couldn’t stand anything about that show: the namby-pamby parents, the whiny little bald kid, the bland artwork… I would lie and tell my daughter it wasn’t on. I suffered through additional episode of anything else just to avoid it.
We think Wendi was smart enough to avoid it entirely!
Have you ever seen the Boobahs?
Dude. Boobah is some next level shit.
I have to say that Teletubbies helped me recover from eye surgery by putting me to Lortab-induced sleep.
WTF!!! why is that lazy annoying whining Cailloo not on this list and not the #1 hated?
Caillou is another Canadian abomination of a show and the goddamned whistling in the beginning of the theme song is enough to give me hives.
Yo Gabba Gabba is a fabulous-if-weird show, and while it’s no Sesame Street, it was my kids’ favorite. We don’t watch anymore, but my husband and I still quote it on the daily. #DJLanceRock4eva
I’m with you, Kristy! I loved Yo Gabba Gabba to pieces. I figure any show that got my preschoolers asking for the Ting Tings and the Roots couldn’t be so bad.
Caillou is the only show I’ve told my daughters NOT to watch. I’m thankful that neither of them liked Dora or Barney.
I’ve never seen “Calliou.” I win!
YES, YOU DO!
How about fraggle rock.
I guess fraggle rock is a little old for this list.
Caillou was and still is the worst. We called Lazytown “Crazytown.” We had much love for Roli Polie Olie.
Absolutely Caillou. I couldn’t stand the whining. I blamed him for teaching my daughter how, although I suppose she may have eventually learned herself. Still, I couldn’t bear Caillou, from the theme song on.
All those shoes are the best including oobi and lazy town I’m 18 and I still watch them shoot what’s wrong with you those shows are the best ever
Shows***
We watched some of them in the US in English, then here in French (in France), our daughter was born in 2003 and WE still love our memories of Oobie, LazyTown, Blue’s Clues, WonderPets, Little Bear. Even Doodlebops was ok. Anything is better than Barney, though.
Remember, these shows are meant for the littlest of us, so the voices and vocabulary and situations are meant to appeal to, attract THEIR attention, not ours.
Now I’ll go hum the WonderPets theme as I get ready for bed 😉
The Fresh Beat Band was the bane of my existence!
This is a very biased “article”. These are all tv shows I loved when I was little. This was all based on your opinion, which shouldn’t be. You sound like a kid trying to be “all grown up”, which isn’t cool okay? Next time you rate anything look up REAL FACTS and NOT your opinion. Okay? Okay.
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We admire your passion, Sofia! This is an opinion piece (so, it’s not intended to be fact-based or grounded in research) from the point of view of parents who can relate to being forced to watch shows we didn’t love — because we do love our kids. It was in fact written by a mom.
One day, you may have kids, and have your own list of “worst” shows that you watched with them, and you’ll laugh about it like we do. It’s in good fun. -Eds
Caillou is inappropriate. It is one of the top worst shows for children to watch. My children watched it and didn’t like it. Same with barney and Dora. These should have been added.
I am so glad i stumbled upon this article! I relate SO HARD! The map from Dora the Explorer still haunts my nightmares with that repetition! We get it! He’s a map! Let’s move on!
I also can’t stand Caillou and his whiny, entitled self. So glad my kids caught on to my disdain for him and got annoyed by his whining also!
And Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Ugh. And Thomas the Tank Engine. They were so vapid. Just characters parading around so we’d have to buy all the things. Man, i thank you for giving me a place to vent! You people are my community!
I don’t even know where to start with the amount of bs these arguments had lmao. This was hilarious to read top to bottom. I don’t believe you made an abacus from an olive tree in your yard that was nourished. That sounds so extra and unnecessary. And remember these are for kids to enjoy not the parents! Overall thanks for the laughs!
It’s almost like a comedy writer is…funny? And makes jokes? So weird, right? I hope her kids come out okay!
I do agree Caillou deserves to be on this list. However, I’d also like to add Oswald. It literally teaches kids to never stand up for themselves and take whatever crap their so called friends lay on them.
I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY THEY THINK THESE SHOWS ARE THE WORST!!!!! Like ive watched many of those shows that are up there and i grew up completely fine. Yall are being dramatic come on now honestly. Pull yourselves together!!!
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Ed note: *it’s a humor piece written by a comedy writer*
Some of these shows are my childhood and now i read i now can see it like the doodle bops but a few of the shows are not the worse there are worse cartoons like Yo gabba gabba wow wow wubbzy and Caillou
[deleted for trolling, lack of humor, making us yawn]
You are factually wrong about Little Bear