Ow, My Brain

January 17, 2005 4:43 AM

Boohbah Zone. Monday Flash Fun. On acid. With teddy-bear-seal-things.
posted by armoured-ant (27 comments total)

Crap. My first double post. And it even told me, but I'd already hit post.
posted by armoured-ant at 4:44 AM on January 17, 2005

You fool! You'll destroy us all with your haphazardly doubleposting!
posted by TwelveTwo at 4:53 AM on January 17, 2005

My son nearly watched this a few weeks ago, fortunately I got it off before any damage was done. I don't see how LSD inspired slugs talking baby talk can be anything but detrimental to a child's development. The show might captivate a kid for a while and, thereby, get them out of their hair--but is there anything gratifying about the show itself?
posted by ThePrawn at 5:03 AM on January 17, 2005

Armoured-Ant - Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
posted by the cuban at 6:00 AM on January 17, 2005

I work in a store that sells these in several forms - small bobble-headed things, small stuffed versions that make noise, gigantic pillow ones, and my least favorite model, the large talking and dancing version. I don't think anyone has bought them at all, because stock hasn't seemed to go down, and they're all on clearance.

I think they're Teletubby larvae.
posted by chickygrrl at 7:49 AM on January 17, 2005

This show, like Teletubbies, is awful for language development and cognitive development in general. It is evil, and I actually mean that.
posted by u.n. owen at 8:52 AM on January 17, 2005

I love that show.... and that site...
posted by mildred-pitt at 9:29 AM on January 17, 2005

Speaking as one who regularly watched kids' TV while stoned out of my mind in high school--those things are mildly disturbing.
posted by cmyk at 9:35 AM on January 17, 2005

un owen: I'd like you to provide some sort of authoritative documentation for your claim. My understanding is that Teletubbies and Boohbah are designed by early childhood development experts, and are indeed not awful for language development and cognitive development.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:50 AM on January 17, 2005

chickygrrl: I see huge racks of Boobahs in Wal-mart. I set them all off. There's nothing like a whole aisle of "BOOO-BAHHHH!" and you're right, they never seem to leave the shelves.
posted by sian at 10:15 AM on January 17, 2005

sian: yep, I do it too while walking around on breaks. My mother, a long-time WM associate, likes to set them all off and imitate them, but then again she also likes to dance and sing along with the dancing Santas in the seasonal area, so her sanity is questionable at this point.
posted by chickygrrl at 10:45 AM on January 17, 2005

I see huge racks of Boobahs in Wal-mart.

No, I can't. It's just too easy.
posted by dr_dank at 11:11 AM on January 17, 2005

I saw this for the first time on TV a couple of days ago and was completely transfixed. I went to play squash right afterward, and "BOOHBAH!" became my trashtalk shout whenever I scored a point.
posted by painquale at 12:22 PM on January 17, 2005

I don't know about cognitive and language development, but I do know that Boobahs scare the everloving crap out of my youngest. He saw them and started to cry. That's enough for me to say "Evil!"
posted by Dreama at 12:27 PM on January 17, 2005

Well, I'm no child-development expert, but the Teletubbies always struck me as quasi-autistic. Or... intersubjectively autistic. They live in a world that never changes. It is more like a schematic drawing of a habitat than an actual, detailed envi ronment; very abstract. They also watch TVs in each other's bellies, which adds a layer of abstraction. Their life is highly ritualized and repetitive. They don't say very much, but they identify themselves as obsessively as an FM station. Certain provocations, not explicitly threatening to a normal person, drive them to "run away" in fear, nay, hysteria. At least, that's how I remember it. By comparison, Barney suddenly seemed very good for kids.

Oh, and I set off a whole aisle of Boohbahs too.t
posted by aws17576 at 12:55 PM on January 17, 2005

My daughter (nearly two years old) loves that show and it terrifies me. The show is creepy, and even creepier is how this tiny child is TRANSFIXED by it. We don't let that show play at our house anymore, and I forbade our family to reward this interest with BooBah themed gifts. A (young, single, childless) male friend took it upon himself to buy one of those little talking ones for our daughter for Christmas. She loves it more than anything, and won't sleep without it. Sometimes she moves in her sleep and it goes off, signing that eerie "booooobaahhhh..." into the dark. It's the stuff of my nightmares.
posted by raedyn at 1:00 PM on January 17, 2005

Again, I am dead positive that both shows are very carefully designed to appeal specifically to babies, and engage them with noises and repetition that is perfectly appropriate for developing language skills. These shows communicate with pre-verbal children. Creepy as hell, yes, but that's what being a baby is like: creepy as hell!
posted by five fresh fish at 1:40 PM on January 17, 2005

but that's what being a baby is like: creepy as hell!

Cue reading of 'The Smallest Assassin' by Ray Bradbury.
posted by Sparx at 2:01 PM on January 17, 2005

I find Boohbah disturbing, too - I think it was the first "meaningful" word that my son uttered. But if nothing else, Boohbah at least gets parents used to the idea that their kids have pleasures of their own that they'll never understand. And Boohbah's just the beginning of that particular journey...
posted by Holly at 2:07 PM on January 17, 2005

Anne Wood, apparently an 'expert' consulted for the making of Boohbahs, sez:

Boohbah is different from most educational TV. Rather than present all the information to its young viewers, the program is especially designed to foster a style of active viewing that encourages children to comment, ask questions, and fill in their own meaning, much the way that children do when they play with stuffed animals and create their own dialogue. That is why, for example, the Storypeople are designed as cut-outs – like dolls, or pieces in a puzzle. We give children enough time in Storyworld to think about the situation, allowing them to gain an early understanding of prediction and cause and effect.

Since we also know that movement is essential to brain development, we designed Boohbah to invite its young viewers to get up and move. By carefully planned choreography, the program is able to use movement to promote physical development, and also to illustrate a variety of cognitive concepts, such as velocity, spatial relations, counting, and simple mathematics operations (like addition and subtraction). Using images and movement, rather than words, to introduce concepts helps us reach visual and kinesthetic learners.

And hmm, I can't find a good link to support this, but comparisons have been made between the experience of being a young child, and being on psychedelics... something to do with the way adults learn to filter out the vast majority of sensory information we receive, as well as order and 'label' concepts/images in a way that is bypassed when on (the right) drugs. ('Boobahs' is remarkably psychedelic.)
posted by Drexen at 2:08 PM on January 17, 2005

Is it too late for a Zing Zing Zingbah to wish you a Happy New Year?
posted by Holly at 2:16 PM on January 17, 2005

I used to watch the teletubies a few years ago when I was in between jobs. It was mesmerizing. Better then anything else on television and a pity they didn't have it when I was a kid.
posted by Timeless at 2:38 PM on January 17, 2005

boobah is beautiful. we have a zing zing zingbah doll and its orange cheerfulness makes us all happy. I think it is preparing children for the future.
posted by mai at 2:48 PM on January 17, 2005

I don't see how LSD inspired slugs talking baby talk can be anything but detrimental to a child's development.

I agree, but its one of the few shows that keeps my 17 month old son mesmerised.
*goes looking for son's stash...*
posted by fullysic at 3:16 PM on January 17, 2005

There's nothing like a nipple to appeal to a baby.
Yeah, a whole lotta "research" was required,
BOOBahhhh!
*cough*
posted by pekar wood at 4:35 PM on January 17, 2005

i dunno pekar, nipples? they don't retract in quite the way the head of...

no, i better not.
posted by gorgor_balabala at 6:22 PM on January 17, 2005

"There's a time and a place for everything, children, and it's called college" -- Chef

No one in their mush-for-brains formative years should be subjected to this stuff. Now go out in the yard and play with this potato.
posted by Balisong at 11:26 PM on January 17, 2005