1% glitchy, animated superhero nursery rhymes for children, 99% WTF

July 3, 2016 12:30 PM

This is a thing: Hot Cross Buns feat. poplocking Ironman ~ Batman Finger Family ~ Spider-Man, Captain America, and KeanuHulk get their Wee Willie Winkie on ~ Wheels come off the bus on a superhero field trip ~ Spider-Man and Hulk fight and sing. Meanwhile, Superman makes a difficult phone call.
posted by Room 641-A (46 comments total)

I am profoundly confused.
posted by BrandonW at 12:40 PM on July 3, 2016

I had a feeling I knew exactly what you were linking to.

My daughter loves this stuff. "Pidaman cah, daddy, pidaman cah!"
posted by clawsoon at 12:47 PM on July 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

I thought Keep MeFi Weird month had ended, but apparently it's become a year-round event.
posted by hippybear at 12:59 PM on July 3, 2016 [12 favorites]

AWWWWW JISSS NIECES IS LOVE IT
posted by Foci for Analysis at 1:01 PM on July 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

Okay, but is the sugar safe?
posted by books for weapons at 1:03 PM on July 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

My son is 7 now. So many times there are posts about cool apps and videos for preschoolers that didn't exist when he was young, that I wished he could have experienced.

This is not one of those times.

Also I think my brain broke a little when the brother finger helicopter blew up the cruise ship.
posted by Mchelly at 1:08 PM on July 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

I know exactly what you are linking to and I don't need to click through because just reading the titles I already have a cacophony of kiddie-crack earworms going off in my head, accompanied by varying degrees of demented little animations bobbing along in time. Right before bedtime.

My dreams are gonna be fucked up tonight, boy howdy.
posted by romakimmy at 1:08 PM on July 3, 2016 [6 favorites]

I'm with hippybear. I started playing the first video, turned to Ligerpants and said "I thought 'keep MetaFilter weird' month was over!"

(I'm gonna watch the rest now.}
posted by zorseshoes at 1:15 PM on July 3, 2016

Someone modded Grand Theft Auto to add superheros, and then posted videos of that set to children's music.

The world is a weird place.
posted by graventy at 1:27 PM on July 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

What the actual fuck
posted by Kitteh at 1:43 PM on July 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

The other thing my daughter is into is Blaze and the Monster Machines, in which our heroes use big physics words ("energy!" "friction!" "velocity!"), and periodically burst out with "LET'S BLAZE!"

Most obvious drug reference in kid's TV since the Cookie Monster?
posted by clawsoon at 1:43 PM on July 3, 2016 [4 favorites]

On the one hand, my daughter gets approximately zero screen time. So I have no familiarity with these completely weird videos, or the terrifying body horror games from the FPP yesterday. And I'm mostly happy about her not getting any screen time?

But I also seriously, totally love weird-ass shit and I feel like maybe I'm going to be missing out on a lot of extremely choice weird-ass shit if I keep being a screen time nazi as my kids get older. Kind of seems like it's a golden age of weird, weird kids' entertainment and maybe I should just embrace it.
posted by town of cats at 1:57 PM on July 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

A Hulk party!
A big Hulk party
Big Hulks, little Hulks,
red Hulks, blue Hulks,
yellow Hulks, green Hulks,
black Hulks and white Hulks
are all at a Hulk party!
What a Hulk party!

The Hey Kids post from back in May that Charred Husk linked in today's Body Horror Video Games post has even more of this shit, and looking around the YouTube reveals more of the same in seemingly endless variety!
And what's with this Finger Family nonsense? I'd never heard such a thing before falling down this particular rabbit hole.
One more: HULK PARTY!!
posted by Trinity-Gehenna at 2:09 PM on July 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

I should note that I did not actually see any black hulks or white Hulks, but I may have missed a couple in there.
posted by Trinity-Gehenna at 2:20 PM on July 3, 2016

Wee Willie Spider-Man stroking the window gives me the shudders
posted by KateViolet at 2:38 PM on July 3, 2016 [7 favorites]

town of cats: But I also seriously, totally love weird-ass shit and I feel like maybe I'm going to be missing out on a lot of extremely choice weird-ass shit if I keep being a screen time nazi as my kids get older.

No, be very, very, very happy you don't hear "finger family" sung and played over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over until you despise the song with the heat of a thousand suns.

OK, it's not that bad, but I never want to see another finger family video, if I can manage that.

The world of videos targeted at kids, especially on YouTube, is a terrible rabbit hole of awful videos set to terribly catchy songs. Thanks to the combination of free 3D models, free 3D modeling and animation software, and inexpensive voice acting and music production, videos like these are churned out with endless variations, with new uploads every day (many racking up a million views in the first week or two, thanks to subscribers).

On the up side, my 4 year old recently said "zebra" like the British and its former colonies, thanks to animations with narration by people from India.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:56 PM on July 3, 2016 [4 favorites]

Does... the Bat-Finger Family join up, Voltron-like, to punch crime?
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:24 PM on July 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

Okay, no.
No. Fuck no. Fucking fuckity fuck no. No fucking way, no!

As I've mentioned from time to time, I'm going to become a father for the first time in a couple more months, and this shit is straight up scaring the living fuck out of me. No. You keep this kind of stuff away from my kid. We're just not going here.

On the other hand, there is this. This is awesome!!

In fact there's a whole ton of cool stuff from these guys. If you're looking for a shower prezzie for us, look no further!

But get this creepy weird shit the hell away from my baby before she notices it!

Yes, I'm packing several years worth of swearing into the next two months.
posted by Naberius at 3:28 PM on July 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

Naberius: I have a whole raft of children's records from when I was a kid in the 70s that, if I ever get a turntable hooked up to my computer, I will rip and send you as mp3 files. You can corrupt your kids the proper old fashioned way, the way I was corrupted, not with this new crap.
posted by hippybear at 3:32 PM on July 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

My daughter is 2 and a half and these videos are the reason she knows who the hulk and spiderman are/. I think we're finally evolving into some shows more "plot based" like Peppa Pig but between this and the toy unwrapping stuff its been about 6 months of finding a bizarre corner of Youtube that I didn't know existed..
posted by bitdamaged at 3:47 PM on July 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

I wish I wasn't familiar with this genre, but I have a three year old. *weeps softly*
posted by blue_beetle at 4:27 PM on July 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

Whoever issued Spiderman a CDL is so fucking fired.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:13 PM on July 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

Thank God I was "corrupted" as a wee child by Pete Seeger singing songs about socialism.
posted by slkinsey at 5:13 PM on July 3, 2016 [7 favorites]

I hope we're not the only parents who have been horrified to accidentally stumble upon the PinkFong series.

It's not QUITE as weird as this, but "BABY SHARK DO-DOO DO-DO DO-DO-DO-DOO MAMA SHARK DO-DOO DO-DO DO-DO-DO-DOO" has been in my head for like four days guys. FOUR DAYS.

Also the plethora of Christmas-song-themed badly-animated Youtube videos from Eastern Europe and Asia where it is subtly but gratingly obvious that the singers are singing words written phonetically and don't actually understand what they're singing.
posted by erst at 5:22 PM on July 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

Man, and I thought Poser porn was weird.

well, it is, but still.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:39 PM on July 3, 2016

I feel like I've seen this here before, but if you really want a song to get stuck in your head, I offer you baby shark, soccer rocker, and e eats everything.
posted by BeReasonable at 5:48 PM on July 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

These are pretty nuts. Thankfully my son never connected with this kind of stuff - I think it is partially the aesthetics of the animation and partially the singing. He really prefers Jonathan Richman, Free Design, early 90's rock and Yamantaka // Sonic Titan.
posted by Ashwagandha at 6:00 PM on July 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

You probably haven't heard of them...
posted by Naberius at 6:05 PM on July 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

Someone modded Grand Theft Auto to add superheros, and then posted videos of that set to children's music.

I'd like to just point out that these are definitely not GTA mods, because they don't move like any GTA games I know, and to mod it to the degree that it would look like that requires way more effort than it looks like the creators have put into these videos. And I'm pretty sure the dancing is straight out of WoW or similar MMORPGs.

That said, this is some weird ass shit.

I thought Keep MeFi Weird month had ended, but apparently it's become a year-round event.

It's always been a year-round thing hasn't it? It's one reason I keep coming back here!
posted by numaner at 8:45 PM on July 3, 2016

Oh yes, I'm pretty familiar with this genre. Whenever I allow my kids on YouTube, they start off watching "proper" cartoons, but they always seem to end up on a toy unboxing video or one of these weird lo-fi superhero animations within 4 or 5 clicks. Usually scored by Kevin MacLeod.
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 8:58 PM on July 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

Goddammit, BeReasonable! You just had to post the fucking shark earworm even after erst warned us? You're dead to me.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:05 PM on July 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

The heat death of the universe can't come soon enough.
posted by anarch at 10:26 PM on July 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm planning on climate change to take us all out long before then. I pity the kids addicted to these videos.
posted by hippybear at 10:31 PM on July 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

But until then, this can always rise again. There's only one way to be sure and done. ;-)
posted by anarch at 10:35 PM on July 3, 2016

I want to sincerely thank this thread for cluing me in to pink fong because these videos are well animated, cute and catchy.

I'm still convinced the superhero vids are a fever dream though.
posted by ShawnStruck at 11:05 PM on July 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

Haha! we went through a phase of these, now over than goodness. I like the fact that it has caused some of the really old obscure nursery rhymes to re-emerge (and my son knows all of them). Now it is all about the oddly compelling adventures of Elsa and Anna and their children (mini Elsa and Anna). Oh and Disney Princesses eating pizza. I do admire the enthusiasm and chutzpah of these people finding a demand and meeting it wholeheartedly (for millions of views, of course).
posted by low_horrible_immoral at 2:28 AM on July 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

numaner: If this isn't the GTA engine then I'll eat my hat.
posted by jordemort at 8:41 AM on July 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

low_horrible_immoral: I like the fact that it has caused some of the really old obscure nursery rhymes to re-emerge (and my son knows all of them).

Do you know the Muffin Man?

Do you know him?

He lives on Drury Lane.
posted by clawsoon at 8:53 AM on July 4, 2016 [3 favorites]

Someone please make "Andy Daly starring as The Muffin Man" happen.
posted by Room 641-A at 9:13 AM on July 4, 2016

Oh god, this is my life.

I've been bitching about these videos everywhere for a year now. That's when it all started for me. I was trying to keep Kid WanKenobi busy at a restaurant and handed her my phone to watch some Steven Universe videos, which is a perfectly wholesome show about lesbian spacerocks which we both enjoy. Fifteen minutes or so later, she'd discovered Daddy Finger and an addict was born.

Daddy Finger is the least of it, though. My daughter also enjoys watching videos of people playing with dolls, which would be fine, except there are also of baby dolls fake vomiting or having fake diarrhea or being run over by cars and youtube has deemed most of these being "safe" for kids. Then my daughter got into watching videos of people playing with Elsa dolls which led to, well, shit like this. Oh, and the kid likes Paw Patrol, so we have these.

My kid gets a lot of screen time compared to some but I'd far prefer an afternoon of Shimmer & Shine to youtube these days. She just clicks mindlessly through recommended videos to find more and more bizarre, vaguely upsetting, surreal vids. I've tried everything, by the way, including the kid's youtube app (where she inevitably ends up on baby bathtime candy videos), apps that let you load playlists but also require the youtube app, which my daughter always finds, and finally have tried to delete youtube. Tablet-savvy kid just asks calmly and politely for me to reinstall it (and for some reason my tablet keeps doing that for me anyway every time it reboots). I vacillate between closely monitoring it and wanting to throw my hands in the air. Best I've found is to go through everything she's watched periodically to clear the history which gets rid of the worst of it.

The worst of it right now, by the way, are peppa pig videos which she finds "scary" like these. She was telling me recently she was scared of police officers and it took me awhile to figure out this is why.

She gets maybe a half hour of youtube time a week at this point because of this crap, which as far as I can tell, youtube has absolutely no problem with (I'm betting they get a ton of ad dollars from toddlers clicking through this stuff on autopilot). Why you can't block videos by keyword or even channel, I have no idea. But it's awful. We talk a lot about how people put videos on youtube that look like they're good for kids but actually aren't, but at 2.5, she lacks the self control to quit watching them even if they upset her.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:13 AM on July 4, 2016 [6 favorites]

(Oh and if you clicked briefly onto the Peppa video and are wondering why it would be upsetting, halfway through the characters suddenly get into a knife fight. A lot of them are like this--they start out innocuous and then suddenly Daddy Piggy is shooting at Peppa and sending her to jail.)
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:17 AM on July 4, 2016 [3 favorites]

I just watched that weird Elsa/Baby/Spiderman/Joker thing where the Joker gives Spiderman and Spidergirl poison candy which causes them to puke and shit balls, which they then throw at the Joker. And I couldn't figure out if the balls were supposed to be a literal stand-in for puke/shit or if there was some sort of backstory w/r/t the balls or what.
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me at 2:22 PM on July 4, 2016 [3 favorites]

This is, alas, a known thing in our house -- the local toddler got into these through wanting more Spiderman videos. SOMETIMES we manage to divert into something innocuous, like a Little Baby Bum compilation (a rabbit hole in itself). Ever since Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood and Peep in the Big Wide World left Netflix and not reappeared elsewhere, it has become a much harder task.
posted by Quasirandom at 10:33 AM on July 5, 2016

The ad revenue from toddler clicks is not on autopilot, nor is it random. I promise you. I too have a 3yo who has discovered the Youtube interface, and we have talked a lot about how he picks what he clicks on. It ain't random. He actively pursues creepy grownups playing with toys. He can clearly explain what he likes, and he knows that his parents don't approve of it. He knows how to ask for a wholesome show, and knows that if he makes the right picks, the sidebar choices will eventually expand to grownups playing with toys and "growmups playing with kid toys and doing growmup things."

Yuck.
posted by BrunoLatourFanclub at 2:10 PM on July 5, 2016

If this isn't the GTA engine then I'll eat my hat.

Somehow I missed that video. That is indeed GTA4. Though I'm wondering how they made the acrobatic animation. Unless there's such an NPC that I can't recall.
posted by numaner at 8:48 AM on July 6, 2016

Wow, I haven't kept up with the mods in a while, didn't realize they can do custom animations!
posted by numaner at 8:53 AM on July 6, 2016