Nightmares and Puppet Vomit
Dear Crash and Bernstein*,
We have an issue to discuss. It’s regarding this video, my kid and his nightmares:
I’m not saying this situation is entirely your fault. There’s plenty of blame to pass around.
For instance, there was that time I decided the only way for my five year old to get through his crippling terror of that commercial for the episode where Crash gets the flu, was for him to face his own fears. So I forced him to watch the entire episode with me so he could see it wasn’t as scary as it seemed. It turns out that was not a valid solution and will possibly be a topic for him to work through in therapy as an adult. My bad.
Also, it’s possible I should have been more careful, in general, about monitoring what the poor kid was exposed to. I’m not saying I should be excused, but it’s hard with the third kid. His older brothers want to watch Sharknado, so he wants to watch Sharknado. It’s easy to forget that while a 9 and 13 year old can handle it, literal rivers of blood might be a little much for a kindergardener, regardless of his proclivity to learning about nature and all of its terrifying creatures. Oops.
Regardless of those errors in judgment on my part, though, I feel like you need to step up and take some of the responsibility for this predicament I’m currently dealing with. You people put this gross, disturbing stuff out there on the kid channels and then you don’t have to deal with any of the repercussions.
Did anyone come into your room late last night sobbing that he doesn’t want to be alive anymore** because he can’t sleep without nightmares from a show he watched six months ago? Did you have to spend 20 minutes at midnight murmuring details about his upcoming birthday party and the awesome tarantulas, snakes and lizards the Reptile/Insect party guy you hired is going to bring to your house, to calm him down (and then subsequently have nightmares about tarantulas and snakes yourself)? Did you get woken up at 3AM by an elbow to the boob?
No, I bet you didn’t. I bet you slept like a baby.
I don’t think all of your programming needs to be completely without excitement and interest. I get that it’s Disney ‘XD’ because it’s supposed to be for the older kids. That said, must you really show a clip like the above at every commercial break for two weeks before the episode? Like even during the super sweet, funny and smart Phineas and Ferb episodes that are actually age-appropriate for my youngest? Can’t you save the really gnarly stuff for the actual episode? It’s possible even I am a little bit scarred by puppet vomit at this point.
I’m just asking you to think about it. Or I might send my kid over to sleep at your house to see how you like it.
Sincerely,
An exhausted and bruised mother
*Some dumb show on Disney XD about a family who adopts a moderately violent and insane puppet? If The Muppet Show and Jackass had a love child, I’m fairly certain it would be Crash and Bernstein.
**Yes, he has a flair for the dramatic. No, I have no idea where he got it.