[Jack_]

Originally Posted by kirklancaster

I am not being 'ridiculous'. I am stating an opinion based on many years of witnessing the impairment in quality of SOME - not all of the BEEB's programmes.

Your post seems to suggest that because WE adults are not the 'target market' that we should abdicate our parental responsibilities, which IS ridiculous.

In the particular kid's show under discussion, I find it very sinister indeed that an innocent tradition such as a child having a boiled egg is needlessly portrayed in such a graphic manner.

Following generations of tradition, I served my tots with soft boiled eggs in eggcups, and I removed the top of the eggs and cut buttered bread into strips for them to dip in to the egg with. Following the same traditions, I called the bread strips 'soldiers'.

So I find it highly disturbing that the boiled egg in question has been humanised and is replete with a face, and that the top of this humanised egg is so violently sliced off by a 'soldier'. I think the connotations are too glaring to be denied; soldier-beheading, especially given what is ocurring in the world at present.

Cartoons and kids TV programmes have always been violent, but in a surreal fantastic exaggerated way which does not have the same connotations which this programme has, and children have lost so much of childishness already over the years, so is there really any need to strip away yet more of a child's innocence in this manner?

I fail to see how parental concern, or dissatisfaction with some of the poor quality drivel which is screened by the Beeb now, is a contributary factor in the demise of BBC3 as a television channel?

And I am not saying that all the BBC should be spending money on is 'quality' programmes - mainly 'Drama' or otherwise, because I have no problem with 'diversity' of programme types - more with 'perversity' of programme content -- Especially where tiny children ARE the 'target market'.

This is not about 'me, me, me' - it's about whether as an adult I have a right to decide whether I think a particular programme is crap or not, whether as a parent I have the right to decide whether that programme is unsuitable viewing for tiny kids or not, and whether as a licence fee payer, I have a right to make my views known or not.

You of course, are as equally entitled to make your views known - as you have done.

My mistake, I assumed your criticism was directed at how ridiculous the programme looks, rather than it's connotations.

Having said that, the idea that the creators of this show have discreetly placed some cultural references to beheadings is both absurd and hilarious to me. But each to their own, of course.