The Knees Have It

This morning Handsome was channel surfing while he was eating his pancakes.
Click
"No..."
Click
"No..."
Click
"Heh. I remember this."
He'd come across an episode of The Backyardigans, a television show he watched when he was much younger. It's an animated show, CGI technically, designed for toddlers to post-toddlers. There are five animal children who go out in their back yards every episode and have different imaginary adventures - imaginary adventures that are brought to live for you, the viewer, through the magic of television.

And here they are:

Tasha          Tyrone          Pablo         Uniqua          Austin

Now, as you can see, Tasha is a Hippo, Tyrone a Moose, Pablo is a Penguin, and Austin is a Kangaroo.

But what the hell is Uniqua? She's pink with pink polka-dots. She has antennae, curly ones. Beats me what she is. I'm pretty sure they made her up.

Now, the episode that happened to be on when we hit the channel had Pablo and Uniqua as scientists performing some sort of experiment. Handsome watched for a minute or so, feeling all nostalgic - well, as nostalgic as a 9-year-old can, and then a dance number started. Handsome watched them dancing for a second, then screwed up his face as he pointed to the screen.

"Isn't it weird that Pablo has legs?"

"What?" I said.

"Pablo's legs - they're weird," he said. "They look too long, I mean, they have knees!. Are penguin legs supposed to have knees''

First of all, yes, penguins do have knees.

Second of all I turned to Handsome with a feeling of incredulity.

"That's what you've picked to be weird about this scene? There's a penguin dancing in a lab coat, speaking English and conducting scientific experiments while wearing a propeller-topped beanie. He's dancing with a strange antennae'd thing that's got pink polka dots on it, a thing that's also speaking English while performing experiments, and that's what you find unusual enough to comment on? Pablo's knees?  Seriously? And what the heck is she, can you tell me that?"

Nope.

Oh my goodness, look at those penguin knees. Hmf. My kid - weird people.


Talk to you later!