Oobi

My one year old son loves this show. And I have found it very entertaining myself. Especially the Grandpu character, Oobi and Ooma's apparent guardian. Grandpu always endures what the kids have to offer no matter what, whether it's bathtime or a "Grandpu day" meal made of Grape Jelly, Tuna and Hot Sauce.

There are definitely jokes there that a child would not get, but an adult would snicker at, in fact I laugh out loud several times. One example, Oobi was helping with an infant, smelled something foul and blamed Grandpu. Of course, the baby had a dirty diaper. Great fun all around for the entire family. Catch it on Noggin when you can, you won't be disappointed. I, too, was against it at first.

I am a mother of two-year-old and a secondary English teacher and watching this show makes me flinch at all the incomplete sentences in which the characters speak. In one episode Oobi and his supposedly ethnic friend Kako take singing lessons and attempt to sing "Row Row Row Your Boat" in a round except the creators think it's fine to omit words from their (the characters) vocab so the song they sing goes more like "row row row boat gently down stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, life but dream." My child loves show but I have to leave the room when it's on or I go insane verbally filling in their pronouns and conjunctions or whatever other fragmented sentences dribble from their mouthes (or fingers). The message they try to get across is always a good one and sometimes they throw in subtle humor only adults will get, but the writers definitely need to stop worrying about saving trees and start teaching kids that grammar is not all that bad.

When I first saw this show it was a interstitial on Noggin. I thought it was kind of stupid, But our son, who is handicapped and has very limited speech because of a brain injury at birth, was taken by it at once. Then it got it's own half-hour, and I watched it with him. The entire show breaks down story telling to the basics without talking down to kids. The characters are as described: just a hand with eyes attached. But they also wear costumes at times. The amount of emotion and "acting" that is presented is simply amazing. The puppeteers are extremely talented to be able to bring these characters to life in a way that you accept after a very short time. Unlike a lot of kids TV this show is very watchable and includes some inside jokes for parents at times (things like all the "parents" at a play having to turn off their cell phones before the performance). The writers of the show made a conscious decision to make the language simple too. No adverbs or conjunctions. My son can follow the story and understand the concepts being presented and when I have used the same basic language with him apart from the show and relating to our everyday life, he responds. Being able to communicate with him in such an unfettered way for the first time in his life means everything to me. It is not a typical puppet show, but it has won the heart of our atypical son...and his parents too.

I don't think the speech is that bad unless you have an older child watching it that already knows about sentence structure. The speech is very reminiscent of the Dick and Jane books.

Oobi run. You run. We run.

Oobi dance. You dance! Insead of saying, "This is a bathtub. I take a bath to get clean." He will say, "Bathtub. Oobi bath. Oobi clean!"

Its a children's show! There isn't that much to say about it! My kids like to take the eyes to their Mr. Potato head and stick them in between their fingers to pretend they are Oobi. Its cute.

It was really interesting to read so many different reviews of Oobi. It does sort of bother me that so many go so far as to say the show is a waste of time because their four year old hates it. Perhaps this is because its designed for young toddlers? And the gloss language? Again, directed towards toddlers, who don't ALL speak in clear perfect sentences. We should remember that all of our kids progress at different levels and respond to different things. It doesn't make things horrible or a waste of time, it means its not right for you or your child. (and, hey, if its right for you, its really just an added bonus since very few of the kids programming out there is tolerable for adults) To the person who responded about her child's PDD, I am so psyched that you found something that works! My boyfriends daughter's ability to remember simple lyrics (as opposed to before where she just would make US sing) is a pretty rad development, which tells me that even if it bores older kids and adults, its still making a difference for us.