Healing the Dark Crystal

==					Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood – Episodes That Should Exist == By: Brian On: March 02, 2016 In: Toddler TV Comments: 0

“I just assumed he was dead.”  That was my initial reaction when I found out that Daniel Tiger was not only very much alive, he was now in glorious high definition, the whole gang was with him, and he was 6 inches from my toddler’s face.

Like most children of the 70’s and 80’s who now exchange iPad time with toddlers for 5 minutes to take a dump or make a sandwich,  you’re probably reading this because you’ve heard that siren song from across the room, looked over your child’s shoulder, and found yourself back inside the Neighborhood of Make Believe with Daniel Tiger. Like a high school reunion without the booze, you caught a cathartic ride on that magical trolley and filled in all of the missing chapters Fred Rogers made believe from beyond the grave.

You drew inspiration from the success story of a soft-spoken, orphan tiger, living all alone in a broken clock, with nothing but an oversized watch and a few stripes to his name, who found love, moved into a surprisingly spacious tiki hut, created the most profitable clock factory in the entire neighborhood, and a kid who inherited his watch and cardigan fetish.

Lady Elaine before and after discovering Proactive

There was the feisty neighborhood schemer, Lady Elaine Fairchild, who miraculously overcame debilitating rosacea and proved that there truly IS someone out there for everyone (I mean when I found out she had a daughter, I just assumed she adopted or borrowed money from King Friday  for artificial insemination…but no…Music Man Stan really stepped up to the plate and took responsibility for what I can only assume was some cloudy judgement and dizziness during a late night in the museum-go-round ). And the royal family that knew better than to name a kid, Prince Hump Day. And there was even Henrietta Pussycat who somehow passed on her meow meow cat turrets to her daughter. Then, as it goes with 99% of toddler TV, the novelty wore off about halfway through a 50 episode binge but the songs remained tucked just behind your unconscious.

If you haven’t see Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, I have no idea why you’re still reading this. However, just so we’re all on the same page, each episode consists of 2 mini-episodes centering around the same socio-emotional theme like “dealing with frustration,” “trying new foods,” “thinking about others,” and so on. The theme is then reinforced with a catchy little “strategy song” sung by the characters throughout the show, by desperate parents trying to correct or encourage a behavior, but ironically, rarely the actual kids watching the show.

Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood is remarkable in that is can lock a toddler in the preferred, “zombie zone” long enough for parents to get shit done, that it provides a comforting sense of nostalgia, and that it doesn’t make anybody think too hard. However, I feel the writers have barely scratched the surface on lessons that can actually benefit parents.

The following are future episodes of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood that I would appreciate:

“Stop Punching Mom in the Face” and legs wildly, often punching her in the face, when she tries to put him in time out Miss Elaina shows up for a play date but Daniel punches her in the face making her cry Mom Tiger puts him in time out. Miss Elaina angrily pushes Daniel Tiger he is stabbed to death by an unidentified creature before managing to find the Skeksis. Daniel Tiger has a talk with Daniel Striped Tiger (his dad…does this seem unnecessarily confusing to anyone else?) who teaches him how to stop being a dick.
 * Daniel loves Mom Tiger, but lately, he has been flailing his arms
 * Strategy Song: “If You’ve Done Something Bad, Don’t Make it Worse and Piss Off Dad.”

“Don’t Make Me Laugh When I Yell At You”

serious when he needs to discipline Prince Wednesday. Recently Prince Wednesday has started making an angry face, crossing his arms, pointing sternly and saying things like, “That’s a bad choice, Daddy!” and, “Go sit in time out and THINK ABOUT IT!” whenever King Friday is correcting a behavior The Skeksis then capture the king until Miss Elaina arrives and fights him they reveal that they are the ones who killed Daniel Tiger. This of course makes King Friday laugh…which takes most of the tension out of the room…but creates a viscous cycle of disrespect.
 * King Friday is a light-hearted guy and he has a hard time being
 * Strategy Song: “If You Ever Get In Trouble, Think of a Joke on the Double”

“Stop Deleting Mom’s Apps” you have a different last name than your daughter. Often, Henrietta Pussycat will give Katerina Kittycat her iPhone so she can have one second of sanity The Skeksis enter the home and capture Henrietta Pussycat. However, Katerina has no idea how iPhones work and because she has no patience, she just keeps hitting buttons even though the UrRu also called the Mystics has explained countless times that they’re stealing WIFI from X the Owl and he’s too cheap to spring for the “Boost Package” from Xfinity, so she often finds herself on the home screen and then presses too long and then just keeps hitting the little x's, which never take her back to the YouTube Kids app. Then, when the UrRu is trying to find the score of the Pirates game, they has to re-download the MLB app from the stupid cloud.
 * It’s difficult being a single mom, especially when, for some reason,
 * Strategy Song: “Stop, Wait, and Try Restarting”

“Quit Staring at the People in the Booth Behind Us” and Mom Tiger keep trying because they’re often too busy or lazy to cook and have poor short term memories. Miss Elaina usually sits quietly with her iPad, but Margaret has started to stand on the booth and awkwardly stare at the couples in the booth behind them…The other couples play along the first few times, but then it becomes clear that they just want to eat in peace instead of saying “hi” over and over to a toddler. Daniel Striped Tiger and Mom Tiger smile back apologetically and say, “sorry,” but since the alternative is the possibility of a screaming kid, they do nothing. Prince Tuesday realizes he’s going to be tipped poorly if the other couple has a bad experience, so he goes and gets Margaret the crayons he should have brought her 15 minutes ago when he took the Tiger Family’s drink orders.
 * Going out to dinner with 2 kids is tough, but Daniel Striped Tiger, The UrRu,
 * Strategy Song: “We eat out just to feel normal. Sit back down and give mom and dad a win.”

“Stop Awkwardly Playing With Your Privates”

Miss Elaina is bathed by the UrRu. pants. Usually,the UrRu (I’m just going to call them Mystics from now on) is able to correct her pretty quickly, but if the Skeksis are around, they say something weird about Miss Elaina being scarred for life. It’s gotten pretty weird in the tub too and the Mystics have no idea how to get her to stop other than telling her to stop. are they just supposed to let her stick her fingers in there or stretch that out so far? It looks like it really hurts.
 * Recently, Miss Elaina can’t seem to keep her hands out of her
 * Strategy Song: “If It’s Covered by My Panties they’re my privates, and we only touch our privates in private.”

“The Urskeks are restored” they're excited to see Miss Elaina, to hear about their days, to have dinner with them, etc. But lately, as soon as they walk in the door, Miss Elaina isn’t exactly crying and she isn’t exactly happy, she’s just making loud annoying whining noises and acting like everything is the end of the damn world. They ask her to stop, asks her what she wants, offers to play with her, but she just keeps whining and going limp when they try to pick her up. So they heal Jodi Platypus….…  One day, as Mr. McFeely delivers 2 cases of Make Believe Moonshine he asks Miss Elaina what’s going on. After hearing the sad story, he offers to counsel the Urskeks in the evenings and eventually saves their marriage.
 * When the Skeksis are UrRu are restored to their original Urskek form,
 * Strategy Song: “When the Urskeks return, The Balance is restored”