The title of this post sounds inviting and warm, but do not be decieved. This post is about a sinister perversion of everything that is good about singing and babies.
We've long been fans of the dollar store. Okay, more Boss than me. And it seemed like a $1 DVD would not be a terrible risk, so Boss went ahead and bought the Singing Babies DVD for Sam. It took approximately three seconds after turning it on that I knew that my life was changed forever. As the babies row, row, rowed their boats across the screen, their lips moving separately from their artificially constrained bodies, Sam laughed. And I knew what Sam likes gets played a million times a day whether Dad likes it or not.
Let me see if I can explain what is wrong with these babies. I don't think any verbal description can do them justice, but I'll give it a whirl. The idea is that a group of multi-national babies sing common nursery rhyme songs and puppets dance in front of green screens. Animation and cuteness with a spiffy soundtrack rounds out the awe shucks production. However, the execution makes this video more suitable for Halloween. Someone thought that making babies lips move independent of their other features would be endearing. This someone is on drugs. Babies mouths can't gape like that while their chins remain firmly fixed. This someone has enough business acumen to gather the required capital to produce a DVD, but imagined that purposely making one of the babies sing off key would be a delight to everyone everywhere. It's not just an off key baby, it's an on key voice that has been deliberately manipulated to be off-key. Someone thought that combining normal footage of playing babies and bouncing puppets would make up for the eerie skin crawling I get when one of the possessed artificial babies blinks their alien eyes.
Okay, you get the idea. I don't care for the creepy singing babies. My nightmares will never be the same.
8 comments:
Despite the disturbing factor, I sure got a laugh out of your graphic description. Maybe I'll have to watch it whenever we pass by you guys. :) You have to admit it'd be kind of cool if Sammy learned to sing without moving his chin.
I'm sorry you're being haunted by alien babies! That was a rather graphic description...I can't even imagine how much worse the reality is!
Luckily, the Toddler-Sing we checked out of the Library is only an audio CD, or I'd be tempted to return it!(But they better not intentionally be singing off key!)
This is the part where inquiring minds say "post a screen cap" & "post an audio clip"
I'm not so sure about posting a screen cap and audio clip. As a future librarian, I should be concerned about copyright issues. But mostly, I'm concerned about pain and suffering lawsuits if we disseminate it, knowing that injury can occur when you try to gouge out the part of your brain that remembers those freaky babies. But maybe in the process you'll also forget who showed you the babies in the first place, so you won't know where to send the subpoena. Anyway, you asked for it.
PS: If you only have the strength to check out one video clip make sure it's the "Old McDonald" one. It's the best. (And by "best" I mean "worst".)
I think you could get by on the immateriality of the excerpt, as well as the educational factor - but if there will be a lawsuit, make sure you are at the head of the class-action.
Ew. Totally creepy.
I think they've purposely avoided posting clips that involve the off-key baby. The baby always sings a perfect fourth above the melody line. I ask you, how would a baby ALWAYS sing a perfect fourth above the melody line? And now whenever I hear "if you're happy and you know it" I'm going to start singing along a perfect fourth above the melody because my brain has been tricked into thinking it's some perverse harmony!!!
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