Photo by Jon W. Sparks
Gudetama, the mopey egg, is strangely entertaining.
There is that moment during parenthood when you realize you will have to make room for the entertainment being enjoyed by your children.
I tried mightily to influence my kids with some culture of my choosing (“That’s Rimsky-Korsakov!” and “Oh, look at the Romare Bearden!”), but eventually they learn how to work the remote. And then it’s literally out of your hands.
I tried, years ago, to finesse my daughter’s requests (demands) to watch Pokémon: The First Movie. She insisted since I had expected her to thrill to my readings of Emily Dickinson, even when I sang all of Emily’s poems to the tune of the theme from Gilligan’s Island. It was never going to be as funny to my daughter as it was to me, but fair is fair.
For the grownup, the agony is in actually sitting and watching a Pokémon movie because you will not be allowed to so much as look away from the TV. No checking messages or sneaking a peek at a magazine. You must participate with eyes glued to the screen. Yet whatever charms the franchise holds for kiddos is devoid of anything interesting to adults — no clever references, no cool animation, no music you can dance to. So, you settle in and do it.
Pokémon’s allure passes, but soon enough, your children will move on and build up their own likes and influences, and you’ll do your share of worrying about this band and those lyrics (shades of Tipper Gore) as the youngsters construct their own generational playlists. Then when they get married and start having children, you’ll watch as your kids try to do what you did with them. Of course, this is a different millennium, so where I was championing Bach to my offspring, my son is serving up this musical group Babymetal to my granddaughters.
And I’m OK with that. Babymetal is a duo (or trio or whatever) of Japanese kawaii girls prancing, singing, and doing karate moves on stage (Elvis influence?) as the backing band grinds out some serviceable thrashy arrangements of tunes with titles like “Gimme Chocolate!!” And they’re so cute! You’ll doubt me, naturally, so I call on cultural tastemaker Rob Zombie to testify: “Leave it to the Japanese to find a way to make [expletive deleted] death metal cute. But it was awesome. And the crowd was going [expletive deleted] ape[expletive deleted]. It’s totally worth watching; it’s so good.”
But the true test is when your grandchildren choose various videos, of which there are zillions in 2023, from YouTube to Netflix and beyond. The little one delights in almost everything, and she wants to see everything as well. “Play that!” she’ll say every two minutes, pointing to the YouTube list of videos related to whatever we’re watching. She loves Halloween and Christmas stories and songs, so who am I to object?
The older grand has been finding some amazing shows, and thank goodness animation and entertainment content has been improving greatly in the past few years. Not so long ago, we watched Steven Spielberg’s An American Tale, a 1986 animated story about an immigrant mouse, and the animation — presumably good for the time — was not aging well. Nowadays, the graphics are stunning and the stories go in some, well, interesting directions.
My most recent favorite is the Japanese show Gudetama, which chronicles the ongoing adventures of a bored, directionless chicken egg. If I had been charged with coming up with a concept that was thoroughly uninteresting, it would be this. It’s a sad-faced yolk with a yellow butt that uses its egg white as something of a prop, employs bacon strips as blankets, reluctantly puts up with an energetic chick, and likes to guzzle drops of soy sauce.
Wait, I haven’t sold you on it yet? I’ll just say that my 9-year-old granddaughter, the one who has deep theories of time and enjoys drawing pictures of Saturn (the rings are a fun challenge), introduced it to me and we both love it. Perhaps you just need to plop in front of the TV (it’s on Netflix) and watch how this ultimate anti-hero moans and complains its way through life. It’s no Hello Kitty, but it’s also no Pokémon. Thank goodness.