It Seems...I Don't Know. Upside Down Perhaps.

This morning, having dealt with an extremely uncooperative toddler and busted my hand in a ridiculous fall, I was at wit's end and used the television to distract the Moose so I could get him dressed and brush his teeth in the seven minutes we had before we had to leave. I flipped on PBS Kids, where the Moose happily (and more important, quietly) watched Curious George. This was great, except I'm again really tired, and despite promising myself that I would stop over thinking children's television, thus avoiding the dark places it tend to lead me, I just couldn't help it today.

So, here's the thing - like half the episodes of Curious George deal with...I don't know, Curious George stuff. You know, he finds out about working in a kitchen (because apparently the New York health inspectors are cool with primates hanging around while you're making lasagna) or gardening or frogs or something. Normal stuff like you would expect from reading the books.

Then we have episodes like today's. The man in the yellow hat (who despite taking care of George has never earned the right to an actual name) is going to space to repair a satellite. I'm never sure what his actual job is, but whatever. Well, it turns out that the spaceship designers forgot to make the door open from the outside, so now they have to send George so he can open the door after the man's spacewalk. Umm...okay. Not sure I would want my life put in hands that were most likely flinging poo an hour ago, but whatever.

Okay, so now George and the man are out in space, and the time comes to leave the ship and do the repair. The man attempts to tether himself to the ship, and lo and behold, the thing that holds the tether to his suit breaks. Having now established that the people driving the space program are hacks, the decision comes through that always gets to me: Let the monkey do it.

They do this all the time. They find some situation where things go awry, and they need someone tiny to step up and fix it (apparently because someone washed all the spacesuits/aqua gear/portals in hot water). We lost a computer full of critical data at the bottom of the ocean? Send the monkey. We need someone to break into Langley and get the NOC list? Send the monkey. Someone has discovered a bomb in the President's colon, and we only have fifteen minutes to diffuse it? Send the monkey, and give him a pair of wire cutters.

You get the idea.

I guess my concern is that, even with my profound respect for monkeys, every episode I watch seems to hit a point where I'm talking to the television. "Dude, you're going to send a monkey?" If it was an emergency banana retrieval I would understand, but it seems to me in most of these cases they would be able to find someone a little more qualified. I suppose that once again, this is the reason you don't see me writing for Hollywood.

Not many kids would tune in to watch Curious George Watches a Midget Take Care Of Stuff.