DANIEL TIGER'S NEIGHBORHOOD
A review by: James Best, full-time parent and part-time man
DISCLAIMER: Let’s assume I don’t know this came from Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood and all the characters are homages to puppets and characters he created. Let’s just assume I sat down having no prior knowledge and experienced this show for the first time. As some parents probably will.
PEOPLE PROBLEMS
First off, what’s going on with the animal/human mixing
in this town? We have anthropomorphic tigers,
cats, and owls and then a bunch of human royalty. Let's just gloss over the fact that the only black man in the town doesn't even have a name. It's just Music Man. And then there's Mr.
McFeely.
His name is Mr. Mc-Feely.
In this day and age, maybe we don’t name the Postman who hangs with the
kids Mr. “Mcfeely”. (Again, I know the reference.) Would you take your kid to a teacher named Mr.
Grabs or Ms. Badtouch? No. The parents of this town need to get a new
postman or pool their money to get his name legally changed. Mr. McPostman would work. Or Dave.
Now the animal people wouldn’t be bad if it was
consistent. If they were all animal
people or all people people. But the mix
is off-putting. Especially because of the
varying clothing rules. Tigers and Cats
go topsies only. Owls go buck
apparently. Do you know what is cute? Owls in swim shorts. Picture it. And you're loving it and I'm not wrong.
Also, Daniel the tiger boy has a pet fish. Which means there’s a weird hierarchy in the
animal kingdom. The pantless
human/animal hybrids dominate the weaker non-jacket wearers. The Tiger family are oppressors. They're keeping the other animals down. All their words are lies.
CRAZY TOWN
So the theme song says we’re riding along with Daniel in his
make-believe world. So is the town
make-believe or is it real? Because it’s
got a lot of problems up front.
1.
ROYALTY – Prince Wednesday lives with his
brother, Prince Tuesday and their ancient dad, King Friday and his lady, Queen
Sara Saturday. The only thing I can
assume in this name/day progression is that there was a Princess Sunday and Monday but they’ve been exiled
or beheaded.
So the town’s governed by a monarchy? That’s
bullcrap. If I was a tiger family, I would eat those dudes and take over the
castle. How does that town even support
a castle? There’s like five businesses.
2.
BUSINESSES - This town must exist on an outside customer base. It’s like a tourist town. The Post Office and
School are government run so basically the whole town’s economic structure is a
Museum, Music Shop, and a Bakery run by a dude named Baker Aker who is
obviously in the Witness Protection Program. He’s living in make believe if he
doesn’t think the mob is going to track him down with a stupid name like that.
3.
TROLLEY – Have you seen the size of the town?
I’ve seen dollhouses that need more public transportation. That trolley is killing the town revenue. The
King is running this place into the ground.
The Princes need to get their patricide on and get some franchises in
there. Then Daniel could have an episode
trying to talk Bill the Sad Applebee’s Manager off the castle wall. It would be classic.
Yeah, it’s a great show and
teaches lots of values but the elements are weird. I always want Daniel to slash one of the
Princes and yell, “You think you’re better than me?!” And why does O the Owl live with his uncle X
the Owl? What happened to his
parents? Were they gunned down Batman
style? I hope so. That town needs some vigilante justice. And by “town” I mean Mr. Mcfeely. Because that dude is the neighborhood villain. I haven't seen the whole first season, but I'm sure that the's cliffhanger.
