You suck, television.

We've all had to deal with one terrible kiddie show in our lives. As a native of the Chicagoland area, it was always the fare of PBS Channel 11 for me. There is always one show that can be recalled from childhood that you look back years later and wonder why in the hell you enjoyed it so much. For me, though this wasn't on 11, it was "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers," because a) it gave me a love for shitty, badly dubbed kung-fu movies I've never been able to shake and b) you don't realize how much ethnic stereotyping was on that show until you watch it when you're older and jaded. (The Asian girl was the Yellow Ranger? Seriously?) 

However, as the older brother to two younger sisters separated by five years, I've had to endure two generations of crappy family television. (What happened to being raised on "The Goonies"? As I've said before in this column, I don't understand this new world.) First it was "Teletubbies," which was very close to being the subject of this week's column. However, that was trumped by a similar show that came after it, "Boobah." This is what I will be taking a closer look at this week. 

Now, "Boobah" follows a fairly simple premise. Either that, or it's the key to the human genome, the Matrix and what was in the briefcase in "Pulp Fiction." I honestly have no clue. It could veritably go either way. There are these blobs called Boobahs (I think; I'll get to that more in a minute) that bob around this strangely sterile, white space that kind of looks like the spaceship in "2001: A Space Odyssey" or the theoretical space between darkness and light. While they do this, little kids either show videos of them doing assorted things or just kind of talk listlessly, in a really frightening fashion. To give you an idea: 

Snap observation: I'm pretty sure this is what most people see right before they die. 

Now, back to what I was saying earlier. I don't know if these things are actually called Boobahs. I don't know if that's their name, or something those freaky little children chant in the background. They just look like jelly blobs with the eyes of Satan to me. And those kids? I'm sorry, but if I'd watched "Boobah" when I was five years old, this would have scared the living shit out of me. (Of course, I was also afraid of the Little Caesar's mascot, but that's another story for another time.) All the kids do is giggle and chant "Boobah" out of sequence in one of those overly serene voices that you usually only hear out of movie serial killers who turn people into household furniture. 

Another thing that occurred to me only recently is that this show fails a very basic test I've been able to perform on a surprisingly large number of things over the years: If something that's supposed to be basic and easy to comprehend could pass easily as avant-garde cinema, it fails the test. I'm pretty sure somebody could look at "Boobah" and find existential theory relating to the nothingness of being in it, and that irritates me. At least the Teletubbies were just a bunch of sexually ambiguous hill people whose stomachs would show them weird shit periodically. This, on the other hand, somehow manages to be even weirder, even less child-appropriate and, as a segue into my next point, even more practical for substance abuse. 

Going back to my opening statement, we all had that kiddie show growing up. However, when one hits a certain age, one feels compelled to combine their new life with nostalgia. By this, I mean getting completely messed up with the aid of PBR (trying to stay generational here, folks) or something even less legal and watching the things you enjoyed when you were a kid. (I'd personally like to recommend "Space Jam" or anything from the "Mighty Ducks" oevure.)  

However, in the case of "Boobah," even that really doesn't work. The issue is that it's so damn scary that not even substances could aid it. In fact, that'd make it worse, given that I'm pretty sure the creation of the Boobahs had something to due with a man in the seventh hour of an acid trip trying to get some Jello out of his fridge. It's not really funny in any unintentional way, because at the end of the day it looks like one of those Windows Media Player backgrounds, but with creepy little kids, and even that can get monotonous. This definitely ain't no "H.R. Pufnstuf," folks. 

You suck, television.