An Excursion into YouTube: Stories and Scribbles
In a multilateral era, I have to share control of the remote...
When I decided to start writing about children’s TV, it was attractive because I had spent a couple of years firmly in charge of the remote, watching TV with toddlers. I wanted to see if I could still string a sentence together, but not to do any actual extra reporting or research work (I do totally know how to do those things, honest). It didn’t occur to me, at the time, that in fact the sun was setting on my era of total remote domination, and I was about to move into a co-operative, multilateral age of “the twins have opinions too.”
This has led to less of my beloved linear TV, and more streaming and YouTube. YouTube obviously has its ups and downs, but there’s some stuff on there which is absolutely delightful, so let’s talk about a couple of things we’ve ended up watching.
You, and Me, and the Kidtime Family
Kidtime Storytime is a YouTube channel with a million subscribers run by “Storyteller” and her sidekick, “off-screen technical genius.” She reads books out loud. That’s it. However, unlike the calm, gentle pacing of the Cbeebies bedtime story, which we have already discussed at length, these stories are manic. Storyteller is “assisted” by an array of puppets who interrupt, talk back, and constantly distract her. The energy is cranked up to maximum. Even her nails are loud, adorned with day-glo manicures that match the book’s theme. It is a lot. But the twins (OK, one twin in particular) love it.
There are many impressive things about Kidtime Storytime. For a start, the sheer number of books she’s read: there’s more than a thousand videos on there. Next, the way they’re categorised, so you can go find them by subject (think “school life” or “monsters”) if you want a particular type of book. She takes particular delight in the “don’t do X to Y” format, which I personally don’t enjoy reading, so it’s great to outsource that task. Finally… the puppets.
Look, I absolutely love puppets. I was on the Big Breakfast once as a teenager, and seeing Zig and Zag in person was a highlight. Mongrels is still the best thing that’s ever been on BBC3. We went to the panto in Bromley a couple of years ago and Baron Hardup’s ventriloquist act had everyone in stitches. The highlight of Croydon Harvest Festival? Plucky, the giant chicken, and the fox on a lime scooter. Puppets are cheeky, puppets are subversive, it’s all pretty Freudian on some level, probably, but they crack me up. I wrote last time about how I hate Messy from Okido, but if he were a puppet, I’d love him.
Storyteller’s use of puppets is both unconventional and effective. I don’t think she’d be offended if I said she’s not much of an actual puppeteer – they are basically toys she waves around under a rostrum camera, rather than some Jim Henson-esque articulated construction. But she is good at doing silly voices, and using the toys to ask questions, reflect on the books, and have some emotionally mature conversations about feelings. Most importantly, they make my children cackle with glee. Many an awkward moment has been defused round here by saying “BAT BURRITO” in a gravelly voice. So that’s great.
Scrub that Idea
Sometimes, I am too slow with the remote, and the algorithm takes over. That’s how we ended up watching Scribble Scrubbies, a series of short animations designed to promote Crayola’s toy line of the same name. We’ve talked about toy tie-in cartoons before, and how awful they are, but Scribble Scrubbies is weirdly fascinating. I’ve watched a good hour of it (that’s a lot, given the episodes are 4 minutes each) and I still can’t decide whether it's incoherent trash, or a work of misunderstood genius created by rejects from the SNL writers’ room.
A Scribble Scrubbie, I now know, is a small white plastic toy that you can endlessly re-colour in with felt tips, before washing it off in a cute little plastic bath. The Scrubbie is, if you will, a tabula rasa upon which the child’s will can be endlessly exercised. The writers take full advantage of this, and whenever anything resembling a plot point approaches, a real, live-action child simply lifts them out of the cartoon, scribbles them into the appropriate outfit, then puts them back in to continue the narrative. The stories, naturally, are set in a modern-day version of the classic Hollywood studio era, complete with crazy bosses, forgotten backlots and costume departments.
There are Easter Eggs for grown-ups (get to 7.40 and tell me that’s not a Scribble Scrubbie dressed up as Artpop-era Lady Gaga). There is constant breaking of the fourth wall. The girls like it, but… well, they also like VIP Pets. I don’t even know if you can buy the toys in this country.
A Treasure Trove of Classics
But how did we end up on YouTube in the first place, you ask? Because there’s loads of old children’s TV on there. We were looking for Numberjacks, which I’ll talk about another time, but as an archive it’s unbeatable. I need a project over the summer holidays, so tell me about your 80s/90s/00s favourites below and we can dig them out and have a look.
Just make sure you steer them away from unboxing videos: there is only one that’s worth watching, it’s one minute and forty seconds long, and it’s here. And if you do see something dodgy, report it.
BAT BURRITO!!!
*Full disclosure, I have done work for Google, which owns YouTube. Look at all the people I’ve done work for, in fact, why not hire me? Ideally in September ;)