Who'd like to nominate their worst heart-sinking dismal crappy plotline in a children's book or TV series?

[BalloonSlayer]

You know the sort where you wonder who, just WHO are they employing to come up with these things, and you seethe because you could do SO much better AND you would be able to call yourself "a writer" at parties and people would be all impressed and that.

My nominees are.

Little Red Tractor video.

The TV breaks down. So two ADULTS decide that what they'll do instead is put on a show.

Yeah. Because when our TV breaks down, DH and I reject all of the following potential courses of action:

• Getting out the one from the other room
• Calling a repair man
• Going to Tescos to get another one
• Reading a book
• Having a conversation
• Having sex*

In favour of singing and dancing for each other, perhaps even juggling.

Please, has anyone ever in the history of history put on a show because their telly won't work?

• Disclaimer. The children might have been wanting to watch telly in this episode so maybe sex is not a suitable option in this case

Nominee Two

Thomas the Tank Engine Book - Jeremy (the Jet Engine)

"The Children" - that amorphous mass who must never be disappointed on the Island of Sodor - are having a picnic. Oh NO - it starts to rain!! The picnic will be RUINED! Does anyone say "Oh it's nowt but a bit of rain, it won't kill you." ? Of course not. It's a disaster.

Thomas steams to the rescue. Good old Thomas! What does he do? Takes them to Jeremy's hangar and they have their picnic in there.

So on what planet is having a picnic in an aircraft hangar a) safe or b) pleasurable? Why can't they eat their sandwiches in the train?

I take my DCs on days out and pay good money for them to eat their lunch in the carriage of a steam train.

Further nominations welcome.

The entire Disney oeuvre?

That utterly strange episode of Thomas where Henry refuses to go out in the rain because it might spoil his paint. He hides in a tunnel and refuses to come out. The Fat Controller is summoned and Stern Words are had.

...and then!!! - they brick up the tunnel with him in it and leave him in there, and someone else does the job Henry was wanted for...and that's the end of the episode. With Henry still in the tunnel. Gazing hopelessly out over the top of the brick wall.

Then there is at least one more episode where Henry is still quite visibly shut up in the tunnel, peering out at everyone as they go about their Sodorish business.

As if that wasn't bad enough, in the end Henry is finally let out, and his paint is all ruined and destroyed and his boiler is broken, or something similarly horrible, and he is generally a shadow of the engine he used to be.

I have heard it said that in the original books, Rev Awdry was planning to never let Henry out of the tunnel, but was instead going to leave him in there to rot, as some sort of permanent Awful Warning of the perils of vanity. Fortunately someone at the publishers had the spooky, almost psychic feeling that this would scare the shit out of everyone not go down well, and insisted that Henry be freed.

Maybe in Sodor it rains super-concentrated sulphuric acid?

I realised we have the henry in the tunnel book the other day.

[dies a little inside]

The plotline that is any self respecting preschoolers programme where one character gets the hiccups and the whole episode is spent trying to find a cure and then 'hilariously' the ending is some other character gets the hiccups 'oh no'.
Boring and pointless and seems to be a plotline in every show I see

tale of Jemima puddle-duck www.beatrix-potter-figurines.com/tales-of-beatrix-potter/jemima-puddle-duck.

Basically, her eggs get eaten cos she is a 'bad sitter'/shit mum.

sorry
try again

Or anything where someone can't do something 'because she is a girl' and then ho-ho, turns out to actually be better than the crappy boy (Barnaby Bear?). Don't put those ideas in my dc's head's please...

There's another Thomas book (don't think it was ever made into an episode as it doesn't feature the core characters - Very Old Engines I think) where an engine does something stupid and breaks down, is shut up in a shed and then cannibalised

Not exactly on these lines but thinking about when Pippin and owner went to a poo factory still makes me giggle.

'Here's where your poo comes, children.'

I wonder if children - as they smile and dribble - are actually thinking: 'Good grief - this isn't exactly Shakespeare..still the poor dear thinks it what I want so I'll just keep on grinning....but's where is the character development, the foreshadowing of events? Juice pweeezz mummy!'

Ok, maybe this is the time to admit I have pretended the tv was broken and put on a little show for DCs (until they decided it wor crap and went off to do something else.

Never took them on a sightseeing trip to a poo farm though.

Oh yes balamory where all the adults have time to run around doing silly tasks for miss hooley instead of working and the community revolves round the nursery - older children don't get a look in..

Max and Ruby, Charlie and Lola etc. where the older sibling basically does the parents job for them. so the only plotline is that it is a child helping the younger one to get washed / dressed / bake a cake / go to bed etc.

the rainbow fairy/princess poppy etc etc etc

Anything ever where they wake up and it was all a dream. Michael fecking morpurgo, this means you too. Bloody lazy, imho.

Any children's story where the villain repents in the light of our hero/heroine's goodness and becomes all sweetness and light by final chapter. BLEURGGGHHHH! I always want the villains to stay as bad as your hat to the bitter end and receive a slow, painful death ....

The black dog, by Pamela Allen. A girl lives in a cottage in the woods with her best friend dog. She becomes obsessed with a mystical bird she sees in a tree and neglects the dog. So he hurls himself from the tree. The book says she then runs to him and feels his racing heart but ds is coninced the dog is dead and he does look dead in the picture. WTF is that about for a children's book?

Watching Charlie and Lola brought back repressed trauma. Poor old Charlie is essentially required to mould his own life and personality to suit his spoilt, prissy, IRRITATING little sister's quirks and foibles.

DS and I look back with a bit of fondness at the Pippin/poofarm episode. Also the one when the streetlight broke down and the man had to come and fix it.

Any Power Rangers books. "MegaZord to the max, dude." etc etc. Every single plot involves megazording!
I would rather read Noddy, and that's saying something!
Praise the Lord for Mick Inkpen - he has saved bedtime reading.

There's one David McKee book called Three Monsters. Basically one of them, the shiftiest, meanest one, has the yellow skin, black plait down his back, and asian eyes. It was like going back fifty years. I'm convinced the last page was missing because it made no sense at all.
I'd bought it as a gift for someone but couldn't give it because it was so racist.

"That utterly strange episode of Thomas where Henry refuses to go out in the rain because it might spoil his paint. He hides in a tunnel and refuses to come out. The Fat Controller is summoned and Stern Words are had.

...and then!!! - they brick up the tunnel with him in it"

It's like an adaptation of "The Cask of Amontillado" for toddlers .

I will nominate "The Little MatchGirl" and "The Brave Tin Soldier." Both utterly miserable and pointless.

I can't think of any specific ones off the top of my head - but would like to nominate almost the entire stock of independent reader boxsets in the school I work. They are dismal. The only 2 that are any good at all are Stig of the Dump and The Secret Garden.