Around our house one of the more popular shows of late is The Backyardigans. If you’ve never seen it, it’s a sweet cartoon from the folks at Nickelodeon targeted at 2 to 5-year-olds. A group of talking animal friends use their imaginations to create adventures in far away places right in their own backyard. They sing, the dance, they tell a little story. Some of the tunes are actually pretty catchy. On the scale of annoying kiddie shows it’s about a 6 out of 10 – not nearly as insipid as Barney but not as good as Dora the Explorer. It’s in around Theodore Tugboat territory.
At the beginning of the show we’re introduced to each of our little animal friends. The theme music comes up and each Backyardigan appears to tell us his – or her – name.
“Hi, I’m Pablo.” Blue penquin. Okay. Check.
“My name’s Tyrone.” He’s a moose. Sure.
“I’m Uniqua”. That’s a pink… uhhh…….
“I’m Tasha.” Yellow hippopotamus. Fine. Cruel making a little girl a hippo perhaps, but fine.
“And my name’s Austin.” Kind of a cross between a dog and a kangaroo?
Let’s back it up to the pink one – Uniqua. Granted she’s got an unusual moniker but what really baffles me is… what is it? I can’t figure it out. She’s got pink spots, no discernible nose and two curly protrusions coming out of her head that look like alien antennae. Is she one of those hairless cats? A pig with chicken pox? Alien frog baby, maybe? Here – take a look.
Now I realize that this is akin to those “What is Goofy?” debates (he’s a talking dog. Mickey talks, Donald talks. He’s a dog that talks. Move on.) But I really am at a loss on this one. I’ve actually Googled to try to find out what she could be. Because of the spots I’ve seen it suggested that Uniqua is a ladybug (she’s nowhere near being a leopard, so that’s out) and because of the antennae another suggestion has been an ant. But apparently she’s none of these. Uniqua is, well… a uniqua. She is meant to be totally unique. So, for some reason, while the other four characters on The Backyardigans are recognizable animals this one of the group is a unique, fictitious creature. Why the show’s creators would choose to do this I can only imagine.
Let’s make the characters look like little animal kids!
Okay! But let’s make one of them a little alien-like creature to totally screw up the adults watching!
Perhaps Nickelodeon thought Uniqua would be a nice inherent lesson in the program to teach young kids that we should embrace what makes each of us different or special. Yada yada yada. I’m skeptical that my 2-year-old will get that. All I know is that Pablo is his favourite. So, please, if anyone out there knows someone at Nickelodeon who can shed some light on this, send them my way.
Life in the Crib 