Irreverent
humor of Nickelodeon program shows youngsters how to cope
with adults
Published
in Entertainment
Weekly
By: Ken Tucker
April 27, 1990
It
always amazes me that lots of parents I know refuse to let
their children watch Pee-wee's Playhouse
(the phrase I hear repeatedly is "He's so creepy"),
yet don't mind at all that their tykes' brains are being rotted
by You Can't Do That on Television.
You
Can't Do That features a mostly kid cast making
smutty jokes in rapid-fire, blackout-sketch style. Here's
a typical exchange from a recent edition:
"Gee,
I really enjoyed those brownies you made."
"You dope - those weren't brownies, that was pig manure!"
You
Can't Do That teems with excrement jokes and
passing-gas jokes and nose-picking jokes; the few adults who
pop up often portray parents who drink too much, slur their
words, and fall down a lot. Don't get me wrong; I'm not one
of those bluenoses who think no one should make jokes about
alcohol; W.C. Fields is the sort of guy I wish my kids watched
more often. And I like a good bathroom joke as much as the
next fellow, but the operative word here is "good."
The
cast of You Can't Do That seems
to think that merely by invoking a bowel movement, a great
witticism has been made. Created and written by grown-up humorist
Roger Price and performed by a stock company of perfectly
competent teens and pre-teens, You Can't Do That
seems to think that the only humor kids like is
bathroom humor, an attitude that is condescending. There's
a sense in which I want to like You Can't Do That,
because it's so gleefully vulgar, so unlike all the pious,
proscriptive junk that passes for children's programming these
days. But between the stupid jokes and the show's format -
a tired rip-off of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In
and Monty Python's Flying Circus
- it's all just too depressing. Too, in fact, creepy.
While
I'd never say that they shouldn't be allowed to do that on
television, I wish they wouldn't.
