Let The Edu-Tainment Begin!

 I've watched a lot of educational content in my 21 years on this planet, mostly due to not being one of the kids who could afford cable. Sure I still had my Spongebob fix (I was more of a "Yo Gabba Gabba" person though) through DVDS I would rent from the library. But a good 95% of my TV time came from UNC-TV. I don't feel like the channel needs an introduction, but for those who don't hail from the Carolinas or just "The South" in general, UNC-TV is North Carolina's local PBS Kids station. Like every station, there are two channels. A channel that would have PBS in the mornings and early afternoon, which would later switch to normal PBS content in the late afternoon and evening for the parents, and you have the 24\7 kids channel for the little ones. And unlike most stations, UNC had a MASCOT. That being "Read A Roo."

Read-A-Roo was (and still is) the mascot for UNC-TV and the UNC-TV's Just For Kids (now Rootle) block. Like the title suggests, this friendly kangaroo was to promote and encourage kids to go to their local library and explore the world of books (good luck trying to convey that message to this generation's 
IPad Kids). UNC has gone above and beyond to milk this marsupial for all she's worth through various events, bumpers, meet and greets, etc. Even going as far as to make an educational special about the value of nutrition! Which is the topic of today's blog.

the 2010s were the start of the "childhood obesity epidemic" and the concerns of parents fought tooth and nail to have schools remove foods like pizza and hot dogs from their menu and substitute them with healthy alternatives like fruits, veggies, etc. Former first lady, Michelle Obama stepped in to enforce a healthy eating initiative that required schools to change their menus. I'm not sure if this affected all schools because my public school still had the (un)healthy food options available at the time, and I was only 5 years old when Obama was first elected and sworn into office. Since then, educational shows are now obligated to have at least ONE episode dedicated to this topic and has hammered this message so far into the ground that it has almost reached China at this point. So in 2012, UNC-TV decided to make a 28 minute special dedicated to nutrition.

"Let's Go Shopping With Read-A-Roo" was, like I just stated, a near half hour special teaching the kiddies about eating healthy. I recall seeing several bumpers with the theme song of the same name that would play in between shows. And since I was around 8 or 9 when this special came out, I wasn't a big fan of the song, but man can it be quite the earworm. Surprisingly enough though, I had no clue this was an actual special until just recently! So I did my research and discovered that you can still watch it on UNC-TV's website! Which you can watch HERE

The special starts with Read-A-Roo, you guessed it, reading a book. But then, she starts to feel hungry and goes to her kitchen to find something to eat. Just then, her...I guess "caretaker" Miss Joy enters and starts up a conversation with Miss Roo. Read-A-Roo explains that she's hungry (through body language and thought bubbles since the character in this special is portrayed through a fursuit) and is craving things like pizza and hamburgers (don't tempt me.) Miss Joy suggests they go grocery shopping so they can make a nice lunch. Roo agrees and it's off to the grocery store. FUN FACT: The grocery store segments were filmed at a store called "Earth Fare" in Raleigh NC. Unfortunately, we lived nowhere near Raleigh, so 9 year old me had no knowledge of this store existing. But from what I can gather, it's basically just North Carolina's equivalent to "Whole Foods." 

Read-A-Roo and Miss Joy start shopping and quickly run into some original muppet characters in the produce aisle. These two characters being Norm, an elderly man working as a store clerk (I'm guessing this is a post-retirement job) and Miss Peppers, another clerk who just LOVES produce. Even bragging about her garden and condemning junk food. Miss Joy and Miss Peppers are quick to form a conversation about how some schools have removed things like vending machines and soda fountains entirely and have started to promote healthy eating habits. All the while Read-A-Roo daydreams about having a slice of pizza. Miss Joy ends the conversation by saying she needs to get back to shopping, only for Miss Peppers to whisk her away into the rest of the produce section. A shopping montage ensues. 

Later on, Read-A-Roo runs into two more muppets, but instead of workers, these would be other animal shoppers. A monkey named Melvin and a pink bunny named Bentley. Melvin and Bentley serve as the mandatory comic relief characters in this special who fight over "which is better: carrots or bananas?" And I have an easy answer for you: carrots. This scene is really nothing special as it's just them talking to Read-A-Roo about produce, and the occasional self promo for UNC-TV. After that, our first of MANY song segments plays. This segment would be the "Let's Go Shopping" song, and you'd better get used to it because I counted this song being played 3 more times in this special. You bet I muted my speaker for those parts. 

After that, Miss Joy and Miss Roo are at the checkout line. Another store clerk who goes unnamed talks about her son, Brian and how much the both of them LOVE eating healthy. The cashier goes on a massive ego trip about how she "used to have bad eating habits" and how she "went cold turkey" after realizing how bad binging excessive amounts of food can affect you. Allow me to give some advice: going cold turkey is never a good idea no matter what it is you're trying to wean off of. The clerk then tells our duo about how the store has an all new scanner that detects if an item is healthy or unhealthy and begins scanning the items. Almost everything rings up as healthy until the final item, a bottle of "Yellow Rage" soda is scanned and is detected to be unhealthy. Read-A-Roo explains that she thought it was healthy because it was lemon flavored (rookie mistake) only to get chastised by the unnamed clerk for making the cardinal sin of not checking the labels and going on yet ANOTHER tangent about how she used to drink 4 cans of soda a day (you get the point). Once THAT's over, Joy takes the bag of groceries and she and Roo leave the store. You know what time it is? SONG TIME! This was yet another "Let's Go Shopping" song, this time, featuring the unnamed clerk and Brian. These songs are only heightening my craving for a good bacon bleu burger right about now. 

For our final segment, Miss Joy invites a French chef (because clearly the Swedish Chef was busy that day) to make a delicious meal with the groceries she picked out that day. One thing I noticed is that there's almost NOTHING other than fruits and veggies. Not dairy, no wheat, all greens. Ok, I'm kind of overselling it. The Chef does have SOME roughage on hand to make a veggie pizza, but only whole wheat alternatives. I will hand it to him by saying that the pizza did look quite appetizing. Then he tries to sell Read-A-Roo on trying a veggie burger as an alternative to those awful hamburgers because moderation is NOT an option in this universe. And to cap it off, we have, you guessed it, another damn song. This time it's a pallet cleanser where the chef gets a number of his own! What a sigh of relief.

The special ends with all our characters enjoying a healthy feast followed by a recap of what the viewers at home learned in the last 26 minutes. Followed by a reprise of "Let's Go Shopping" because clearly they haven't hammered the song into our heads enough.

So what did I, the UNT-TV pioneer think of this special? Ehhhhhh.... Obviously, I'm 2 decades past the target demographic, but come on, do they really think kids are THAT dumb? Even I felt like I was being treated like a moron. And that should really say something when even the adults feel offended. To sum it up, it's clear that the production team's hearts were in the right place, but the execution was terrible. They only focused on two of the 5 food groups, threw in self promos when they couldn't think of anything else, and took every chance to shame Read-A-Roo for wanting a slice of pizza. All I could think of during the checkout scene was "Just let the kangaroo have her pizza!" Overall, I'd give this a pass.

Here are some sketches I drew while I watched the special.