Gearhead Mom

Monday, February 09, 2009

Fetch!

Posted by Gwen R. @ 1:18 PM

Ed. Note: My kids are still so sick. Blech. Thankfully my sister saved the day yet again. Thanks for the review, sissy!

My daughter T started spontaneously speaking in an Australian accent last night at bedtime. “Hey Mawm…I’d rAlly like to go to AusTawliaa,” she tells me, at 8:45pm.  Since, to my knowledge, she’s never met anyone from Down Under, this surprised me.  “Are you studying Australia in school?” I ask naively.  ‘No, Mom” (‘duh’ was implied), “I learned about it on Fetch!” 

I should have known.  SO many exchanges like this are answered that same way.  The PBS television show Fetch! With Ruff Ruffman seems to be contributing way more to my daughter’s education than anything else.  Does this mean I’m a bad mother?

We don’t watch a lot of television.  I swear.  My daughter is actually conflict adverse so very early we were turning off Mr. Rogers anytime he sent the trolley into the Land of Make Believe (way too much conflict in the world of Daniel Tiger).  But Fetch, Fetch is cool.

If you aren’t familiar with Fetch it is a show modeled along the lines of its WGBH predecessor Zoom! (1972-1978 and again from 1999-2005) where charming, articulate kids do interesting things.  Like the more familiar Zoom, Fetch encourages the kids to work in teams, learn things about science, translate codes, and generally use their brains to solve problems.  Unlike Zoom, gone are the reader letters, the painful singing and dancing, and the matching outfits. 

The thing that elevates Fetch above ‘normal’ children’s programming is Ruff Ruffman, the irreverent host/star/personality who ties the show together.  The hook, though – Ruff Ruffman is a dog.  An animated dog.  That’s right.  We’ve got a reality, sort-of game show for children, hosted by an animated dog with an ironic, caustic sensibility.  Does it get better than that?

I have to admit, I’m not really sure what it is about the show that T likes so much, but like it she does.  And, as long as I’m being honest, I have no idea what they were doing with Australian accents (personally, I have a Fetch! quota and I hit is somewhere in season 2).  But in just the last few weeks, we’ve seen a two-part episode where the kids learn to drive a dog sled (T frequently practices the sled-dog commands on our confused border collie), another where they design and test a roller coaster (we’ve built lots of replicas), and countless other challenges including trapeze flying, cooking, sports, hip-hop, video, and scavenger hunts. 

As a bonus for the parent who doesn’t like reruns: there are a LOT of episodes.  The first three season have a remarkable 30 episodes each, so even before the fourth season starts (it has already been cast and will air starting in May, ’09), you’ve already got NINETY episodes to watch.  If you don’t do the television thing, it is also available as a podcast. (my ipod has numerous episodes on it for emergencies).

With all of these good features, it is one of a very few programs that I feel good about T watching.  What I didn’t realize until recently, though, is that she doesn’t watch it, she studies.  And why?  She wants to BE a Fetcher.  We looked it up and learned that this year’s auditions were held in mid-January which was a mini-tragedy until we learned you also have to be 10-14 (and in Boston, but that part was trivial to her).  “Well,” T said, “I guess I have three years to study!”  There could be worse goals, right?

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