I’ve often written here how difficult it is to be able to sit down in front of the television with my kids. There’s just so much inappropriate stuff out there on television and the commercials can be even worse. It’s gotten so bad that I can hardly watch football because the ads are so bad.
So any attempt to ameliorate the cesspool of nightly television I’m all for it.
Walmart and P&G are kickstarting “Family Movie Night” on NBC. And they say they’re even making sure that the commercials are appropriate for the entire family.
So I’m game for it. I doubt these movies are great classics or anything but it’s the kind of thing I can watch with my kids. And I want to encourage television networks to air these kinds of things more often so that’s why I’m putting it out there. I figure if I’m going to complain about all the garbage that’s out there I should probably speak up for the good stuff as well.
I did a short interview with one of the stars of the movie Nathan Kress (who is a big star on Nickelodeon) who told me he was glad to be part of “something wholesome.”
Nathan seemed like a decent kid to me if you can guess anything from a few minutes on the phone.
He said, “TV and the internet are so prevalent. That’s what kids spend much of their time on. If there’s content we can generate, for parents and kids today, and make it enteraining with a positive message I think that’s great.”
Friday night, NBC is airing Game of Your Life at 8 p.m. with Lea Thompson (who oddly looks just about exactly the same as she did twenty years ago) and Nathan Kress.
Hopefully, it does well in the ratings and maybe some television execs will pay attention and start putting more stories on the air that aren’t completely offensive. Maybe.
December 2, 2011 at 2:18 am
That's great news. Hopefully by the time my kids are big enough to sit through a movie without climbing the curtains, there will be much more family-friendly TV on. We'll see if I even survive the Barney/Sesame/Caillou years, first… (that was a silent cry for help)
December 2, 2011 at 12:40 pm
I wish I could trust them on the commercial thing. Someone report back on that.
December 2, 2011 at 3:40 pm
I'm sure it'll do FANTASTICALLY well. Because as all we all know, what people want to do on a Friday night is watch watered-down "wholesome" entertainment written with intellectual deficients in mind.
December 2, 2011 at 11:12 pm
Why do people say "Family friendly" when they really mean "Child friendly?" My wife and I are a family, and we have no children. TV shows with adult topics are certainly Family Friendly in MY family. Words matter. I have a family. It just does not contain children.
December 5, 2011 at 7:28 am
Well, second-to-last anonymous, if the works are for intellectual deficients, why don't you like them? I mean, simply signing into a combox—the basics of the basics of netiquette—appears to have overtaxed your powers of thought.
Last anonymous, a couple is not a family. That's why we have two different words for them. I know, it's really complicated. I do, however, laud your decision not to inflict your legacy on future generations.
December 5, 2011 at 8:39 pm
In the theaters now- "HUGO"- we really enjoyed it- be warned, though- it is rather slow
Sophia's Favorite- a married couple IS a FAMILY- multiple Church documents develop this idea
but anonymous- "family friendly' is just an easy shorthand to say child friendly- but you could think of it as 'friendly enough to sit down with mom and others' 🙂
December 13, 2011 at 7:42 pm
PW, I disagree. family friendly is not a shorthand for child friendly. It has more letters, many more syllables and means something else. It's my bete noire, so thanks for indulging me, but it irks me when people dont say what they mean. Especially in this day and age when the term family friendly is often used as an attack against gay couples.
As for Sophia: wow. take a tranquilizer. and get a dictionary.