I wanted to find something that I couldn’t watch the whole of, and there were plenty of opportunities – but something that I noticed with almost every one of the selections was that they were all based around a toy or game. There was other ones like Spongebob which was original when it came out, but the LEGO Ninjago and Beyblade shows raised a bit more suspicion. I watched a few episodes from both of these shows, as well as the Super Mario Bros. Super Show (which I never remember being so awful) and it’s safe to say that these are just overblown ads, or as I'll refer to them, "mega-adverts".
What’s even funnier is that these were both very successful. The LEGO series has a third season in production as well as a feature-length film, and the Beyblade series ran for 3 seasons before dying out, then being revived over the past two years. The subliminal messaging in Beyblade is also laid on very thick – characters saying “Wow, I’d sure love to get my hands on THAT beyblade!” at least once or twice an episode, and even a sequence in which an announcer points into the ‘camera’ to address a large stadium and shouts something along the lines of “and YOU could be here too with your own beyblade!” .
As I scrolled through the other TV shows on offer, I only found more and more reasons to believe that companies are choosing children as the easiest way to get tons of money. Adverts during breaks in programs normally are only shown once every 15 or so minutes. By the time the children see the advert again, their attention span would have lapsed enough to forget it or ignore it. By making the entire program an advert the childrens’ attention will be entirely on the show – I remember always ignoring the adverts when watching some Tom and Jerry.
Unlike Beyblade, however, the Ninjago series has a running storyline which spans the entirety of 13 episodes and cleverly finishes on cliffhangers each time – to make sure they see how the story ends, children will tune in each week. And the fact that this happens means that children will be discussing the week’s episode at school, similar to how I remember always discussing the week’s Doctor Who or how the girls would talk about X Factor or I’m A Celebrity. This only reinforces their need to watch the next episode and their love of the show overall – and should a company put an advert for their product during the advert break for the show of that product, then children will notice it, go “Oh look, it’s Beyblade!” and pester their parents until they buy £50’s worth of toys which they can play with while the show is on.
But is it wrong to exploit children in this way? I believe not. In watching some of the shows, I admit that I actually enjoyed the LEGO show, as clichéd and simple as it was. The Beyblade show and The Super Mario Bros. Super Show were idiotic and rubbish (although the latter had the wrestler Lou Albano playing Mario, which was hilarious), but as I stated in my The Last Airbender ‘appreciation’ I absolutely love the Sonic the Hedgehog SatAM show (which is actually advertising a comic series rather than the games) for its excellent characters and surprisingly deep and emotional plot with themes of death and challenging the definition of freedom.
I think that these “mega-adverts” are the future of children’s broadcasting – it’s the most sensible option for making large profits, but with a rising crowd of decent-quality mega-adverts it’s possible that originality could overtake them at some point. Even if this doesn’t happen, mega-adverts have, in essence, no power – it’s up to the parent what the child does or doesn’t get, so unless adults get hooked on the shows there shouldn’t be much of a problem here.
But then comes the bronies...
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