An Open Letter to the Easily Offended
Dear Reader,
You have told us, “You guys don’t get it. Kids shows are for KIDS, not adults!” We agree. Actually, we have nothing against the makers of Teletubbies, Santa Buddies, or Oobi. They are fine people, I am sure. We don’t begrudge them for making money on their creations. Would we sacrifice our shame for big bucks?
Welcome back to How Annoying Is It! After a much longer than anticipated hiatus, we are happy to finally unveil our new site features! Our main goal was to get you, the readers, to join us in the conversation. We are doing that through user reviews (which now include TOYS!), a better rating system, and an individual rating system. All of these upgrades, we think, will seriously enhance the usability and fun of the site. So take a look around and join the conversation!
User Generated Reviews!
User Reviews are common online, whether it’s the latest novel on Amazon, or the new trendy restaurant on YELP. But never in the history of Blogging have user generated reviews come to the world of Children’s Entertainment Over Analyzation (CEOA). Today, that changes.
Here’s how it will work. You will choose a category to write a review (Movies, TV Shows, or Toys & Other Things). From there, you will register with a username and email address. It only takes a second, and we won’t be giving out nobody’s email addresses. People who do that are headachy at least… Anyway, then you can plug in some fun, easy information for the Box Score (stuff like “Three Word Description,” and an Infuri-Ometer Rating) and write your review.
After you submit it, our crack team of HAII staff will review your submission and post it. The only main criteria are that it is coherent and clean. So jump on in. There are thousands of parents out there who need to know what you have learned!
The New Infuri-Ometer
Last year, we knew we had made a mistake by only having three categories: Que This, Mostly Harmless, and Cringe Worthy. So we finally decided to spread things out a bit. The new scale is from 1 to 5 instead of 1 to 10. When you are writing your own reviews, you might want to keep these qualities in mind.
Click on the titles below to see the new Infuri-Ometer in action!
1- Irritant Free
Synonyms: Quality; Respectable Stuff; Better than Ezra
This is reserved for the really good ones. Not only are films, shows, and toys free of irritants, but they are actually very likeable. This takes the place of the best “Queable” movies we have already reviewed, like “Up” and “Kung Fu Panda.”
2- Almost Pleasant
Synonyms: Not Half Bad; Surprisingly decent; Sympatico
These aren’t quite Irritant Free, but they’re better than harmless. This is the category that parents will often drop the word “Cute.” As in, “yeah, it was cute. The kids really liked it.” Notice mom didn’t say she loved it. She didn’t yak it up on Facebook. But it was nice, and worth a Queue.
3- Mostly Harmless
Synonyms: Phenomenally Average; Powerfully Mediocre; Ignorable
Mostly Harmless entertainment includes stuff the kids will enjoy, and which won’t drive everyone else crazy. But that’s the most we can say for it. Parents won’t love it, but they won’t wish for the arrest and indictment of the producers, either. Mostly Harmless shows play in the background. It’s bearable.
4- Headachy
Synonyms: Grating; Officially Offensive; Jerry Lewis-esque
Reach for the Excedrin Migraine, my friends, because this is where we turn the corner. Headachy is stuff that parents want to hide, because it hurts them (the parents). The kids, having an undeveloped sense of taste, might love it. But their big brothers, sisters, parents, and babysitters will try to block it out or, if possible, make it disappear altogether.
5- Cringe Worthy
Synonyms: Maddening; Excruciating; I’d Rather Have My Fingers Broken By Jack Bauer
Cringe Worthy is reserved for the truly awful. Again, the kids might actually enjoy it, but a parent, after one viewing, will beg for mercy. We’re talking about horrors like Santa Buddies, Barny, and Teletubbies. Seriously. Is there a parent who has been able to watch these without hating life a little bit more? It’s just not worth it. You need to avoid these.
Individual Rating System
This just adds more user participation for HAII. Now, you can Rate any movie, tv show, or toy using the same categories as the Infuri-Ometer. You will see the 1 to 5 rating on the right side of the title of the movie or product that you are viewing (near the top right corner of the site).
The site will keep a constant tally of all user ratings and average them out. That way, you can see if the reviewer is on par with most others who visit the site. It can give you a bird’s eye view on how other parents feel about these particular choices.
Pretty neat, huh?
“Are you guy still going to write reviews?”
In a word, yes. We love writing our extensive essay-style reviews, so we’ll keep those going. And if your reviews catch our eye consistently, who knows… Your reviews may be included in our OFFICIAL REVIEWS section.
Finally! You can get that pink dinosaur “Cringe Worthy” T-Shirt you’ve been asking for since you were seven. At last, your life has purpose and meaning again!
And there’s more of course. We’ve got several designs in our t-shirt shop, and you can choose the color and style of your t-shirt. And because high prices are extremely irritating, we have kept them low. You can find most anything for under $15. You can access the T-Shirt shop any time by clicking on the “Irritant Free Swag” tab at the top of the site.
Just so you know, we don’t actually print or send them out ourselves. We have teamed up with a company that does that. So if you have a problem with any orders, contact them (their info is all over the T-shirt shop.)
If you have a good idea for a design that you’d like to offer up to the store, you can email a .png file to us, and we’ll think it over. Just keep in mind we have to keep it relatively generic for legal purposes (and it’s a good thing, because there are literally thousands of pink dinosaurs our there… who did you think it was supposed to be???)
We will be progressively adding more of our own designs as we are able. Hope you enjoy!
My daughters begged me to let them see Tangled in the theater. It was pretty intense. I would stumble out of bed and into the kitchen and find them sitting half awake and haggard, holding a cardboard signs that read: “Will Chore for Ripunzl.”
It didn’t stop there, either. There was pressure from mom, grandma, and the neighbors.
Tickle Me Elmo. Chances are, you know what this toy is, because you remember the commotion he caused: frazzled newscasters reporting the horror scenes around Christmas time: Fistfights between fathers; Grandmothers swinging purses; Black eyes; Security called; Riot police; Bomb Squads waiting in the food court; Marshall Law being declared in rural Walmarts until New Years’ Day… It was ugly, and I am glad it’s over.
Today, T.M.E. is available for pennies on the dollar in virtually every store across the nation, including fine restaurants. And it was this availability that allowed my dear mother to buy one for my son three years ago. I shot her angry eyes, and she just grinned, knowing she would suffer nothing. The torture would be mine alone
You see, when you tickle your Elmo, he laughs and gyrates for a good eight seconds. It is uncomfortable to watch him. You kinda have to see it to understand. But his voice shoots up an octave, and then he begins to laugh louder. “That tickles,” he declares, thereby inviting more. It’s creepy, really. My children, who delight in the monotonous, obeyed his request without fail. I contemplated the legal implications of cutting off my mother from all future contact.
We got back in the car after Christmas to drive the two thousand miles back to California. Somewhere strewn about in the back pile of loot in our Ford Explorer, Elmo rolled back and forth. And he was tickled for hours and hours on end. My wife became irritable. I ranted about alien invasions and Kevin Bacon. A dark cloud descended on our vehicle, and for many hours we hated laughter. We hated life itself. How we ended up at our intended destination is a miracle of Red Sea proportions.
Fortunately, Elmo has since gone missing. If your child gets an Elmo, I guarantee this will happen in your home also. Because even though the good folks at Sesame Street know how to please their target audience, you will become collateral damage. Tickle Me Elmo, for a parent or older sibling, is an evil toy, and it is the very definition of Cringe Worthy.
Tickle Me Elmo
(For Ages 0-5)
It’s Not Funny
