WORDS BY ME | KATIE Z.

If you’re a parent these days, you are no doubt familiar with the barrage of YouTube programming geared toward melting young minds. There’s the teens demonstrating how to play Minecraft, kids playing with Angry Bird figurines and the totally addictive unwrapping of the Kinder eggs.

Yes, that’s right. Today’s generation of aged out toddlers love watching videos of other kids playing with toys and videos games instead of actually playing with them themselves.

Try as I might to ban these shows, and tell my kids “you literally have that exact Spiderman toy, play with it in real life!”, there are times I find myself giving in to the hypnosis of the Tube. Especially when it comes to the biggest battle of the day, bedtime.

And that’s when I discovered a little gem called Chu Chu TV.

My littlest guy loves these. They’re basically compilations of nursery rhymes and educational animated videos. And best of all, after watching a few minutes, my 3-year-old is lulled right to sleep (usually, unless he’s quietly sneaked into the candy bowl while I accidentally sneaked in a little nap on the couch beside him). And since we watch these every. dang. night., I began to notice something a little, shall we say…unique about his beloved Chu Chu TV.

It’s trippy, man, really really trippy.

Exhibit A: Daddy Finger

Here little girl, walk up this weird wrist staircase and climb into a big old hand. Now hey, look at this giant pinky finger adorned with a gigantic baby’s head lunging right at you. And look, birds! And squirrels! And now we all dance, with our abnormally enlarged pupils, amidst a forest of rainbow-colored, fluffy trees!

Beginning to see what I mean?

Exhibit B: Brush Your Teeth Song

A boxful of dancing teeth and gums…nothing a mouthful of mushrooms can’t decay!

Exhibit C: Ring Around the Rosie

Circles, circles! Synths, synths! More birds! Bunnies! ahhhhhh!

Now this is all in good fun, of course. The creators of Chu Chu TV are award-winning children’s programming professionals. And I thank them for providing the creative, educational shows that so entertain my little sleep-fighting soldier.

And secretly entertain me while doing it.

Do your kids have any favorite YouTube video channels? Any that annoy you, or secretly entertain like mine? Share your comments below.