Yo Gabba Gabba!
 I employed what I call "push-through" (stifling the implulse to snap off hyper children's programming) to get into Yo Gabba Gabba!, Nick Jr.'s new half-hour show for pre-schoolers, and thank Devo I did. I quickly learned that most everything on this visually and sonically interesting half-hour show is sublime. The small, inventive vignettes are like an updated Sesame Street (which, in its genesis, was itself meant to be Laugh In for kids). Guest stars include Elijah Wood (teaching a dance move called the Puppet Master), catchy catechistic songs ("animals are our friends/so let's be nice to them") by bands like the Shins, and diverse animation and vintage video game sound effects. Every time I watch Yo GG, which is often, I see something else I like—from the Futurama-looking puppet cast to Mark Mothersbaugh's potato bug drawing instruction to one of the little kids on the show screaming "My name is Miles! I like to dance!" as he wildly jitterbugs. I've now seen the first episode "Eat" perhaps thirty-four times, as my son, Skuli (two and three-quarters), wants what he calls "You Gabba" several times a day. A junk-food junkie, my son even requested an apple when he saw that DJ Lance, the happy host, was eating one. — Jennifer Baumgardner
Postman Pat (HBO Family)
 Anglophile parents will love this delightfully British animated series. In the mold of other series about blue collar Joes like Bob the Builder or Handy Manny, Postman Pat follows a kind-hearted mailman as he makes his rounds in the quaint English town of Greendale with his cat, Jess (my son's favorite). The show has been a classic in the U.K. for over twenty-five years and has just recently crossed the pond to HBO. Everything from the theme song to the plot lines are subtle and relaxing; there's no pulsing dance music or breaking the fourth wall to demand answers from viewers. The characters, who unfortunately may be some of the homeliest on TV, simply make their way through everyday situations and learn something in the process. It's relaxing, like a spot of Earl Grey in the afternoon. — Matt Wood
WordWorld (PBS Kids)
 WordWorld has witty 3-D animation, a decent gimmick (objects on the show spell out what they are, thus the pig has a P head, I body and G butt), and reasonably funny plot-lines, such as when Pig (who has a Julia Child-style cooking show) eats all of the cake he made for Dog's birthday, but pulls out his "cookbooktionary" and finds the right letters to make another C-A-K-E. As far as "literacy-based content" on television goes, WordWorld is preferable to Wilbur and Blues Clues, in my opinion, though Elmo, Pixar, and The Simpsons are vastly preferable kinderviewing to WordWorld.
Of course, I'm only half the viewership in the house. When I asked Skuli what he thought, he said, "It had a train and a birthday cake." "Is that good?" I asked. "Yes," he said. "Can I watch it again?" — Jennifer Baumgardner
Super Why! (PBS Kids)
 Super Why! seems like it was designed by kids. First, one of the Super Readers has a problem, and then they have to find a book to help them figure it out, and then they fly into the book in spaceships, and then they have to find Super Letters and put them in their Super Duper Computer, and then — oh, never mind. You won't get it. But your kids will, which must be why my son has asked to watch this show 487 times since we first saw it. Created by the team behind Blue's Clues, it borrows heavily from that show's problem-solving/quest format. The animation is beautiful, and the characters, adapted from classics like Red Riding Hood and Three Little Pigs, are adorable with their oblong heads and big doe eyes. Score that with some over the top theme music that'll have you belting out the lyrics after two viewings, and you might be able to look past Super Why! 's convoluted structure and put it into regular rotation. — Matt Wood
Mama Mirabelle's Home Movies (PBS Kids)
 This offering from National Geographic Kids Entertainment is worthy, earnest, replete with beautiful photography, and snoozy. Infamous Miss America/chanteuse Vanessa Williams is the voice of Mirabelle, a frumpy mama elephant on the African Savanna, who shows home movies to her gang of giraffes, pandas, monkeys, etc.Williams is always lovely, but she's the kind of presence you want to see as well as hear (like when she played the junk witch in Elmo in Grouchland). Her too-melodious voice coming out of a blah-ly rendered elephant with a penchant for millinery is not enough to hold my attention. As for grabbing the brain of the toddler in my apartment, after the psychedelia of Yo Gabba Gabba, I couldn't even get Skuli to deign to watch the whole of Mirabelle. Unless looking at ten-second spots of wildlife footage while being prodded to learn and recognize habitats by animated animals is your bag, I say (and Skuli agrees), no mira Mirabelle. — Jennifer Baumgardner
Willbur (Discovery Kids)
 "That's not Wilbur," said my son, who knows that Wilbur is a pig and not an "enthusiastic calf," as this show would have it. But this treacly exercise in helping your child read is supposedly based on sound research and, of course, seeing as it was developed by "three real moms," it's got to be good, right? Wrong.
To me, Wilbur has the Blue's Clues formula (puppets, colorful set, annoying actorly children's voices, brain-invading songs), but its edifying problem-solving element is too simplistic. One episode, for instance, has Libby the Lamb despairing because she doesn't know how to match shapes, so Wilbur takes his barnyard friends, an unseen-but-heard children's cabal, and you, the viewers, through a book that teaches shape sorting. Their rendering of the song "There's a Hole in the Bucket" made me pine for the Muppet version featured on '70s-era Sesame Street. Leaving aside the dubious mission of teaching children that "reading and books are fun" by showing them a video, this show isn't creative or unique enough to rate watching. — Jennifer Baumgardner
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