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Roly Poly Fucking Olie
�way up high/ in the roly poly sky/ is the little round planet/ of a really swell guy��
So begins the introduction to Roly Poly Olie, a CGI kids� cartoon, currently shown on channel 5 on British TV. Children like this. I most definitely do not. I can feel my teeth being worn down to stumps just thinking of this bastard programme. Why do I hate this show so much? Where do you want me to start?
For those who haven�t seen it, Roly Poly Olie is based around a shiny, happy family of rotund robots, who live in a jolly, rotund house with a variety of semi-sentient house objects, the majority of which are also round. The whole place looks like it�s been overdoing whatever the robot equivalent of cholesterol, burgers and lard is. Roly Poly Olie�s best friend is a token square robot. He has a smaller sister, who crawls around, burbling maniacally. Apart from mom and dad, he has an uncle who is no other than a robotic Elvis! There is also an elderly robot, purportedly his grandfather�.
The first reason I detest this show is its utterly false premise. Hold on, Paul, I hear you cry. Aren�t all children�s progs based on faintly absurd premises? Oh yes, I answer, but some are worse than others. This robotic twat�s family are not only robotic, they are retro robots. The background music and the dress (yes! Robots must, apparently, wear some kind of garment!) hark back to the late 40�s/early 50�s. Ah yes, back to the mythical Golden Age of America��Mom wears a pinafore, the better to do her household duties, Dad tinkers with stuff in the garage. Everyone smiles, everything�s going great, and everything is resolved happily in handy, ad-friendly chunks. Oh Fuck off. The token square robot (for which read token black kid) wouldn�t even have a look-in in the real mid-century America. He�d be strung up, or at best told to take a different bus. One episode features a robot in a fucking wheelchair! Please.
I could go on describing this programme�s many faults, but I won�t. Here�s just a plea to the idiots who make this kind of dross. Stop it. Now. Stop telling and selling children this comfortable myth, one that will only make them disappointed as they cast their eyes across their own families. As for the Elvis lookalike, all I can say is that you are a bunch of craven wankers for even inventing this character.