I think something inside me has finally broken.

My beloved wife likes to joke (at least I think she’s joking) that I spoil everything.  This usually comes up in response to my habit of watching TV or movies with what I would refer to as an analytical eye.

She just calls it pooping on everything.

I can’t help myself.  I watch something and I immediately start looking for the plot holes or inconsistencies.  She thinks it’s proof that I’m OCD.  Funny story – I saw a psychiatrist once that said the same thing.

I don’t see that psychiatrist anymore.

Of course, she’s much cuter and far more snuggly than that jackass, so I learned to rein it in a bit.  No more pointing out that Jack died a pointless death in a freezing ocean when Rose could have easily made room for him, or at least taken turns in the water.  I was a good boy.  I kept my mouth shut and let her watch farcical rom-coms and historically inaccurate period dramas in peace.

Then the children came.  They took over the television.  They took over the Netflix and Amazon Prime.  They took over the Blu-Ray.  They took over 12 of the 15 viable television watching hours of the day, subjecting me to endless repeats of talking animals, kindergarten superheroes, and fluffy monsters that are more interested in teaching you how to share and care than they are ripping off your limbs and sucking the marrow from your bones.

As you’ve probably already guessed, THE BEAST returned, and it was HUNGRY.

So here are a couple of things I’ve noticed about what they’ve been watching lately.  Now I’m assuming that if you’re reading this that you, like me, have been held hostage and forced to watch these “entertainments” enough times that the Geneva Convention statute on torture has clearly been violated.  I’m going into this assuming you have more than a passing knowledge of the set-up and plots of the following.  If not, be aware that moving forward there will be SPOILERS.

First up:

I’ve collected superhero comics my whole life.  This show almost ruined them for me.  I get that it’s for little kids.  I do.  That doesn’t stop me from having the following questions:

Where the hell are all the adults? – Seriously.  Where the hell are they?  I don’t know about you, but the sun going down means the party’s just started, and by party I mean getting all the adult crap I’d rather not do done when there are no tiny anarchists around to interfere.  These kids are running around at night and there are NO adults.  No cops.  No emergency services.  No hapless adults making their way home after last call.  Is there a curfew?  Are they cowering in their homes while these Machiavellian midgets tear up the town?  Maybe we wouldn’t have so many Night-Time Villains if an adult would actually step in and give them some of the positive attention and discipline they so desperately seek with their antics.

If there’s no adults, who the hell built the HQ, the gear, and all their vehicles?  Who taught them to drive?  Who coached Owlette during the hundreds of hours necessary to get a pilot’s license?  If they’re operating those vehicles without licenses, they’re no better than the villains.  Don’t try to tell me they came up with all this stuff of their own.  My kids can’t even get a cheap plastic toy out of a quarter machine without shaking me down first.

Of course, the PJ Masks don’t drive me nearly as insane as :

This is even worse.  Here, we have adults, and they’re all shown to be grossly incompetent.  Mayor Goodway needs to be impeached ASAP, as she obviously spends more time worrying about her damn purse chicken and being interviewed on television than running her town.  This appears to be due to the fact that she allows a ten-year old and his gang of talking dogs handle all emergency services around Adventure Bay.  This of course makes me ask the following:

Where did the little freaks of nature come from? Look, I love puppies as much as anyone, but you can’t tell me that talking dogs, able to operate vehicles and make use of sophisticated technology, don’t freak you out a little.  We’re always worried about the machines taking over.  Obviously, these little pooches are far more dangerous.  They’ve already taken over emergency services and made the humans completely reliant on them.  Was this part of their creator’s plan?  Are they results of genetic experimentation gone wrong?  They can’t be natural, because every other animal in town is just that, an animal.  They’re the only ones who possess (obviously superior to) human intelligence.  If God made us in his/her image, whose image are they made in??

Okay, that’s enough of the television.  Let’s move on to the movies.  Here are the two that have been on constant rotation as of late:

Now this one I actually find quite cute.  Also far more believable.  I have firsthand knowledge of how a new little one can come over and take over every aspect of your life.  I buy that.   That said:

Where do babies actually come from?  The movie actually makes fun of this when little Tim mentions to Boss Baby where his parents explained to him babies actually come from.  The Boss Baby is obviously horrified, which is pretty much the reaction you’d expect from any kid.  Keeping that in mind, though, it doesn’t appear that BabyCorp is in charge of actual production as much as it is shipping and handling.  Which begs the question – where do the babies come from?  Are the management babies assembling the other babies?  Does “Management” consist of all the defective babies, because they’re the ones who weren’t built with the easily activated tickle response and sent to “Family”?  That’s got to be a little traumatic once they become self-aware, which leads me to my next question:

If Francis Francis got fired, and lost his formula, how does he even remember BabyCorp?  Throughout the movie, Boss Baby makes it very clear that the only thing he truly fears is failing in his mission and being fired.  This is because he will lose his special formula which bestows upon him all the benefits of adult intelligence without the drawback of things like going through puberty and eventually ending up with a mortgage.  They also make it very clear that Tim doesn’t remember BabyCorp.  So how did Francis Francis remember?  Is it because he was Management first?  Is that why Boss Baby is really afraid of being fired?  Because somewhere in his reverted mind he’ll remember what he once had and lost?  That’s just sick.  No wonder Francis was so pissed off.  This is what happens when you let kids run things.  Kids are cruel.

Finally, last but not least, my favorite of the bunch:

If I have to be subjected to endless repeats of a current children’s movie (and apparently I do), then let it be this one.   Beautifully animated, it has wonderful music and an incredibly endearing message on the importance of family in one’s life and vice versa.  That said, I did have one, teensy weensy little problem:

Why does everyone in Miguel’s family die so young?  Look at the picture above.  With the exception of Papa Julio, none of them appeared to die in their old age.  Yeah, Hector was murdered by the scheming Ernesto de la Cruz, and sure Mama Imelda has a grey hair or two, but the rest all have dark hair and appear to be dead on their pictures on the family ofrenda.  You know, except for the skin and stuff.

Even at the end, when we see Mama Coco in the land of the dead, she looks like she did when she passed:  shrunken and grey haired.  So keeping that in mind – what’s been killing the Riveras so young??  Were they killed in some horrible shoe-making accidents?  Were safety standards in the family workshop not up to snuff?  The family goes on and on about how music was a curse, but music wasn’t what was putting family members in the prime of life six feet under!

So there you have it.  Keep in mind that I could go on and on about these and other shows that the children have subjected me to.  Yeah.  I could.  I’ll stop, though.  Keep this up much longer and the family will start thinking I need a psychiatrist again.

Shows what they know.  The cats tell me I’m perfectly fine.

They understand me.