Mummy Reviews: Waybaloo

Waybuloo is a pre-school British and Canadian children's television series originally created by Dan Good and Absolutely Cuckoo. It was commissioned by Michael Carrington at the BBC, and first aired on CBeebies in May 2009. The 100-episode show is filmed by he Foundation in Glasgow (Scotland) and animated and directed by Gallus Entertainment for Decode Entertainment. Post production, including audio, sound design & editing is done by Platform Post Production. in Toronto (Canada). Line produced by Matt Porter and the series producer is Simon Spencer, part of the independent company, RDF Media's subsidiary The Foundation. The program makers describe it as "...a philosophy for a happy life, and is like nothing children will have ever seen before".
Waybuloo is set in the land of Nara. The main characters are the four Piplings, 3D CGI animated creatures with large heads and eyes, placed on a filmed background, with the second half of each twenty-minute show featuring human children ("cheebies").

 

 Any parent, babysitter, unemployed person or student will know as a fact that kids tv is repetitive, stupid and annoying (at the best of times). You have the drama of the Tweenies (Bella's being a bitch again..) the stupid talking of the Tellitubbies (and they're meant to learn what from Henry the hoover?!) and dear god forbid those ones full of grown ups talking like they have a something wrong with them.


Reluctantly, a few months ago, I sat little one down infront of CBeebies. I had a lot of work to do but couldn't carry her from room to room. So there she sat in her big old media centre (safe as houses) and flipped through channels. And I saw this lovely chilled out piece of entertainment. Little squishy, cute things with round eyes floating about talking in soft voices, giggling.

Her eyes went wide and she started to "oooh oooh oooh" in excitement and she watched quietly and happily as I did the old white tornado around the house. There was no sudden "let's dance music", no repitition, no drama and no repitition =P

It soon became that I would sit and watch it with her. My favourite is De Li, typical eh? Me liking the cat ^~^ . The way these wee guys speak is simplistic, good for teaching children early language skills. Basic grammar is good "De Li sing!" instead of "Del Li wants to sing".

Basically I'm aesthetically, aurally and educationally surprised and amazed by this tv show, I've never felt so happy about one since Lazy Town! I can't wait till she's old enough to tell me her favourite and do some yogo with me.