Me Too (Me Too)

Member Name: adam171275

Product:	Me Too
Date:	04/06/09 (92 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great for children

Disadvantages: Annoying

I was at home yesterday when my son who's nearly two laid himself on me and insisted that I stay with him. To my joy he was watching CBeebies and on next was Me Too so I sat and watched it with him, here are my thoughts on the show.

First a little background, it is on CBeebies daily at 930 am and 1pm and lasts for 20 minutes. When I googled it I wasn't at all surprised to see that it is done by the makers of Balamory, if you have seen both programmes you will see why. It is set in the fictional town of Riverseafingal and is centred on the lives of 9 adults who live there. I would say that Granny Murray is the main character, her house is the focal part of the show, and this is where she looks after the children, whilst their parents are at work.


The basic structure of the programme is:

A child of one of the adults is dropped off at Granny Murray's
She gives them some talk of wisdom
The focal adult of the daily programme goes to work
They get dressed for work
The have a problem
The remember Granny Murray's words of wisdom
They solve the problem
They finish work
They collect their child from Granny Murray's.
This is great as each show is structured which I feel is good for children, it makes it easier for them to watch and take in.

What I like:

They have different characters with all different types of jobs, this includes a blind man. I feel this gives children an insight into being blind and also shows them that blind people can still lead normal lives. It has a mixture of both male and female gender, which is great too. To top it off the jobs are not gender related, for example the taxi driver is a woman, where most would associate this job with a man. The other jobs include:
Teacher
Doctor
Nurse
Cleaner on buses
Market stallholder
Buffet cart attendant
As you can see there is a variety of different professions and all equally important as each other.


The programme shows that it is normal for some mums and dads to have to go out to work daily and children have to have childcare. Nowadays it is very common for this to happen so this programme promotes this in a way and shows that it isn't a bad thing for either the parents or child.


It has loads of bright colours in the show, which totally has children transfixed. My little lad was mesmerised, I swear he didn't take his eyes off the screen from start to finish.

It has a topic each day in which they focus on, yesterday it was cars. They involved cars by:
Having the focal character of that day as the taxi driver
The taxi driver giving someone a driving lesson
Granny Murray taking the children to a car show room
Granny Murray and the children counting red cars that they saw in the city (this also helps the child to recognise a certain colour, red)
The children riding on a car merry-go-round at the end.
This part I felt was rather educational, my son loved the fact that it was about cars and driving, as he loves them.


They sing in the show, which of course children love. Of course as adults we find it annoying especially as they seem to stick in your head. They are easy songs to pick up so an older child could sing along. The songs reminded me of the ones in Balamory, and just as equally annoying.


It gives a child an insight into problem solving as they always have a problem, which they need to solve. I have to say that they are the simplest problems ever and any adult could easily sort it out. But from a Childs point of view they are easy enough for them to try and solve. If you are watching it with a child you can try and encourage them to think about the problem and think of ways to solve it.


It emphasis on time and shows the clock on numerous occasions. This can help children to learn to tell the time and also give them a concept of time and what happens during the day and the time that it takes.


What I didn't like


Like Balamory I found the characters rather annoying and to put it in simpler terms a bit simple. The way they talk to each other was child like and done very slowly, I know this is so children can follow it easier but watching it from an adult's point of view it's quite painful to watch!


Granny Murray is far too happy and smiley and I don't know why she is called Granny when she doesn't really look like one? She smiles at everything and she had this sort of nervous little giggle all throughout the show, believe me it was awful. I like to point out to that she has a mannequin in her house that the children dress up called Claude which to be honest I found quite freaky and scary looking. If I thought this what must children think?


Like I said above the problems they have are ridiculous and child like. The ones yesterday was the taxi driver wanted to give someone a driving lesson in her cab. She had to sit in the back but was unable to see much from there, so how could she see more? They decided to use and old box which the market trader had given her and make her own make shift car in the back seat. They also used other props including hockey sticks, all I kept thinking was how stupid! For an adult to sit in the back of a car pretending to drive with boxes and hockey sticks whatever next? I really can't see how should of learnt very much!


Granny Murray always gives the adult who visits her some words of wisdom. I have to say that what she said yesterday rather concerned me, she said,' You can have more fun in a car other than driving it' that's all I am going to say about that as I think that's enough said!


All in all very similar to Balamory so if your child likes that then they will love this to. As an adult it was cringe worthy to watch and I won't be making a habit of watching it again.

Summary: my lad loves it, I dropped a star as I didn't