Wicked!

We all know what it's like to, as kids, have been the recipient of parental disapproval, to have been banished to one's room or to have been the recipient of a chiding. It is through these stern parental admonishments that we have become the fine upstanding citizens of today, the moral guardians for future generations or, in some cases, politicians. But nothing is perfect.

These admonishments and punishments are every bit as much a part of childhood experience as games and innocence and all that stuff. But thinking about it today, I realised that when it comes to children's television, you only get the good bits. Or, at least a bunch of happy boppy people so decked out in garish primary colours and fluorescent suits with words written on them like WHACKO and EXCELLENT in all capital letters that if there are any bad bits nobody will notice them. (It's worth noting that children have notoriously bad taste and like this kind of crap).

Seriously? No bad bits? It's like the television's there for entertainment or something! That's why it seems imperative for a new phenomenon in children's television: TELEVISION FOR NAUGHTY KIDS. It would be just like normal kids television - all fluoro and primary colours and words like 'Cool!' and 'Awesome!' and stuff like that, except full of punishments. Suggested sequences could include:

- The "And there'll be no cartoon until you eat your spinach" half hour (though I think we can drag this one on for an hour).
- Audience participation segment: kids write "I must not" messages 100 times on a piece of paper and send it in to the people on the show.
- The "Go and stand in the corner with your back to us" show - special segment in which the camera is just directed at a brick wall for half an hour.
- And the "Let's have a think about what you've done", in which hosts will chide kids on the other side of the camera for a variety of sins, some of which the kids may have even committed.

There's heaps more stuff you could have on this innovative children's program, though the more I think about it the general tone we seem to be going for is like an ABC current affairs program, except with more fluoro, etc etc.

Of course, people might be tempted to ask, wouldn't the kids just turn the television off and walk away? But that's the beauty of the proposal: kids have puny hands and parents can easily control the television by the power of the remote control, and there's no reason they couldn't be persuaded to stay in front of this morally uplifting program until it ends.

Come on, folks! I'm sure ABC kids can make room for us! It'll be totally SUPERAWESOMECOOL!