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[quote=Rolanda101]There is a show on PBS Kids that comes on in the morning about a yellow dog that can talk by drinking soup. The kids love it, but I can't stand it and here's why:

3. The anthrophormorphism in the show greatly bothers me. Martha can dance. She can use her paws like a human hand. Several times, I've seen her climb up on a chair and dial the family telephone so she can talk into the speaker!!! Not only is that alphabet soup causing her to speak, it's slowly turning her into a human. Soon she'll be standing on her hind legs, and more. Skits is the only normal canine on the show (with the exception of him barking "Malcolm" on one occasion. What is he talking about anyway? [i]Malcolm in the Middle[/i] or something?)

2. While the show is teaching vocabulary, with said words popping up on screen randomly, which is distracting for me, there are some questionable "moral values" in the show. Martha uses words like "gosh dang it to heck." This isn't occasionally, either. It's whenever she's upset, which actually happens a lot. Does it bother anyone else that the cartoon uses the word "gosh" so much? My 3 and 4 year old are starting to say it and I am going to have to not let them watch this anymore which is sad because they really love it. But that just doesn't sound very nice coming out of the mouths of young children. In one episode, Martha is playing a game with a truck driver, and he says "dang" when he loses. Martha loses later and repeats the word. This teaches children to repeat what they hear.

And then there's that dreaded episode that I really hate.

It starts with Martha winning a radio contest winning a trip to a country club. She finds out that dogs can't go and begins to cry. Feeling sorry, the family throws her in a wheelchair, dresses her up, and passes her off as "Granny Martha" so they can sneak her in! It's shocking the parents approved of that solution. Would you? I wouldn't. After several close calls, Martha can't go on a hayride. Their mother had previously stated that if Martha can't go, they won't go. Yet they leave her in the room and go without her. Yes, what a wonderful thing to teach kids. Finally, Martha loses it and exposes herself in front of an entire cafeteria. Yet no one cares. They just sit in awe at the dog making a speech in front of them.

The owner of the club returns Martha to her owners, with the dad begging on his knees, saying they'll never do it again. Here comes the worst part about the episode. Instead of asking them to leave like she SHOULD have done, she just laughs it off and decides to let Martha stay. The episode in question is called "Martha Calling," and it's just so sad how educational cartoons justify dishonesty and breaking the rules of a business. I even wrote a petition to ban that episode, but the only signature on there is mine because no one cares about family-unfriendliness in cartoons anymore.

1. The voice of Martha. OH, THE [b]GRATING COUNTRY VOICE.[/b] She goes around blabbing her head off all day, like her voice is brand-new, although the show has been running for nearly five years. She has most of the lines in the episodes. Martha needs to either stop talking so much or get shot in the face with a bazooka. She could have gotten a different voice actor, but NOOOOO. They had to choose one that sounds like the first voice of Caillou. In fact, the way Martha broke down crying sounding JUST LIKE A HUMAN has scared my three year old, Gloria.

What do you think about this annoying show?[/quote]

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