From what I observed watching three of my favourite classic shows, I found something all of the characters in these presentations are diagnosed with that makes them independent, yet they still act like toddlers. It's called 'Parentification', or if you may, 'Adultification'.
The following three examples will show you signs of these disorders in its main characters. Give us the countdown maestro!
1.Maisy. Ah ah ah, I don't mean Maisy as in the current Sky Kids series, I meant the original 1999 classic animated by King Rollo Films, yer dafty! In this series, adultification is portrayed rather positively, as the main character, a small white mouse preschooler named Maisy, is only 4, but she and all her friends, who are kids, can do everything independently. They can cook, clean and do the housework, and yet they are independent enough to go out on their own and interact with wild animals, let alone pilot vehicles they're too young to pilot yet. The narrator, Neil Morrisey, doesn't seem to mind, and encourages Maisy and her friends through every job they take up and every vehicle they pilot. He is an encouraging parent who encourages his 'children' - Maisy, Charley, Tallulah, Eddie and Cyril - to follow their dreams since adultification has tightened its grip on them.
2.Boohbah. The goofy, rainbow-coloured, gumdrop-shaped dance performer/fitness instructor group suffer from three things. Not just adultification, which makes them encouraging instructors which allow toddlers (and sometimes, parents) to join in with their dance moves and their exercise of the day, but catatonics, which means they can't blink their eyes and can only move their eye pupils around, and deaf-mute, meaning they along with the Story People can't speak, and can only need a gentle, guiding narrator and a young child's offscreen, haunting, ethereal cries of "BOOHBAH!" to help them understand what they're helping the viewers go through.
Again, these three disorders are portrayed rather positively, as these five young rascals and their arrested development-diagnosed grown up human friends show us the meaning of exercise, inclusion and solving problems in a safe, colourful and caring environment without (ahem, I'm even talking to you, BlameItOnJorge) making both kids and their parents nervous.
3.Grizzly Tales. I'm talking about one of the episodes in particular, The Child Snatcher. Unlike the last two entries, which portray adultification and other disorders quite positively, this episode of this creepy animation series shows us the negatively dangerous side.
It tells the shocking, heart-pounding story of Amos, who wants his daughter Albert to become a genius, so he takes away all her needs like her games and toys and picture books and makes it into a classroom, where every day brings a new STOP sign to her traumatic life.
With each day Amos teaches her, she is visited by The Childhood Snatcher, the titular hooded entity who, as he takes each of little Albert's hairs night by night, she grows up throughout a whole week, learning loads, getting a grip on ingenuity and eventually becoming Prime Minister, distressing her mother yet pleasing her sick, twisted science teacher father.
When the final night comes, the titular villain visits Albert one last time. Before he plucks the final hair out of her bald head, he takes off his hood to reveal his old, wrinkled face, and when Albert's parents run to see what's wrong, guess what they see?
An old lady.
Oh god. This is what makes tales like Grizzly Tales hard to identify when you are a kid, but easy to identify when you're an adult who has been through therapy, plus a tech addiction, for seven whole years! Through my therapeutic experiences and learning about various disorders and disabilities...
I learnt from these three entries that there's an odd one out among all these shows. Two are positive. But one is negative. Can you guess which?
Leave your guesses below in the comments. If you do, then you'll understand that even Boohbahs are diagnosed too.
P.S.....
BOOHBAH!!!
