When I came across this post in my archives, I knew I had to revive it.

Not because it’s an especially good post. It is a good post, because frankly I’m quite good at this blogging malarkey and I was pretty decent at it a decade ago. But when I wrote this one, it wasn’t a post that necessarily stayed with me at the time. It was more of a throwaway “let’s get something on the blog today” sort of effort.

But the subject matter, as irrelevant as it was to me back then, would, in a few short years, become central to my existence.

Because two and a bit years after writing this post, I would go on to become the father of Little Proclaims and Little Proclaims, some two years after that, would go on to become the world’s biggest Paw Patrol fan.

I actually stand by my assessment of the cartoon. It is objectively terrible, and I’ve got many hours of research under my belt by now.

But the toys were pretty cool. We still have a lot of them in Proclaims Towers and it’ll be hard to get rid of them. Little Proclaims has now grown out of this phase of her life, and Mini Proclaims never took to the little pups as enthusiastically as her sister. Both girls were quite happy to come and watch the latest Paw Patrol movie in the cinema over the summer, though.

And that is where I would absolutely pivot on my assessment of Paw Patrol, because actually the movies have all been great. Little Proclaims’ first ever cinema outing was to see the debut movie, and we did see both sequels on the big screen too. Indeed, the only recent memories I have of going to the cinema have been to watch Paw Patrol movies.

I’m sure I’ve seen some other things, but I tend to find that, if I get to see the movies I want to watch these days, I have to wait until they’re available on one of the streaming services I subscribe to. And even then I’ll have to watch them in stages over a few evenings.

As well as watching the movies in the cinema, we’ve also been to see Paw Patrol Live twice. And I’ll be honest, I didn’t hate that either.

And I’m pretty sure that when it tours again, we’ll be in the front row.

James Complains About Paw Patrol

Originally posted 26th March, 2016

I’m rarely up early on a Saturday morning. It is usually the day I allow myself a few extra hours in bed after the ravages of the working week.

But with yesterday being Good Friday and consequently a bank holiday, I found myself well-rested this morning and thus I was up with the lark.

Actually I can’t substantiate that claim. I’ve no idea what time the lark gets up. I don’t know the lark personally.

But I’m given to understand that the lark is an early riser and I was also up early this morning. It’s 7.45am as I begin this and I’ve been awake for well over an hour. So there’s every chance that the lark and I were beginning our day at the same time.

But unlike the lark, who is probably now just ‘larking around’, I am trying to get on with my day and be productive.

And I thought I might begin the day by writing a blog post.

But on what subject I wasn’t sure.

Until I decided to watch a bit of early morning telly with my breakfast.

Normally Saturday morning TV is just bland, inoffensive, moving wallpaper, often involving a combination of cookery and the self promotion of minor celebrities who want to be slightly less minor.

But apparently that sort of programming starts a little later, and the early hours are filled with niche programming about some of the less popular ‘world’ sports, technological developments that, frankly, humanity does not need, or a combination of the two (drone racing? Seriously?).

There also seems to be quite a lot of kids programming at that time.

I used to love children’s TV.

When I was a child predominantly (but not exclusively).

That was back in the golden age of children’s television.

These days it all seems to be cheap CGI remakes of beloved stop-motion classics. Thomas the Tank Engine, Postman Pat, and Fireman Sam have all suffered the ignominy of the cheap CGI remake.

There is quite a skill in taking something that was quintessentially charming and rendering it utterly charmless.

But at least this barbaric reimagining of classics is still underpinned by a concept that was at least, half-decent to begin with.

This morning I was introduced to a show that genuinely made me a little bit sad.

I’ve never been one to be mawkish and overly sentimental about how things were ‘better in my day’ but this cartoon did make me feel a bit sorry for the infants of today.

The travesty I watched (and I did watch quite a lot of it) was something called Paw Patrol.

From what I can gather, Paw Patrol is a team of talking dogs with ‘special skills’ led by a fairly annoying boy called Ryder (I looked his name up on Wikipedia). They go on missions to ‘save the day’.

They all drive different vehicles which reflect their different skills. One is police-themed, one is fireman-themed and there is a (clearly token) ‘girl’ dog do who can fly a helicopter. And if were just those three, we might have the basis of a puppy themed ‘superhero’ squad that almost makes sense. But the rest of the entirely male ‘patrol’ include an environmentalist, a construction worker and a surfer.

Don’t get me wrong. Most of the cartoons I loved when I was a kid were just thinly veiled opportunities to sell toys, but in this case they haven’t bothered with a veil at all.

From the entirely lacklustre animation, to the feeble plot, and the inexplicable saccharine songs that punctuate the show, there is nothing but cold cynical marketing underpinning this poor excuse for children’s entertainment.

As an adult I continued to watch out of sheer astonishment, in much the same way as a tragic news story, though upsetting, can also hold my attention. I genuinely couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

Has the world really come to this?

But even as I watched in horror, a more unsettling truth was emerging.

Deep down I know that as a child I would have loved ‘Paw Patrol’.

Because whatever I may or may not be as an adult, as a child I was fundamentally stupid.