When Parents Stop Singing to Their Kids
Toner Quinn
Parents sing, sing, sing to their children in the pre-school years... and then it stops. Why?
Wonder Pets – opera for kids
I have been watching, in amazement, the cartoon Wonder Pets on the children’s television channel, Nickelodeon. Demonstrating the benefits of teamwork, Linny the guinea pig, Tuck the turtle and Ming-Ming the duckling (Ming-Ming is everyone’s favourite, and mine too) save a pet in trouble in every episode; sometimes a dolphin, sometimes a monkey, sometimes a bee, and always requiring feats of great collaboration.
But it’s not just the photo-puppetry animation, the message of teamwork or the humour of the cartoon that’s engaging, it’s the fact that they are always singing. It’s practically an opera for toddlers, but with a lot more recitative and not too many grand arias. As the three sing, answer distress calls by phone and travel far away and sometimes through time, an accompaniment is performed throughout by a ten-piece orchestra. The score is written by Tony-winning composers such as Larry Hochman and directed by Jeffrey Lesser, climaxing every now and then in the Wonder Pets refrain, ‘What’s going to work? Teamwork! What’s going to work? Teamwork!’ It’s an awesome achievement to set an entire cartoon series to music, and employ the voices of three young children. Deservedly...
