It’s admittedly been quite a long time since i’ve sat down in front of after-school children’s programming and really paid close attention, but i definitely don’t remember it being anything like what i just saw.


I had just got back from Creative Writing class with a yummy crepe in hand and i just wanted something to pay attention to while i ate, and in my random channel flipping i happened upon Transformers on FoxKids. I was never a huge transformers fan as a child, but the sheer fact that this familiar brand-name was wedged in-between various UltraRangers and MonsterMons was enough to pique my interest and so i settled back onto our couch and watched the drama unfold.

The episode was titled “The Fish Test,” the simplicity and irrelevance of which baffled me until the opening scene where a SharkBot is taking an online fish-personality test. As another character explains later, it has nothing to do with him being a Fish-Bot and everything to do with the fact that all of us cosmically represents a certain kind of fish. As if the online personality test wasn’t deep enough for the tiny-tot viewers, the entire episode was about the SharkBot attempting to show up his rival Decepticon by playing the role of informant and foil to the Transformers, with his greek-chorus of sidekicks chiming in with verbose deprecations all along the way. There was the surface level child-play, but also a lot of tightly wound jokes about sexy red sports cars, women driving SUVs, and the fact that SharkBot was labeled by the test as a jellyfish even though sharks are fish and thus have a spine.


The short commercial breaks were barely long enough to contain my laughter. Aside from the too-frantic ADD pacing of the show, the modern update on beloved toys of my youth was scathingly funny if not wholly coherent. The irony of SharkBot trying to prove to his evil master that he was worthy even made the title into a double entendre, much to my delight and pleasure.

Oh, yeah, i had a test today and i have well over a hundred pages of reading to do for various classes tomorrow (not to mention grocery shopping and laundry). Whatever… all i want to do right now is take a cab home and get my G.I.Joes.