The Trouble With Curious George
In the Curious George books, the plots follow a pretty narrow pattern. The Man in the Yellow Hat and George go somewhere together. George, who is a good little monkey but always very curious, will then do something he’s not supposed to do. Havoc follows. But by the end things somehow end up working out and George gets some sort of treat.
Lesson: Misbehave, and everything will be okay!
The problem with this seems to have been noticed by the makers of the TV show, who didn’t follow that pattern. The TV show is actually quite good. Through George, kids learn how things work from virii to sewer systems. She’s too young to understand what’s going on, though. But George really cracks her up.
The problem with the TV shows is that, of course, George can’t speak. Nonetheless, he is able to communicate with ooh-ooh-ahh-ahh and gestures. So if George wants to know how something works, he goes ooh-ooh-ahh-ahh and gestures, and Yellow Hat (or whoever he’s talking to) knows precisely what he means. This itself wouldn’t be a problem but that we’re trying to get Lain to use her words. I’m beginning to suspect that George is suggesting that she doesn’t have to. Since watching more of that show, she’s been doing a lot of grunt-grunt (sometimes something pretty close to ooh-ooh-ahh-ahh) and looking at us with great expectation that we will know exactly what she wants.
I mean, I assume this is an issue with all kids, and that this would be an issue with her whether she was seeing the TV show or not. But… it doesn’t seem to be helping. Which may mean we need to stop watching that particular problem in favor of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood (Mr Rogers’s successor), which actually has a specific episode about Using Your Words. I don’t like Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood all that much, though, because… well, it’s not Mr Rogers and I’m not sure about the direction where they went with that. Still, it’s at least better than that dreadful Cat in the Hat cartoon.
She likes Daniel Tiger okay, but I’m not sure there’s anything she likes more than Curious George.
A couple of asides:
Image by @Sausagelinks 
Am I the only one who thinks monkeys make the sound ook-ook-ook? That was what I taught her. I don’t mind that Curious George undermined that, but Clancy says she has never heard ook-ook-ook before.
If I had art talent, I’d do a series of children’s stories called Chuy the Chupacabra. It would be a lot like Curious George, except that it would teach children about the intricacies of interaction with the government. Instead of an episode where George goes to the pancake supper and starts making pancakes when he shouldn’t but everything ends happilly and he’s invited to make pancakes againt next year, Chuy will make tacos and someone is going to call the Health Department and the Taco Festival will be canceled and lawsuits will cause the organization throwing the benefit to have to shutter its doors.
That’s a lesson she needs to learn!
I have two children. Both are grown now. The younger one had very delayed speech, following her father. I am quite articulate now.
She was very good at the “point and grunt” method. She would point and grunt, and her sister would say, “XY wants a cookie”. XY would nod in agreement – because she understood language just fine, she just didn’t want to talk.
At some point, the older sister decided to take a little advantage. “XY wants a cookie, and she wants me to have a cookie, too”. Younger sister looks surprised a moment, then nods.
Anyway, she is very articulate now. I wouldn’t get overly concerned. Let her get a little frustrated with you for not understanding “Curious George” speak, and help her learn to soothe herself from these frustrations, because that’s a valuable skill. I wish I’d done more like that when mine were little.Report
Doctor Jay makes a great point with regards to her frustration. It is a fine line though. If you sense that her being unable to be understood is a “can’t” thing on her part, you certainly don’t want to hold her accountable for it. If it is a “won’t” thing, than, yes, hold her accountable. “Oh, I don’t know what you mean when you say that. I’ll be happy to help you when you can explain it more clearly.” The trouble is figuring out which is which. Given how much time you spend with her and how tuned in you are, I imagine you have her pretty well figured out.Report
Agreed on the problems with the books and the superiority of the show (which is also quite nicely-animated, and the various movies and specials have catchy songs too). But you didn’t touch on the biggest problem of all – no-tailed George is clearly a chimp or ape of some kind, not a monkey.
(This was actually a running gag in a sort-of-parody children’s book called Furious George.)
RE: Chuy and his taco debacle – there is an AVClub commenter named ‘Chalupacabra’, which I find hilarious.Report
Am I the only one who thinks monkeys make the sound ook-ook-ook?
The Librarian of the Unseen University would like a word.Report
@north
That word will, of course, be Ook.Report
Likely followed by physical violence, a language which is universal.Report
Especially if you call him a monkey.Report
Hey, that’s probably where I got it from!Report
I can confirm CG is the crack cocaine of our daughter’s life. Highly addictive, the solution to all three-year-old meltdowns, and therefore hard to keep from abusing.Report
Both my daughters had a deep fascination with Peppa Pig, which is also quite good (if not nearly so educational or complexly-animated as CG).Report
I have to say that I think that both you and @glyph are extremely lucky in the choices of your three-year-olds preferences. Ours preferred Barney.Report
Mayo was speech delayed AND love Curious George AND was very perceptive. He quickly adopted George’s “language”, especially the tonal nature of it. It took me a while to figure out where he was getting it from but it definitely happened. I don’t know if this exacerbated his delays or gave him some early forays into verbal communication but it was indeed a “thing”.
Thankfully, speech therapy provided through early intervention (your tax dollars at work!) has been hugely beneficial and he has moved on to watching mostly sports. Not sports movies. Live sports. And high light shows. BEST KID EVER!Report
I knew that if I just waiting long enough, I would eventually find a good reason to link to this.Report
I thought this was going to be Werner Herzog narrates Curious George.Report
With Klaus Kinski.Report
My son didn’t watch much Curious George, if any (though we did read the books), but he did adopt the grunting you describe. He was very speech delayed, and I suppose he just learned that grunting and pointing got and oriented adults’ attention. I imaging George can reinforce the behavior, though.Report
Curious George was created by refugees from Nazi Germany. Therefore, it is good.Report
curious george is a complete a-hole and the only lesson is “so long as everything ends up ok, it doesn’t matter how much strife this numbnut monkey or his negligent jackass handler cause”.
octonauts is where it’s at.Report
CREATURE REPORT!
CREATURE REPORT!Report
plus they’re a shadowy paramilitary organization with deep funding and futuristic technology. it helps prepare children for the real future.Report
The problem with the TV shows is that, of course, George can’t speak. Nonetheless, he is able to communicate with ooh-ooh-ahh-ahh and gestures.
What’s that, George? Timmy fell down a well?Report
If you think the later books are problematic, take a look at the original, in which George is captured in the wild and shipped off to a zoo.
Oh, and the others are right about the speech thing. Different kids develop different skills at different rates. One might have excellent speech skills, but terrible motor skills. Another will be the other way around. Mine did well in those respects, but I was starting to worry if they would be potty trained when they went to college. But it all evens out in the long run. This is, of course, for kids with no outre developmental issues. If you think that might be an issue, then this is needs to be treated as a specialized medical question.Report
And then smokes a pipe!Report