The Upside Down Show
Imaginative Play, Vocabulary, and Humor Bring New Life to Kid's TV
Noggin's newest show, a collaboration between Sesame Workshop and comedy duo The Umbilical Brothers, is a real winner for preschoolers.
Imaginative play is one of the psychological building blocks of a healthy childhood. Pretending, as it is most commonly called, involves visualization, problem-solving, and storytelling. Noggin's newest hit, The Upside Down Show, puts “playing pretend” at center stage.
Brothers Shane and David (Shane is the bald one) live in one wacky house. They have everything from a “Sky Room” (which is nothing but, well, sky) to a “Shape Room” to a “Very Hairy Room” (In which, you guessed it, the visitors get very hairy!) They live with a puppet named Puppet, a pet fly named Fido, and a variety of colorful little hairballs called Shmuzzies. The rest of the cast is rounded out by their neighbor, Mrs. Foil, as well as miscellaneous children they meet in their various rooms.
Plot
In each episode of The Upside Down Show, Shane and David are on a quest. One episode will find them looking for a barber after Shane visits the "Very Hairy Room," and another will find them wishing they could play in a marching band. The bulk of the show reflects all of the different ways they try to complete their mission. They visit several of the rooms, usually by mistake, which always results in a good chuckle. Each episode also contains a small amount of vocabulary associated with the day's mission. Shane and David introduce the vocabulary in a humorous way, usually with one of them being utterly confused when the other uses the new word. Shane and David use their problem solving skills to complete their quest. For example, they listen for the sounds that would accompany a marching band, and follow them to complete their mission of playing in the band. This basic introduction into critical thinking (if I hear drums, there must be a band) is important as children get ready to enter school, where their critical thinking skills will be used constantly.
Pretending is Key
But the centerpiece of The Upside Down Show is its emphasis on pretend play. Shane and David invent their own imaginary instruments to play in the marching band, and then pretend to play them. But beyond just modeling imaginative play, they get the kids involved by having them use an "imaginary remote control” to help them on their missions. The children are instructed to “press play” or “press rewind” to return Shane and David to the previous room when they make a mistake and end up in the wrong place. They pretend to hand children objects through the television, and ask their viewers to help them by pulling a rope or playing an instrument with them. This involvement prevents the “zoning out” that so many parents worry about when their children start watching television.
A television show that gets kids up, thinking, and pretending? To see it for yourself, check it out, every morning at eleven on Nick's Noggin.
