It has come to our attention that the more than slightly trippy kiddie show Yo Gabba Gabba! has Orange roots. Filmed in Long Beach and produced in our fair county by the folks who brought us The Aquabats, the show is filled with funky techno beats, '70s-inspired costumes, zany characters and meaningless, far-out interludes—which often involve children flying around on decapitated robots or stuffed animals.
Yo Gabba Gabba! features several characters:
DJ Lance, the main character, wears an orange track suit topped off with wrist bands, lensless glasses and a fuzzy orange British Guard hat with a star in the middle. He carries a giant boom box around that opens up to reveal five toys that come alive when strange dust is sprinkled on them (a metaphor for . . . ?). The toys are described below.
Toodie is a large blue cat-like creature with dinosaur spikes going down its spine. It also has spiky teeth.
Foofa is reminiscent of a pink Hershey's Kiss, or steaming pile of poopie. She loves flowers and wears one behind where her ear would be, if she had any.
Muno is a giant red cyclops with mumps covering its entire body. Phallic symbol? Walking STD?
Brobee appears to be a midget in a green striped suit who has extra-long arms (possibly held up by sticks). It has a unibrow and some pretty gnarly breath.
Flex is a robot who zaps things like Elijah Wood down into the little creature world where they live. He also does a killer robot.
In short, this show is like an acid trip with no come-down. It rocks six ways from Sunday, and if I had a kid, I would force this show on him just to see how he'd turn out in 20 years or so.
To compare the effect this program has on the minds of the future, we decided to conduct an ongoing experiment. We taped several episodes of the hit show and shared them in separate, controlled environments with one 4-year-old child and one 23-year-old stoned adult*.
Here are the results of the first showing. The episode is titled "Dance."
