Ryan's Mystery Playdate

Ryan's Mystery Playdate
Child exploitation on Nickelodeon!
Genre: "Edutainment" Running Time: 22 minutes (full episode) 11 minutes (segments) Country: United States Release Date: April 19, 2019 - April 16, 2023 Network(s): Nick Jr. Created by: Albie Hecht Distributed by: PocketWatch Inc. Seasons: 4 Episodes: 79

Ryan's Mystery Playdate is a Nick Jr. show that premiered on April 19, 2019. It is based on the YouTube channel Ryan's World.

Why It Will Never Solve the Mystery Playdate

1. Generally, like the Ryan's World games (Race with Ryan, Ryan's Rescue Squad, Tag with Ryan, etc.) it is just another shallow and cynical cash grab aimed at promoting the Ryan's World brand, and exploiting Ryan Kaji himself's likeness for a quick buck.
   • The mystery box segments (while arguably the most tolerable segments of the show) are only there just to carry the Ryan's World branding, making the show nothing more but a simple advertisement for the brand.
2. The show itself is extremely uninspired, ripping off several elements from other Nickelodeon shows that were well-received, such as Blue's Clues with the "three clues" formula.
3. Despite being a show aimed at preschoolers, there is no real educational value whatsoever, as the only thing that it does "teach" is problem solving and the power of friendship, while not a bad idea, is still very repetitive especially for that of a kids show.
4. Poor dialogue, despite the show literally being unscripted.
5. The show tries way too hard in order to be "hip" and "cool" with its target audience, such as Ryan flossing in the intro (which was thankfully removed after Season 3) and him dabbing twice at the end of "Ryan's Handy Playdate", with one of the guest stars also dabbing in "Ryan's Skatin' Playdate". Although the former is understandable as Ryan is a kid unlike various fictional characters who do these dances in an attempt to be hip with their target audience.
   • Some of the challenges are "The Floor is Lava", which wasn't even relevant by the time the show was released.
6. As mentioned above, this show contains a lot of product placment, mostly for Ryan-related merchandise, considering that the show is mostly just a blalant cash grab trying to advertise the Ryan's World franchise in the worst way possible.
7. Poor humor, such as one of the challenges being where Ryan has to squeeze all of the air out of whoopie cushions.
8. Much like Race with Ryan, the music is incredibly generic, even for the show's standards, and could possibly be stolen stock music from YouTube, showing laziness.
9. The theme song is very poorly made, as it's generic, repeats lyrics way too much, and Ryan sings poorly during it.
10. Also like Race with Ryan, Combo Panda and Gus are very poorly animated, given that they were animated with Adobe Character Animator, the software used, in which it isn't suited for a television show at all. They also don't do much in the show other than making really bad and corny jokes, which means that they're just filler. You could easily replace Combo and Gus with some other character and it wouldn't be any diffrence.
11. The show prefers quantity over quality, as it has been going for three years and now has 4 seasons and 70-half hours. Even Teen Titans Go! couldn't cram this much episodes into three years. While there were 104 episodes made by the second season, they are actually just quarter-hours. In general, they are half hours made up into quarter hours put together.
12. The episodes feel very hastily made and overall rushed, as most of them are just split into two half length segments (22 minutes in total), which is very unfitting for a live action show, showing even more that it's just a cash grab.
    • Season 2 premiered on September 30, 2019, which is five months after the show first premiered on Nickelodeon and Season 3 premiered six months later on March 30, 2020.
13. As stated above, it is just yet another shallow, bland, and overall cynical and blatant cash grab that aims to promote the Ryan's World brand, also presenting the overall problem with child exploitation in media.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The show improved only a little bit in Season 3, with there being new rigs for Combo Panda and Gus, and more secondary characters being introduced, despite the show still being nothing short of bad.
2. The mystery box segments are arguably the most tolerable segments in the show.
3. Ryan and his family are still likable in this series, and also, Shion Kaji is less of a Butt-Monkey in this series.

Reception

The show was heavily panned by audiences. It currently holds a very low rating of 1.9/10 on IMDb, making it one of the lowest rated shows on the site.

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