Tweenies
| Tweenies | ||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 "Come and play!" No! Absolutely not!
| ||||||||||||||||||
|
Tweenies is a British live-action children's television series created by Will Brenton and Iain Lauchlan. The program is focused on four characters known as the "Tweenies", playing, singing, dancing, and learning in a fictional daycare. They are cared for by two adult Tweenies and two dogs.
390 episodes were broadcast between September 6, 1999, and July 25, 2002. In 2000, the show won a BAFTA award for Best Preschool Live Action series, and singles featuring exclusive songs spent some weeks in the charts during the early 2000s. The series premiered on the BBC's children's block and aired reruns on CBeebies from the channel's launch in 2002 until 2016. In the United States, it was shown on Noggin from 2003 to 2006. It also aired on Nickelodeon's Nick Jr. block from July 18 to September 25, 2003.
Bad Qualities
- Poor and cliché characterization:
- Bella is portrayed as a stereotypical bossy mean girl and causes things to go wrong with her overconfidence.
- Milo is overly hyperactive and energetic. His voice actors, Bob Golding in the UK and Tracey Moore in the US, also constantly yell his lines.
- Fizz is a spoiled brat who gets whiny and grumpy for the smallest reasons. She and Milo also don't get along sometimes.
- Jake is a punching bag whom the other Tweenies leave out and exclude from their games all because they feel he isn't big enough to join them.
- The whole show is extremely repetitive. It seems to believe that every child should only be happy. Although encouraging happiness is a good thing, as you should, this show flat-out makes it seem like you would only be happy.
- Much like Teletubbies, the voice acting, especially in the UK dub, ranges from bland to downright insufferable.
- "Fizz Is Sucking Her Thumb" is a torture episode for Fizz because the other Tweenies treat her like a baby all for acting like one. Fizz herself also acts immature throughout, even before the Tweenies start treating her like a baby.
- Very crude and poor-looking animation. The CGI effects also hadn't aged well.
- The Tweenies themselves can look a little unnerving.
- The lost US dub that aired on Noggin in 2003 is pointless. "Telly Time" and "News Time" were also unnecessarily changed to "Video Time" and "Circle Time". Why it warranted a US dub, we will never know.
- Some of the songs are rather annoying.
Good Qualities
- The show can make daycare, preschool, and kindergarten seem fun to children.
- The theme song can be catchy when it's not overly sugarcoated and irritating.
- Doodles, Max, and Judy are all likeable characters.
- Only two episodes are mean-spirited, those being "Fizz Is Sucking Her Thumb" and "Favourite Things".
- It can still be nostalgic to many who grew up with this show in the UK.
- There are some good episodes like "Tweenie Band", which started the show on a high note, and "Grumpy Max".
Reception
Tweenies currently holds a 4.9/10 on IMDb and was criticized by Caddicarus, along with Tweenies: Game Time, the PS1 video game based on the show. However, the show gained a cult following in the UK, with some claiming it as one of their favorite childhood shows.
Trivia
- The episode "Favourite Songs" gained controversy due to a depiction of Jimmy Savile in the episode. Jimmy Savile would later be denounced as a pedophile after his death. Following the controversy, CBeebies banned the episode in 2013 after it was repeated.