Favourite Treehouse Shows

Two years ago, I had no idea about kids shows, except that Sesame Street was probably still on the air and Barney seemed a little too fruity for me. Oh, how things have changed.

Our TV is tuned to channel 70 for Treehouse TV almost all day long. Treehouse TV is the network devoted entirely to programming for preschoolers like our little man. While he is familiar with most of the programming he always had some clear favourites. So have I. My favourites have stayed pretty constant, but his have changed over time as his tastes have become a little more sophisticated.


For example, in the beginning, his favourite show seemed to be The Mole Sisters -- starring two moles who mostly giggle and roll around with the help of low-budget animation. I think they are both voiced by the same lady, so the moles are indistinguishable from each other.

I thought he would be most interested in shows with singing and dancing and lots of things to watch -- something like 4 Square -- but he seemed to enjoy the idle frolicking moles.

Besides making gorilla and owl sounds, one of Scott's first recognizeable "words" was "choo-choo", and the boy has been a train fanatic ever since. Given his love of trains, you would think he would be crazy about Thomas and Friends, that classic show about everyone's favourite tank engine on the Island of Sodor. I like the show well enough, but I have to admit that the action is bit slow, since the remote-controlled trains have limited expressive ability. Still, he loves to play with his Thomas trains, so we thought he would love the show.

However, Scotty surprised me again, opting for fare such as "In The Night Garden" (although I must point out that the Linky Lonk is basically a train, so you could argue that it's a show about a train... kind of). The star of the show is Iggle Piggle, but Scott's clear favourite is Makka Pakka, the short, chubby rock-polisher. In fact, Scott will frequently clap his hands together and say something that sounds like "makka pakka". He has also taken to making little humming or cooing sounds that he never made when he was younger. We figure it's an homage to Makka Pakka.

Now, personally, I prefer The Backyardigans over all other Treehouse programs, mainly because I think it's well produced and very, very clever. Scott doesn't care much for Pablo and friends, but he will occasionally humour me by watching, particularly if there is a train in the episode. He'll watch an episode of anything that includes a train.

A train episode is what made him a Dora fan. We noticed that an episode of Dora the Explorer was going to have a train in it, so we recorded it. He probably watched nothing but that for a few days straight. That's how he is with things he likes. He wants nothing but that until he wears it out. I think he gets that from my side of the family (ie: Grandpa and motorcycles, uncle J and remixes, etc). He also became a Diego fan, but it was Dora first -- thanks to Azul the Train (does anyone else wonder if the blue train was a ploy to win over Thomas fans? I suspect so).

With all this talk of train shows, there is one that we have left to the end -- and for good reason. This show is like a part of the family. While interest in others have waxed and waned, this one has stayed strong through it all. This one is Chuggington. We have changed diapers to this show, brushed teeth to this show... it is part of the daily routine. We have our PVR set up to tape the latest episodes every Saturday and Sunday, and I am not surprised to see that we have more than half of the 52 episodes recorded. I think we may have deleted that ones that were kind of boring, but we never get rid of any that have that superhero of the train world, Action Chugger.

The day will come when Scott grows out of Chuggington, and that will be bittersweet.