Gal Smiley is upstairs right now watching the Berenstain Bears on Treehouse. Here’s a sampling of their theme song, as sung by Tanya Tucker:
Somewhere deep in bear country
Lives the Berenstain Bear family
They’re kinda furry around the torso
They’re a lot like people, only more so
Hm. So they are “more so” than people? What does that mean? An animated family of bears is actually more human than humans? Sounds like someone has been spending too much time working on their sociology thesis.
Even weirder is that “more so” is added to rhyme with “torso,” which is hardly a word that your average three-year-old uses in everyday conversation. I could maybe give them “more so” if they were forcing a rhyme with a word that makes sense, but torso? I think it would have been easier to write a song using the word “anthropomorphic.”
In fact, I suggest a change to the following:
Somewhere deep in bear country
Lives the Berenstain Bear family
Although they’re bears, they’re anthropomorphic
To appeal to a three-year-old demographic
See, not too hard, no?
TurtleHead 
Love it! I’ve been wondering about those lyrics too.
My other big children’s tv dilemma is where are Max & Ruby’s parents? Grandma drops by from time to time, but otherwise they seem to be on their own. Understandable with real bunnies, but we’re talking about clothes-wearing, bus-riding, fully anthropomorphized bunnies 🙂
Oh man, I KNOW! I’m always wondering that myself. Having seen every episode of Max and Ruby, I think I have determined that Ruby is around 7 and Max is somewhere between 2 and 3. A little young to be left alone!
On the other hand, if you trust the show, then by the time the Captain is seven he’ll be able to:
* bake and decorate a cake
* take Gal Smiley shopping at the mall for new clothes
* take the city bus by himself
* prepare breakfast of eggs and strawberries for everyone
* give the Wee One a bath
My workload will be next to nothing! Maybe then I can take a cruise to the Carribean. I’ll probably see Max and Ruby’s parents there.
Well bears do mature faster than humans. Maybe that’s what they mean when they say that these anthropomorphized bears are “more” than people.
Ha ha ha!