Yup. It's official.
Let's get a time of death.
I have officially become a professional jerk off, the thing I swore I would never be - one of "those" parents.
I fucking love Yo Gabba Gabba.
I always remember friends of mine who had kids telling me about Yo Gabba Gabba and how it was the only tolerable children's show. I usually made a mental note that these people were dicks and kept drinking, now I'm the dick and could you please pass the seltzer with lime. See what I mean? I'm one of “those” fuckers now.
I don't know how the fuck it happened. The first time I threw it on was during the particularly harsh winter of 2011. We were buried under snow; everyone was suffering from cabin fever and on a razors edge. Add a frustrated 1 year old to the mix and you have a recipe for infighting. In an effort to avoid this I gave Yo Gabba Gabba a shot.
Immediately my mind recoiled in horror.
I was repulsed. What he fuck was this shit?
An autistic grown man dressed in orange with a smug robot, a pill addled pink whore, a giant wart covered talking red dildo, a blue lesbian gym teacher and a slow pigeon-toed green fucker who was always whining about shit. As awful as it was it worked, but not for the reasons I expected, instead it have us something to rally against.
A common enemy to turn our rage on.
It was cathartic as fuck.
What we didn't realize is that it made an indelible impression on the kid. She started asking for bubbles all the time. Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles, so we gave her bubbles, she would cry, say now, and we were both befuddled, like "what the fuck is bubbles?".
A few weeks later we are at target and we pass a Yo Gabba Gabba back pack and she starts yelling "bubbles!".
Holy shit.
She liked it.
We are fucked!
Every morning while we are getting ready she starts melting down crying for bubbles. Eventually, like most parents, we give in. We found a few that weren't particularly offensive and DVR'd them. Fast forward a few months and we are all walking around the house singing songs from Yo Gabba Gabba.
The lady is still fighting it, but I have drunk the Kool Aid. I love these dirty perverts. Mostly because I love the music. The music is so fucking fresh. Well the music that isn't being sung by the cast is.
The guest appearances and the animated interstitials are so dope. They are performed by a who's who of indie music as well as a bunch of pricks I never heard off that appear to be from the former Soviet Union, Norway or Canada. The Norwegians and Communists usually suck and make electronic music with harsh edged but the Canadians make adorable pop songs (see the above video from The Salteens who are the most Canadian non-Canadians this side of Ryan Seacrest).
Thanks to Yo Gabba Gabba I have fallen back in love with bands I grew out of (The Shins and Band of Horses), remembered band that fell off my radar (King Khan) and adjusted my opinion on bands I wrote off without ever hearing (Chromeo).
It's obviously not cool or novel to admit this but it is freeing. I can shout it from the mountain top and then throw two middle fingers in the air with pride. Because I even like this shit and fuck you if you don't.