Discussing High School Musical 2

Clay: Hello, welcome back to the Dad Lounge, I am daddy Clay. Brad: I am daddy Brad. Clay: This week we are going to be talking about little bit of pop culture. Brad: That's funny. Clay: This week we saw the broadcast of the most popular basic cable movie of all time, attracting 17.25 million viewers. Brad: Which was like the Super Bowl. Clay: Among them lots of parents and families. We are talking of course about 'High School Musical 2'. Its a very popular show. Kids are absolutely crazy about it, but I have to confess I wasn't a big fan. I want to make sure that I wasn't just really off base here, so I went on a parenting blogesphere and I tried to solicit some opinions there. I went over to blogfathers.com and Kemp there, let his kids watch, thought it was a great way to keep them quiet. Over at ParentDish, Sandy Maple thought it was cool, she even likes it. What I did appreciate about the film, she writes, was the fact that none of the girls were super skinny. Of course, most of the actress are impossibly good looking, but at least they look like normal size kids. Brad: They didn't shoot anybody either. Clay: Really a lot of the bloggers hadn't even touched it. I guess, most of them are too cool. Like babel.com didn't have a review or anything like that, but I just didn't like it. Brad: What did you not like specifically? Clay: What I didn't like was that my daughter liked it too much, and she is six. She is going to be a first grader, and she liked it a ton, and I just found the whole thing to be a little too sexy. Brad: Sexy meaning? Clay: Sexy. The whole thing was just like sexy, just like there was too much skin, there is a little bit too much love in the air, there is a little bit too much suggestive dancing. I mean, just all little bit for a six year old, too sexy. So this is my reaction and I am worried daddy Brad that maybe I am just a big old prude. Brad: It sounds like it, pretty much. Your kids go to the beach, don't they, they see scantly clad people on the beach, bare chested guy. Clay: I know. I have this little Frenchman in my ear all the time, he is saying, oh, don't you know, it's just natural, it's just love, and that's why I hate Frenchmen. Brad: They smell funny too. Clay: It's just like -- I feel bad about it, but I have this feeling that it's all part of KGOYS. Brad: Kegals? Clay: No, KGOYS, KGOYS is not exercise, its Kids Getting Older Younger Syndrome, and its been documented by lots of different stories, lots of different people. Brad: Because of the hormones in the milk, they get older. Clay: That might be part of it. I mean, part of it is kids hitting puberty earlier, but it's also about kids that -- the toys that they like, they like younger. The television. So I look at this movie and I can't believe that my six years old daughter loves it. I am worried about the sexual content. I feel that we have that on a lot of the shows she watches. There is all these live action things on Disney. They have really discovered that, the best way, I think, to capture the imagination of these kids that are ages sort of 5-8 is with these real life series; whether it's Zack & Cody, The Suite Life, or it's Hannah Montana or it's -- Anyway, I think they have decided, they have figured out that younger kids love watching the older kids and they are fascinated by it, and they are using that, and I object. I don't want my kids watching that kind of material that just makes everything sexy, its all sexy, they have boyfriends, girlfriends, all sexy. Brad: It has always been sexy daddy Clay. What did you watch when you were a kid? Clay: Okay. Alright. I see where you are going. So okay, yes. Okay, I got it. Kids always like to watch the older kids, and that's true. Brad: What did you watch? Clay: Dick Van Dyke. Brad: Dick Van Dyke. How old are you dude? Clay: 'I Love Lucy'. Those were reruns. When I came home from school; I am talking about when you are six, for me this is like 1973, 1974 on KERA in Dallas, Channel 11, with a little bit of snow, what you could get was Dick Van Dyke, Gilligan's Island maybe, that was it. You got the reruns of the old shows, and Fred and Eiffel, not terribly sexy. They weren't like boyfriend, girlfriend or anything. Brad: No, they weren't, that's true. Even a little later than 1974, The Dukes of Hazzard. I mean, think about Dasie Duke, inspiration. Camelstory.com. Yeah. You can't tell me that you and your younger friends -- Clay: That was 13 and 14 and 15 and 16 and a little bit of 17. Okay, that's what I am talking about. Movies, okay, I did see -- I was obsessed with a movie when I was my daughter's age, when I was six. I memorized the dialogs, I saw the show a bunch of times. I was obsessed with the heroes of that. Yes, I get it. Brad: What movie was that? Clay: It was Benji. Brad: Great. Clay: But how far have we come for six-years-olds, from Benji, maybe even Herbie, The Love Bug, to High School Musical 2? Brad: Herbie, the Love Bug, what did people do in the back of a -- Clay: There were no buxom lasses in bikinis dancing in Herbie, the Love Bug Returns. Brad: That's true. It would have sold a lot more if they had buxom lasses. Clay: I am just -- I am a little bit -- maybe I am prude and maybe this has always happened. I mean, this has always been a part of kids watching media, but I am just worried. I am worried about my little girl, what she thinks. So anyway, if you have got some ideas, if you have got TV shows that you watch and that you feel like is really healthy, good, and you can get your six-year-old to watch, please leave us a comment and help us out here, because I can't get my six-year-old to watch PBS Kids, that's like for babies. Brad: Sure, yeah. But some of it is better than -- like a fairly odd parent stuff. I mean, they are disrespectful to their parents. I much rather see a person in a bikini saying yes ma'am, yes sir, I would love to go and do that for you dad. Then somebody shooting a little alien on their fairly odd parents and saying, no, I am not going to do that, blah, blah, blah. I think you are prude. Clay: I am prude. Well, that's all for us here at the DadLabs. But I like porn. I mean, how can I be a prude? Brad: You liked porn when you were a kid. You are a vicarious prude. Clay: Dude, Dukes of Hazzards, don't get me started on that. Brad: I have The Facts of Life with Tootie and Burn, and those little skirts. Clay: Got to go out and buy my wife one of those checker blouses again. Brad: Yeah dude. Clay: We wore out on the last one. Brad: How did you do that?