"The Haunted Hathaways" review

After my first article about "Ni Hao, Kai-Lan", a show I actually liked, I decided to jump into the deep end and torture myself with a show about a man dragging his kids along to break into a single mother's home. The mother tries to protect her daughters from this strange man and his two sons, but is forced to have him decide on her and her kids's well being. Having the man and his sons be ghosts doesn't help. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: they're ghosts. On the one hand, that's important to mention because it's the premise of the show, but on the other hand: IS it important?

Personally, I feel it's an excuse for a lack of.. well, everything. It makes the show look witty and funny because of the antics that ensue, but the fact that they're ghosts is really played down and used to replace an actual plot. The jokes are horrendous, the actors are terrible, and it made me say "whaaaat....?" too many times. 

Also, because of a lot of the interaction between the mom and dad is based on "you're going to let me stay in this house and let me force my will on you and your kids", there's a whole uncomfortable layer added. 

"Luckily", both the mom and dad are horrible people and terrible parents, using stupid methods for raising their kids. I often hear the excuse "it's a kids show, so that doesn't matter", but I don't believe that. Kids shouldn't be treated like they're idiots and parents shouldn't be portrayed like they are either.

So I picked a random episode to watch and that's also kind of everything I can say about the show. Well yeah, that, and that it's stupid. And every actor is terrible. And most of the jokes don't make sense. And they're all horrible, horrible people.

The show starts off with Frankie (human) and Louie (ghost) putting together a prank in the bakery of Frankie's mom. Also, I'll mention right away that this bakery is used as the living room of both families and they make enough money to stay open even though there are never people there and the kids set up traps for people who enter, but lets just put that aside for now. Of course, the mom walks into it and she and dad try to decide what the best punishment is for these kids. They start blaming each other on whose kid ruined the other and they decide the best way to resolve this is to not allow these kids, who live together in a house, to play with each other anymore. Great parenting there, guys, I don't know why all mixed families don't just solve their problems like this.

Luckily, the kids learn by watching their parents's behavior and also start blaming each other and declare themselves no longer friends. They go trough a series of terrible jokes and the standard "fat kid is a loser" routine to find some new friends to make the other one jealous. The parents find out that this maybe was a bad idea and that they should work together to get the kids to be friends again.

So they get the kids together for a chat, explaining the issues and get the kids to talk it out, while they themselves learn about the problems a mixed family can have and how they should approach these kinds of problems in the future. Oh wait, that doesn't sound fun, does it? No, instead, let's set up a prank in the bakery for the kids to work together on and ruin the mother's business. They even have the nerve to end it with "we're terrible people, but at least we're good parents". No sir, you are not. You're a terrible father and she's a terrible mother and it's no wonder that you've raised terrible kids.

I'm sorry, I just can't be positive about this show. Everything about it annoys me! But what annoys me the most, are the ratings. On the one hand, I get why kids are so into this show, but on the other, I really wish they weren't. It's relatively harmless if you look at it as simple entertainment, but it's so easy to put some message in a kids show, that I don't get why they put something like this on the air.

Compare it to shows like "iCarly" or "Victorious". Both are, like "Haunted Hathaways", sitcoms for kids, but they actually put in a message: Creativity. Kids, teens and tweens can all watch those shows, understand them, and get a laugh out of them. They deal with real issues. Even if some of the stories can get a bit crazy and over the top, it at least says something! I don't have that with Haunted Hathaways. I feel like they just trow a story in my face, with terrible jokes and no message at all because it's at least entertaining. Is the fact that this is a show about a ghost family an excuse? No. Especially because them being ghosts doesn't change anything about the way the family interacts, it's mostly an excuse for weird jokes, like instead of the dad walking out the door, he turns into a superhero and flies out. I don't get it. Yeah, it could be funny, if it made sense or was build up properly, but they just use a jump-cut to the dad flying off. It's too random, and I feel scared for the kids to whom that actually makes sense.

But what would I know. I'm just a 90's kid, I watched shows about babies and a wallaby's that worked in a comic-store. Watch it yourself, and let me know what you thought. Till then, I'm gonna watch something more enjoyable than "The haunted Hathaways": punchline. 

"Ni Hao, Kai-Lan" review

I remember the first time I saw "Ni Hao, Kai-Lan" very well.. The young Kai-Lan and her vast collection of animal friends decide to put up a music show, and they go around getting people to join their band. Kai-Lan comes across her buddy HoHo, a little white monkey with an adorable voice that makes you want to snap the neck of the woman behind it.
And then comes the part that made me laugh for about 10 minutes. All of Kai-Lan’s friends start naming the instruments they’re gonna be playing during the show. Kai-Lan on the tambourine, Rintoo the Tiger will be rocking the xylophone, and HoHo happily flies in a dj-booth carried by balloons while screaming “I’m gonna play the turntables!”.

"Ni Hao, Kai-lan" is based on the childhood memories of the show's creator Karen Chau growing up in a Chinese-American household. “Ni hao” means “Hello” in Mandarin, and Kai-Lan is the Chinese name Chau was given at birth, which was later anglicized to Karen. The little Kay-Lan goes around town visiting her many animal friends and her adoring Chinese family, while having an adventure or two.
Every episode is full of random Mandarin words and phrases they try to cram down your throat. And when I say random, I do mean random. For example, did you know the Mandarin phrase for bracelet is "shǒu zhuó"? Or that "Sun Wukong" means Monkey King? I don't know about you, but I'm happy that thanks to "Ni Hoa, Kai-Lan", I can now say "tiào wǔ Xióng Hòu, tiào wǔ!" (what of course means "dance Bear Queen, dance!")

So I decided to just watch an episode! Of course, I would never ask you to watch an entire episode... but just in case, here it is!

So the episode starts off with Kai-Lan and "YeYe", meaning grandfather, painting some Chinese characters. We learn how to "write" the word love, followed by Kai-Lan going around grabbing every object, saying how much she loves them. There are 2 things that you'll notice right away: Kai-Lan think's everything is Super, and she pronounces "YeYe" like she really wants to be Lil Jon (the rapper, not the one from Robin Hood).

After they're done painting, YeYe goes to pluck apples and offers Kai-Lan to pick some for her too, which she politely declines. She starts telling a story about how much she loves her grandfather, and decides that she should trow him a party! Why? because he always does nice stuff, like... learning her how to paint... and... picks apples... At least she tries.
So she gathers her friends and they start making some decorations. They of course make everything red, because YeYe was wearing a red sweater and apples are red, makes perfect sense. But oh no! HoHo wanted to paint the apple he drew red and there's no more red paint! So of course, he starts sulking like a twat and the gang needs to find a way to make him happy again. After hugging doesn't work out, they make him jump 3 times his length 'cause that's the thing that makes him happy again, and he decides that green apples also exist.

Next, Kai-Lan gets a cake for YeYe, makes a nice card, and hangs the last of the decorations in the tree. And I must say: this looks like a good party! I'm actually just as exited as Kai-Lan to see what her grandfather thinks about the effort and sweetness.
But then all hell breaks loose: the wind starts blowing, ripping the decorations from the tree, destroying the cake and violently tearing her home-made card to shreds, followed by the sound of Kai-Lan's breaking heart. I was screaming while all this was going on, and as soon as the first tear rolled over Kai-Lan's little face, all I could ask was "why?". Let me tell you one thing: Dora could only dream about me caring as much about her shitty Swiper problems, as I cared about this little Chinese girl and her ruined surprise party.

Her friends first try to get her happy again with a hug, and just 'cause they're nice, they open up their arms for me and tell me I'm in the hug too! But alas, the hug doesn't help and she's still sad.. But then the gang remembered how they made HoHo happy before, and that Kai-Lan told them that making silly faces made her happiest! Also, at this point the episode suddenly starts with having random auto tuned songs, that just confuse you 'cause of their randomness and not-very-goodness. But you know, I don't even mind them: they kinda fit and they're not hiding the fact it's made by a computer, what actually makes it ok again (in this case, that is)

Now that Kai-Lan's happy again, they can start cleaning the mess and see if they can salvage the party, which they do. Not as awesome as before, but again: They're trying. YeYe is happy, Kai-Lan's happy, DJ HoHo is rocking his turntables once again, and I'm impressed that they kept me interested for 25 minutes. End it with Kai-Lan giving a speech about how I'm the greatest person alive, and I'm pleased as punch!

Is this completely ripped off from Dora the Explorer, including the annoying monkey friend? Yes it is. Is it better then Dora in every single way? Hell yes.

I don't know why, but I just like this show. Yeah, it's silly, but it's a kids show, so you need to treat it like one. It makes me laugh, with its silly humor and a likable main character. I like to believe this show is the Adventure Time for toddlers, with it's randomness and post-apocalyptic undertone. I don't think I'll actually learn a whole lot of Chinese thanks to this, but I know more then I ever did before, so that's something!

The lessons they teach are great for kids, because it's realistic in how parents and kids are these days. Like one episode where HoHo gets mad, points his frustrations towards Rintoo the Tiger and hits him. Instead of fighting or just trying to talk it over because "kids need to learn to do that", YeYe takes him to sit in time out, explains why Hoho's put there, and then follows logic steps with the kids how he should've dealt with this problem. That's awesome! Time out is a method often used these days by parents, but kids are often too young to understand it. This show puts something that happens to them in a story, and makes it easy for them to relate and get what's going on, The show mostly concentrates on dealing with the many emotions kids have, but doesn't forget the age they are targeting. And that's the whole point of kids shows: teach kids about every day life in a fun way, while treating them with respect.

So yeah, I'm pro Ni Hao, Kai-Lan. It's fun, weird, and teaches good lessons to kids in a respectable way. Unfortunately, it's been taken of the air for the time being, but there are loads of fan-made spin-offs that are worth checking out. Lots of people are fighting to get it back on the air, but until then we will have to take what we can get.

Thank you for reading my review of "Ni Hao, Kai-Lan", You make my heart feel super happy! Goodbye!

~Simone