National Geographic IS Boring

Now, don't get me wrong. I approve of what National Geographic does. I will even stop and watch an episode from time to time, and the saggy "native" boobies in their magazines made up much of what I learned about the female anatomy until I found that Playboy I mentioned in one of my Christmas posts. But, by in large, it's pretty dry, dull, boring stuff. Except when an alligator eats a baby gazelle drinking from a lake. That's pretty exciting. But it's always followed up by more boring stuff--and usually some maudlin commentary that makes us feel bad that we just witnessed the seedier side of nature.

But on to my proof. Christmas of 2008, some friends gave Gabe an "Animal Holiday" DVD. We didn't watch it last year because we figured Gabe was too young to have any interest in it, but we pulled it out this year figuring we would give it a go. But we forgot all about it. It got shuffled in with our stack of kids' movies and we didn't get around to playing it. But, this afternoon, Gabe found it and insisted that I play it for him.

Here is the result.


Not five minutes into it, he was out. Of course, this had MAINLY to do with the fact that he refused to take a nap this afternoon even though we both knew he was tired, but still. Proof. Here we had a DVD designed for children (Santa is telling stories about various arctic animals, and it doesn't get much more geared for kids than that--and they sing Christmas carols throughout), and not only did it fail to engage my child, it put him straight to sleep. Keep up the good, educational, boring-ass work, Nat Geo!