Reggie From "Free Birds" with Pizza Steve from "Uncle Grandpa"

"Hang on to your nuggets"... and to your dairy, and your gluten:  Thanksgiving food that talks back.

We saw "Free Birds" over the weekend during a ten year old's birthday party.  The movie's other tagline posits itself as "The best turkey movie of all time."  This may be true.  Perhaps it would be wise to leave it at that.

I will observe, however, that it reminded me strongly of "Chicken Little" a widely panned 2005 Disney movie that was the object of obsession for our older son for much of the period between his third and fourth years.  Something about the talking birds, wimpy underdog protagonist and invisible flying ship catapulted me back to our repeated, stupifying viewings of "Chicken Little."  That said,  "Chicken Little" features one of my favorite animated characters of all time: Fish Out of Water ....and "Free Birds" does not have that redeeming feature.

At any rate, "Free Birds" posits pizza as the solution to the problem of the Thanksgiving driven murder of turkeys.  While my children are happy to embrace an exclusively dairy and gluten based diet whenever possible, Uncle Grandpa's Pizza Steve presents a further food empathy challenge.

Mr Gus Tells Gipsy Danger To "Embrace The Weird"

Is Mr. Gus a small, laid back kaiju?

Our sons found Mr. Gus's uncharacteristic hysteria on "Treasure Island," the latest episode of "Uncle Grandpa" to be extremely hilarious. He has trouble accepting the "embrace the weird" lesson of the episode.

Given the weirdness and flexibility of the Uncle Grandpa universe, I figured Mr. Gus might as well be enlarged to the size of the kaiju in "Pacific Rim."  His calm demeanor and flat affect, however, made it hard to imagine him engaged in any physical conflict with Pacific Rim style  jaeger.

Shaggy and Scooby with Uncle Grandpa's Pizza Steve

One might imagine these chronic overeaters being troubled by the appearance of talking food.

Some iteration of "Scooby Doo" is scheduled on Cartoon Network right between getting dressed time and racing out the door late for school time, so Scooby and the gang are back in our kids' heads.

While I absolutely loathed the Scooby Doo franchise when I was a kid, I have come to grudgingly appreciate it over the last few years of exposure.  Now I'm working on Pizza Steve.

Nanny McPhee and Uncle Grandpa Compare Notes and Orthodontic Histories

Trapped indoors on Sunday afternoon while we tried to determine whether he was coming down with a cold or not, Ansel sat through part of a "Nanny McPhee" movie fairly happily.  His older brother was in another room, so Ansel was able to watch a story that had some dialogue, plot, female characters... and not too many weapons, without suffering fraternal derision.  Archer did join Ansel for a few moments here and there... long enough to comment, "Nanny McPhee is a bit of an asshole."  Well, yes, she was a little hard on those misbehaving children....

Uncle Grandpa indulges in some magic abuse of a wayward child himself in the latest episode of his show (Emperor vs Emperor) as he turns the disobedient kid into a monster with a mayonnaise spatula for a hand.

Needless to say, our boys prefer the cartoon guy with the beanie to the British lady with the moles.  I try to keep my feelings about such things to myself as I noticed long ago that the more I express my dislike for something, the more compelling it is for my sons.

And after Archer's obsession with "The Doodlebops" back in 2006.... let's just say, I had to become much more aesthetically and conceptually flexible... or kill myself.  (Here's a Doodlebop link if you don't know what I mean and are a glutton for punishment)  And there is something to be said for kids' shows that are written for stoned adults.  They are less sanctimonious.

The presence of Nanny McPhee made Ansel hate this napkin.  I suspected as much, but somehow could not restrain myself from pairing the two snaggletoothed magic adults.