I have a general policy of letting toons sit for ten years before writing them up — thus, no Spongebob article until at least July of 2009 (tho I'll surely get to it shortly after). It's not a hard-and-fast rule — in fact, I deliberately violated it a couple of months ago, because I decided Supermuse ought to be known by the comics community in general, rather than the few members of it living in New Orleans, who probably have more pressing concerns.

The reason for this policy is to give me a little historical perspective on what I write about; and what the heck, it isn't creating a shortage of interesting topics. But it does sometimes put an excellent topic off-limits, at least for the time being.

For example, if I stick to this policy, it'll be October, 2014, before I get to write an article on The Backyardigans, a perfectly delightful daily half-hour on Nickeledeon, aimed at pre-schoolers. But at least I can take a couple of paragraphs here to note an amusing oddity in it.

But first, a brief description. It's about five little friends, three boys and two girls, whose houses are all together, so their rear doors open onto a back yard they all share in common. There, they play together creatively, the yard morphing into whatever they're imagining. In fact, just this morning, I was watching with my 22-month-old granddaughter, Megan, while they raced all the way around the world, through mountains, deserts and all sorts of other backdrops. While adventuring, they sing songs, usually with new words set to familiar tunes — and not just tiny kid songs with simple words, carefully pronounced, talking down like grown-ups often do with a very young audience. These are actual music, enjoyable by older kids or even adults. Even old, old adults like me.

Now, the amusing oddity. These cartoons aren't ultra-politically correct — if they were, nobody would be competitive enough to win that race. They'd just accept the idea that everybody's mediocre, oops I mean equal, and nobody would dare want to stand out from the crowd by winning. The Backyardigans did help each other out when one of them got in trouble, but when the problem was past they'd get right back to trying to beat each other.

But the show does give a bow to political correctitude by including elements of diversity — which is healthy, if you ask me, but sometimes seems strained. In this case it seems very strained, in that it's hard to get much human diversity into funny animals that are mostly colored in pastels.

How did they manage to do it at all? Well, not by giving any of them identifiable racial or ethnic characteristics, you may be sure. Except —

One of them, a bright blue bird (the only non-pastel), is named Pablo; and another, an orange moose, is Tyrone.

I hope, in all political correctitude, that nobody takes offense at this. But I always get a chuckle out of that. It's just one of many ways I enjoy The Backyardigans.

— DDN