Top 10 Mediocre Shows For Kids

Because they're all guilty pleasures, ya know?

There are a lot of shows for kids to watch. On Netflix alone, there are more hours of children’s programming than the very biggest number you can think of. It’s even more than this many: *stretches arms very wide for visual*

It can be hard to discern between shows that are intriguing garbage and shows that are pure trash. Fortunately, after countless hours with my R&D team, I’ve done a lot of the work for you and am ready to present my findings.

To be very clear, these aren’t award-winning recommendations. Bluey, the greatest show ever created, is not on this list. Instead, you’ll hear about programs that might not appeal to you, but that your kids will love and you’ll find yourself either humming along to the theme song or shocked by how much your child suddenly knows about cuttlefish.

Without further ado, here are my top 10 sorta-bad-but-almost-good shows for 2023, even though most of them started airing before my kids were born.

1. Blaze and the Monster Machines (Prime Video)

Blaze is a powerful monster truck driven by his little buddy, AJ. In each episode, Blaze has to deal with some trivial-yet-life-threatening hardship introduced by Crusher, the monster truck who’s not as rad as Blaze but wishes he was.

Two great things about this show: 1) they teach a lot of physics lessons and 2) they teach them through super sick jams. Friction and Inertia are two of my favorites, as the show turns those two words into absolutely ROCKING refrains. If you walk around the house humming “inertia” to yourself, you know the show is good.

2. Rainbow Rangers (Netflix)

If, like me, you’ve spent years wondering what would happen if Rainbow Brite and Ranger Rick had a baby, wonder no longer. This show features some of the squeakiest voices to ever grace your eardrums, but the message is always spot on as the team of Rainbow Rangers faces off against the money-obsessed Preston Praxton who’s trying to harm some plant or animal to make a quick buck. Loaded with animal facts and rainbow powers, this show we’ll leave you happy and confused and annoyed and inspired.

3. Numberblocks (Netflix)

Want your kids to learn math while watching the tube? Careful what you wish for; something about these little counting, singing blocks freaks me out.

Maybe it’s the animation, or maybe I have repressed math issues that I should be exploring in therapy. Either way, my kids seem to enjoy some of these episodes but, as far as I can tell, they’re not great at multiplication yet.

4. Puppy Dog Pals (Disney+)

I appreciate that this show features pugs. Cute, bright-eyed pugs. I’m not sure if they fight crime or just deal with everyday problems—I’ve never really been able to track the plot of a given episode. My daughter loves dogs, and this is a show with dogs in the title so it’s an easy choice.

5. Sunny Bunnies (Netflix)

Another animated fever dream. No dialogue, so the storyline is portrayed through action and weird bunny grunts, in a slightly deeper register than one might expect from these little fluff balls. Judging by the thumbnail, you’d expect every episode to be about a bunny losing a carrot and the other bunnies rallying together to find the carrot and then they all hug and eat some carrots. Instead, there are time machines and wacky gadgets and all sorts of zany sci-fi elements that make the show as weird as possible.

6. Super Wings (Prime Video)

My kids call this one Jet, because it’s about a little delivery plane named Jet who, against all odds, delivers people their mail in times of need. Nothing too exciting about this one, but it makes the list for a reason that’s very close to my heart. Jet’s delivery motto is, “On time, every time!” My daughter, trying to adopt this motto, will proudly step into a room and announce, “No time, every time!” then walk away.

7. Bo on the Go! (Netflix)

Made with the best intentions, the blue-haired protagonist (I think she’s Bo? Or her little dragon sidekick is Bo. Couldn’t be less important) encourages kids to get up and help her accomplish things throughout each episode. “When you move with me, you give me energy!” she’ll say. And then my kids will stay glued to the couch and watch her move around.

Every once in a while, they’ll get up and dance along. I wouldn’t say they’re getting a lot of exercise when they do it, and they’re still 100% watching TV. The point is, don’t ever tell someone your toddlers watch “this great cartoon that encourages movement and really gets them on their feet” because you’re lying to that person and yourself. Still, Bo’s heart is in the right place.

8. Booba (Netflix)

I mean… I don’t think anyone in the world can explain this show.

He’s a troll? Or a gnome. Could just be a hairy man but that doesn’t seem right. Tiny yeti? We’ll never know.

Also, lots of semi-evil laughing and grunting. There are a bunch of things about this show that cause me to do a little eyebrow raising, but my kids just giggle and watch the silliness. A part of me thinks bizarre shows like this will inspire creative genius down the road. Another part of me wonders which cartoons will eventually lead to psychosis.

9. Creature Cases (Netflix)

This one’s pretty good. It’s about animal detectives who solve animal crimes and help us learn things about animals. The music is a bit too suspenseful and it’s almost all voiced by British actors except for the one character who sounds like Elizabeth Banks (R&D team concluded it is NOT Elizabeth Banks). None of that matters, but I don’t have much else to say about this one. I guess I’m surprised my kids like it? I’m also running out of ideas for this list.

10. Bluey

Did you really think I’d leave Bluey off this list? Are you insane?

This show is soooooooo good. If you know you know, and even then you don’t even know. Bluey is so good I can put it on a list about mediocre shows, send it out to my trillions of subscribers, and it won’t even matter. Ratings will go untouched.

This one where Bluey meets a French kid while camping and they become friends but then the kid has to go back to France? This one where they find a feather and pretend it’s a wand and play feather wand? This one where the dad is trying to get the kids to school but can’t stop playing silly games with them and getting off track just like a perfect father would do?

Each episode is 8 minutes long and I’m guaranteed to laugh throughout and cry at the end. We watch one episode with the kids before bedtime, and at the end the kids demand in unison, “one more???” and I have to fight so hard not to say “HELL YEAH LET’S GO” because all I want to do is binge Bluey.

If we did a Best of TV Bracket, Bluey wins every time. Against your spicy HBO mini series, your award-winning drama, your ratings-smashing comedy, I really don’t care. You will not find a better show since everything in the 1997 TGIF lineup.

Studies show watching Bluey makes all four members of my family better people. When I think of my parenting goals, it’s really just to become more like the characters in this show. If I’m talking to someone and we’re not talking about Bluey, I’m not invested in that conversation.

Thus concludes my tribute to Bluey. And whatever else I said about the other shows. I’m sure they’re fine. Can’t remember a single thing I typed about programs one through nine. Let’s all go watch a few dozen episodes of Bluey and then turn the comments section into a Bluey forum and then maybe the show’s creators will find out about it and invite me and my family to Australia for a recording and then they’ll ask us to voice the Heeler’s American cousins for an episode and then