Yesterday, during breaks in writing and seeking possessions shifted by my missus when making additional drawer space for our daughter (after her return from Canada,) I spent a short period of my day philosophising.
These thoughts not my normal level of inane epiphany. Ideas such as pondering whether I should have tarmac laid in the lounge for durability purposes, and if I proceed how to resolve the huge logical problem of getting a steam roller through the front door.
Moreover, my philosophical thoughts surrounded contemporary human existentialism, particularly the influence upon it by social media (SM). Among these meaning of life notions, I reflected upon the irony of internet trolling become a thing at the same historical juncture as human resilience to offence markedly waned.
Specifically, yours truly pondered which situation manifested itself first – Cyber bullying or the seemingly unyielding increase in the populace’s sensitivities.
It wasn’t long, though, before concluding I didn’t really give a shiny s***e about the chronology of the populace becoming emotionally brittle. Consequently, I stopped philosophising, put the telly on and, while flicking through BBC iPlayer’s content, ventured upon a programme of visual clips bearing the moniker ‘Andy’s Animal Raps’.
Originally misreading the title as ‘Andy’s Animal Wraps’, I initially pondered whether the show was maybe of the gross eating show genre, such as ‘Man vs Food’. My imagination proffering notions of the presenter as an over-indulgent carnivore, who at the shows start envelopes a huge beast (eg, a hippo) in a flatbread wrap. An action succeeded by him spending the remainder of the live show unceremoniously attempting to trough his gargantuan ‘meal’.
My daydream incorporating manifestations of a prurient audience sitting open-mouthed, anxious to see if this glutton was capable of consuming every morsel within his allotted half hour timescale.
After his demolition of the aforementioned tuck, I imagined the live show’s titles to run accompanied by a background sound of Andy belching uninterruptedly. The presenter contracted to sustain this grotesque passing of air for the whole one minute and seven seconds of the programmes outro.
It was with a modicum of disappointment I discovered my daydreams were well wide of the mark. This realisation becoming immediately apparent upon commencing the programme on BBC iPlayer, when I found the format to be more educational than guttural – It’s target audience being the nation’s younger viewers. Wee folk who need absolutely no further encouragement to belch raucously after the unceremonious consumption of food.
First aired on the CBeebies channel, ‘Andy’s Animal Raps’ are a bunch of short clips, each providing nippers with a song and basic details concerning a member of the animal kingdom. All this plays out with the shows presenter clad in an unconvincing low-budget costume in which he aims to mirror the behaviour of that episodes animal subject.
Deeming myself already in the possession of the knowledge being peddled by the show, I didn’t spend a great deal of time in the company of ‘Andy’s Animal Raps’. Instead thoughts reverted to my epiphany about the grotesque reality eating show,
Concluding it’s format bears potential, I’m making tentative enquiries about how to get a pilot show of ‘Gary’s Animal Wraps’ produced……. Incidentally, does anyone know a gullible financial backer and a greedy get who can eat a hippo in 30 minutes?!
In the meantime, all I’ve got left to proffer is……
