I have long argued that we are living through a golden age of children’s television. If you search for it, you’ll quickly be inundated with shows that run rings around whatever we were served as kids. Hey Duggee is exceptional. Bluey is amazing. The new Super Happy Magic Forest series on CBBC is shaping up to be an all-timer. The culture is so rich that even something as bland as Netflix’s Lego City Adventures can end up being a happily absurdist sitcom.
This may not be immediately apparent, however, because all these good shows sit in a sea of absolute tosh. If you have very young kids, you will know the horrors of Cocomelon, an ambient hellscape of zombie-eyed CGI infants singing nursery rhymes as if under the spell of the devil himself. Or Paw Patrol. Or – and I hesitate to mention his name lest I summon him from the darkness – Blippi.
Really, if you’re making a new show for kids, the onus should be on channelling the former group. You should strive for art that serves children, rather than cynically banging out something just to line your pockets. Someone should really mention this to Juventus.
This week, a press release was sent out heralding a huge moment in children’s entertainment: the unveiling of the second series of the first animated programme entirely produced by a football club. Team Jay is a cartoon that “follows the adventures of Juventus mascot Jay the Zebra, who shares his passion for football with his friends Matteo, Cami, Wushu and Duke. Together, they embark on exciting adventures, applying the skills they’ve learned from playing football in fun and engaging ways.”
That would be fine, were Team Jay any good. However, the show has already been on YouTube for a while and, unless there is a dramatic uptick in quality incoming, it’s all quite definitively abysmal. It’s exceedingly ugly, for starters, featuring the sort of blobby, weightless, bug-eyed characters that look as if they’ve spent their lives slowly absorbing dangerous quantities of nuclear fallout. It looks like the cheaply made animations they show on aeroplanes. It’s the sort of thing TV channels show at 5am, to punish children for waking up too early.
The stories don’t really fit the brief, either. The most recent video – Team Jay Builds the Ultimate Soccer Ball (fewer than 800 views in 24 hours) – sees the characters attempting to invent a new type of ball so they can spite an influencer in a contest judged by a duck. In another episode, the team is attacked by an interdimensional baddie who can leap through time and space. How do they apply the skills they’ve learned from playing football to beat him? One of them eats a football then bops him on the head.
Worst of all, though, is the sense that when you watch Team Jay you’re simply participating in a bout of mindless corporate brand extension. Team Jay doesn’t seem to be the result of a genuine interest in children or the content they consume. The whole thing feels like a slightly grubby way to strong-arm kids into supporting Juventus. It’s a line on a spreadsheet; a way to sell more shirts. It’s all quite grim.
You’d hope that this would be it – that Team Jay will fail and never be repeated. But that’s unlikely. It’s already making the jump from YouTube to TV thanks to CosmoBlue Media (a global media and entertainment company “with expertise in sports media management, streaming services, content production and digital monetisation”) and modern top-flight football isn’t exactly known for its ethics, so it seems inevitable that more will follow. Why not a Manchester City cartoon, about some ugly neon bug-eyed gits playing keepy-uppy on a boat? Or a Real Madrid cash-in about some gruesome blobby thing with a crown on its head? True, we may get lucky and end up with a Partick Thistle cartoon about David Shrigley’s terrifyingly aggressive sun mascot Kingsley – but that would only get lost in the din of all the rest of the rubbish.
So brace yourselves, because the outright cynicism of Team Jay may just be the future of children’s television. Try to cling on to the good stuff while you can.
