20 Children’s Shows That Would Be Real-Life Disasters

Being a kid is kind of like being beamed into a fantasy universe: You don’t know what anything is or how any of it works, and there are some real concerns about how to poop. As a result, TV for kids usually has little basis in reality. It’ll have some fantastical premise, like a mystery-solving dog or book-loving adult man, and it’s often animated, meaning the people are quite literally not real. It’s no surprise, then, that applying real-world laws and logic to those premises turns them into funhouse nightmares.

For example, “In Thomas the Tank Engine, the Island of Sodor probably has the worst accident record and safety regulations ever,” user orangek1tty told r/AskReddit. “Every single episode seems to end up with a train just going off the tracks and fucking up the delivery. It’s a wonder that anything gets done on the Island of Sodor, and the only ones probably making any money (are) the clean-up services.”

They then asked, “What reality-based ideas have you applied to children’s shows?” Here’s how their fellow Redditors responded…

20 Curious George

19 Sid the Science Kid

18 Street Sharks

17 Jem and the Holograms

16 Bob the Builder

15 My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

14 Fireman Sam

13 Rugrats

12 Yu-Gi-Oh!

11 Scooby-Doo

10 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

9 Adventure Time

8 Barney & Friends

7 Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood

6 SpongeBob SquarePants

5 Teletubbies

4 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

3 Handy Manny

2 CatDog

1 Dora the Explorer