Parents' Guide to Absurd Planet

Nature is indeed fascinating and weird, and this show filled with second-grade jokes about the weird creatures of our world is perfect education-plus-entertainment for family viewing. The visuals are absolutely beautiful, with candy-colored creatures caught in the act of living their everyday lives and incredible overhead habitat vistas, but this could be said of almost any nature show. What sets Absurd Planet apart is the humor, which isn't dirty or sharp enough to offend parents, and is calculated to delight young kids, because second graders and fart jokes go together like peanut butter and jelly. In the first episode alone, we meet the pearlfish that live inside a sea cucumber's butt, feces-munching dung beetles, and marabou storks, who are equipped with appendages aptly described as a "scrotum neck."

Thankfully, though Absurd Planet is all-in for grade-school humor, it avoids another type of scene popular in nature shows: the bloody kill. Many the animal-lover has begun an animal show filled with adoration for an adorable creature...that soon ends up being ripped apart by a predator. Though Absurd Planet does take pleasure in investigating some of nature's grosser aspects (note how many animals we see emptying their bowels), and we do hear about what and how animals eat, including each other, visuals are limited to brief moments in which dying bugs struggle or a juicy worm is nibbled by a star nosed mole, there's no blood and no dramatic moments of death. Families of nature appreciators, listen up: You might learn something, and at the very least, your kids won't mind watching.