Parents' Guide to Morphle

This comes off as a show for preschoolers made by someone who has never met a preschooler. Some of Morphle's stories are benign but the plots are so minimal that they will leave viewers scratching their heads. Mixed in between those confusing plots are stories that will, at best, set poor behavior examples. At worst, they'll scare sensitive kids. The young human characters are all kind, but, disconcertingly, many of the adults are mean. There are the "Muddy Bandits" who go way beyond the Swiper-esque preschool villain and use a wrecking ball to destroy people's houses. There's Mr. Vanderbooz, a grumpy man who routinely puts down Mila by saying things like "building a tree house is difficult—there's no way you can do that" in a mean tone. Mila's own parents, in a kids-versus-adults water balloon contest, say, "We're going to win; they're just little kids." And then there's the recurring Orphle character, who is Morphle's troublemaker alter ego. He only does naughty things without consequences, and it's up to Morphle to fix his mistakes.

There are even scarier scenes: Mila's dad gets stranded at the top of a very wobbly tall tower. He looks afraid and says, "Get me down from here. Don't leave me alone." The story ends there, with no resolution of a scary scenario. Also, each episode is around an hour long, which isn't suited for preschoolers' attention spans. There are so many excellent shows for preschoolers out there, with fabulous characters and stories that are guided by child development experts. Caregivers should skip Morphle and check out something they can feel great about their children watching.