Television Review: Brandy and Mr. Whiskers
What Parents Should Know
Parents need to know that even though there's no violence in
this series, there's no learning about being a strong, kind
member of a community, either. Despite its popularity with
school-aged kids, it offers little educational content.
Although the main characters meet an eclectic collection of
animals, opportunities to address social issues pertinent to
school-aged child development are ignored in favor of
channeling characters into stereotypical personalities that are
predictable and tedious.
Families can talk about how their kids get along with people
who are different from them. Are the characters stereotyped?
What social issues could have been addressed in the series that
aren't?
In BRANDY AND MR. WHISKERS, two characters who would never typically be paired together are forced to not only interact with one another, but also to rely on each other for survival. Self-involved Brandy, a pompous pooch, continually tricks and patronizes her partner, oddball rabbit Mr. Whiskers, and, pathetically, Mr. Whiskers jumps to her commands. Each episode is about some strange mishap taken by this mismatched pair and their ensuing adventure to set things straight. Brandy wears platform thongs and skimpy baby-doll tee shirts and likes to talk about clothes and how good she looks, while Mr. Whiskers is silly and awkward, in both his voice and his movements. A slew of sassy Amazon friends round out each of the two fifteen-minute segments in each episode, including Lola Boa, twin Toucan sisters Cheryl and Meryl, river otter Ed, and self-proclaimed leader of the jungle, Gaspar L. Gecko.
Despite all of the opportunity for interesting adventures provided by the colorful Amazon setting, Brandy and Mr. Whiskers plays on the same joke -- she's a snob, and he's a hapless sidekick. The story has been done before and with much more success.
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