Handy Manny

I stumbled across a new cartoon a few minutes ago while channel surfing: Handy Manny.

Handy Manny is geared towards toddlers and pre-K students, and features a handyman named Manuel who, along with his trusty little toolbox of talking tools, runs around town and fixes things.

In the few minutes I managed to watch this thing, Manny spent some time talking half English, half Spanish to his tools, danced to some Mariachi music blaring in his workshop, and then got a phone call to go fix something.

This show annoys me. I know the makers of the cartoon were aiming for multiculturalism and problem solving, but I can't help feeling like they fell short of the mark. I kind of felt like I was watching a really clean, really cutesy racist joke in motion.

Meet Manny, the unskilled laborer! Watch him dance to loud Mexican music in his shop, and then run around trying to make a buck fixing things for people!

Really? They REALLY can't see how that looks? At any moment, he was about to be joined by his friend Oscar the orange-seller and Hugo the Home-Depot loiterer. I changed the channel before they all popped open a bunch of coronas and started cooking things in foil on the BBQ.