FETCH!

Over the weekend my two sons and I went to the mall to hang out with someone in an orange dog suit. It was a promotion for one of their favorite shows.

We are incredibly lucky to live where we do. Among the reasons is our local PBS station produces a large number of children's shows including Arthur, Postcards from Buster, Curious George, Timewarp Trio (even though that airs on Discovery Kids it is made by WGBH), Design Squad and others. It also means that there are opportunities to interact with the cast members of these shows. When those cast members are people.

The premise of FETCH! With Ruff Ruffman is fun. Six kids compete for points over the course of the season. A cartoon dog, Ruff Ruffman, hosts the show in "Studio G" (he is sensitive about calling it the garage). He sends them on various outings (e.g. creating clothes for dogs, making gumbo in New Orleans, solving a crime with members of the Boston Police Department, creating derby cars) that involve math and/or science. What makes it even funnier for the grown-up watching (or overhearing) is the running commentary by the "dog" who is also the voice for the "shark" in Kenny the Shark.

Which is how we came to spend part of a very sunny Saturday afternoon in the middle of the kids' clothes section of a suburban department store. Bridget, Willie, Mike, Rosario, Nina and Maddie were all there. My guys couldn't believe they were meeting the real kids that they watch on their television nearly every day. And those six "big kids" were just the nicest, most pleasant people to be around. Nothing star-like or pretentious about them.


Which was good since the point of the day was to do science experiments with the "Fetchers" as they are called on the show. Here Willie and Mike are creating self-inflating balloons. Notice there are no grown-ups helping (they were floating around but not helping). These 11-14 year olds were genuinely kind to this group of young kids.

But someone had to mention to my guys that 9 year olds can audition for the show. But when they heard they wouldn't be nine until 2009 they were very disappointed.

So I'll have to send them on math outing. We'll start with the backyard.