The Disney Code

My nephews were watching television in the living room a few days ago. This is an abnormality in my house. They are 12 and 13 years old, smarter than I was at that age and each has their own daily cycles. One is a skater, skateboard in hand he carefully scans the neighborhood for new concrete to overcome. He has paid a few prices for the choice of his sport too; a broken finger and recently a broken foot from a bad landing, but to a skater that is a badge of courage and he wears it proudly. He plans to turn professional by the age of 13. The confidence of youth is amazing.

The other nephew is the gamer, not your standard play a game once in awhile, but a dedicated, master of all he plays and proud of it. He has all the gaming platforms and works hard at his grades as well. He is lucky, grades tend to come easy for him and that should be a big help later in life. His goal is to be a programmer, building the ultimate game that will make him the next Bill Gates. It’s always nice to know some of the kids in your class may be working for you in years to come.

It is an uncommon event for both to be in the living room at the same time, but the planets were in proper alignment, all was well in their world and I was lucky. I might add it was raining and they were bored as hell, looking to me for entertainment. I am not much at that either. Sock puppets are out of the question at their age and besides, they are too smart to fall for that one. I knew that when all else failed there was still the television. Yes, that 158 channel master of entertainment that we pay for and never find anything to watch. The living room television, all hail the TV! Never mind they each have a set in their rooms it was more entertaining to be with me.

One wanted the extreme sports channel, the other the gaming channel, we compromised, Disney channel! I knew that Disney would not fail me, nope, never did when I was a kid.
I quickly discovered how wrong I was. Disney, according to my two resident experts on the subject is now the phony kids network. My nephews were both vocally objecting to my choice. They said the kids are all phony and every guy is a preppy that makes them laugh when he tries to act rapper bad. The girls, they explained are all the same too. The Disney Code I discovered is they find a good-looking teen that can sing. They get writers and background vocals together and a video is made. Then the song is played a few hundred times over the next weeks. The teen then gets a sitcom to go along with their singing and presto! A Disney star is born. And most kids are on to them too. I sat with them and watched for a while and they were right. There are no normal looking kids in sight, all are preppy cute. The normal kids are all regulated to the comic relief sidekick status.

After my nephews shared the secret of the Disney Code with me we decided to find something else to do. Times have changed. Where did I put those socks?