So I’m walking behind the sofa where my granddaughters sit watching kid’s TV. I stopped in my tracks, my mouth flew open, and I gasped.
“What are you watching?!?!?!” I yelled. My granddaughters both looked at me as if I’d grown another eye. Didn’t they notice? Didn’t they know?
“What idiot animated this show?” I wondered.
Now, I try to watch TV with the girls whenever I can just to see what they are watching. We talk over things that I question. “Sponge Bob” is a crazy show that often leaves me shaking my head. Luckily, Gabby has a good eye for choosing what is appropriate and what is not. However, sometimes a child does not see the obvious.
“What’s wrong, Grammy?” my granddaughters both ask as I rant and rave about the stupidity of editors and directors in not catching this obvious mistake.
“Look!” I exclaim. “Look at that! The bulls have udders! Bulls don’ have udders!”
This farm girl was having what my mom called a major “snit”. Without question, the animator of the film had never been on a farm.
“Have you ever heard of anyone ever milking a bull?” I continued. “Bulls do not have udders!”
“It’s okay, Grammy,” Gabby said.
“No, it’s not! Kids who don’t live on farms will think that bulls have udders!”
“Grammy,” said Gabby meek voice. “Why don’t bulls have udders?”
I explained that cows have calves and the bulls do not. The cows feed their calves from the udders. Their heads shook in agreement, especially since their grandma was close to hyperventilating.
“Well, that’s just wrong. Why didn’t they know that, Grams?” asked Sydney.
I went online to see if anyone else in the world noticed that the “cows” with really low voices were supposed to be udderless bulls. Maybe it was like theatre in the olden days when men played women’s parts. Maybe there was a shortage of cows.
“Get a grip, Pam,” I told myself. “It’s animated.”
Yes, indeed, there was a long list of comments from other adults offended by the uddered bulls. It was udderly (sorry) ridiculous.
My granddaughters managed to calm me down. We had learned bovine lessons. Life was good again until….
“So if bulls don’t have udders, Grammy, what do they have?”