Hale Kilinahe: Pith of Pop: Hi-5

Hi-5 is a kids' variety show featuring five blandly attractive talented people doing somewhat humiliating things.

They dress up as animals quite frequently. I like to imagine that at least once a day, one of them makes a furious phone call to a faceless agent: "They want me to lick pretend milk out of a BOWL! A bowl! Why can't you get me on a soap or something?".

One of them, Curtis, has been in the travelling production of Grease. Another one, Shaun, is on the verge of a recording career. So to watch these twentysomethings dress up and sing songs about kitties and rainbows is a bit like going to Disneyland: you're glad the kids are enjoying it, but you're betting that when they're off-camera, they're cursing and throwing stuff around.

In addition to the two guys, there are three girls in the cast: Jen, a blonde; Kimee, a Filipino from Hawaii (yay!); and Karla, who has the most gorgeous smile on all of kids' TV. There's also a girl puppet and a mischievous five-legged purple puppet thing that plays tricks on Kimee.

There's lots of original music. In fact, all of the songs are written just for the show. Surprisingly, most of them are insanely catchy. They're stay-in-your-head-all-day-and-make-you-homicidal catchy. And kids tend to watch the same shows over and over again. So that's a whole lot of catchy. It's enough catchy to make you want to go upstairs and fold laundry.

The kids, since they are all professional type entertainment people, are all in their twenties, but they all sport teenage hair and clothes. Some of the hairstyles on the girls border on ridiculous; Jen, who looks like a Baywatch star, is sporting dreadlocks in more than one episode. Kimee is, I'm guessing, under five feet tall and often is peeking out from under a hairstyle half as tall as she is. These are actually very pretty girls, yet they look so strange. I suspect the producers and stylists think kids would respond to people who dress like kids. The show is geared mostly toward toddlers. Its pacing suits the attention spans of kids under three.

Hi-5 airs on the Learning Channel and Discovery Kids

it is a great show even know i'm eleven
Posted by kadiya at September 27, 2005 5:07 PM

Ha, I mentioned Hi-5 in one of my comic strips. Here's the address to it: http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/52154059/ I love the girls on that show! Sadly, what makes them so attractive to me (beyond the physical traits) is the way they act (so enthusiastic, cheerful, innocent, the way Disney employees are supposed to act but often don't), even though it's surely in sharp contrast to their real personalities. Karla's eyes are amazing! Jen is my fave though.
Posted by slave2moonlight at April 3, 2007 11:20 AM