But seriously, guys. This isn’t about the music, it’s all about the video. Possibly our contender for Breakthrough video of 2010~~~ I wonder if there will be any more awesome videos???

Well, we’re playing that role today, since we seem (at least I) to know nothing about Yu’s parents and overall family — though I’m pretty sure she has an older brother.

Anyway, Acerk found a video of Yu playing games.

I’m not sure what it is, if it’s a game show or what… but I’ve been suspecting is a clip of her work as an OHA Girl for Tokyo TV’s OHA SUTA… but that’s just a theory of mine. It just reminded me of those clips I saw of the show in search for one of Yu.

Anyway, I digress~~~ The fact is Hello Kitty is turning 35 — crap, HK is older than my cousin xD

The news reminded me that Barbie is also turning 50, and oh how much has Barbie changed throughout the years. I wouldn’t be surprised she’d be a common Botox user, as well as pretending to go to the gym and starving herself to death to keep that body of hers…

Change isn’t always good, just like the re-designed version of Strawberry Shortcake. It’s not like the new version is a technically bad version, but I would wonder why I would want my daughter watching her. Old Shortcake was short and child-like cute with baggy clothes, big boots, green/white stockings, and short curly red dreaded-hair. She was like a kid, and petted her cat (whatever connotations that may have now…).

New Shortcake is skinny and wears pretty tight clothing. It’s so tight, it almost looks like a freaking one-piece.  She has wavy and lustrous hot pink hair, and uses soft pink lipstick, and she freaking chats on her cellphone. WTF. I don’t want my 6-year-old who barely knows how to write on paper to spend her afternoon nagging me over a cellphone. No wonder kids are so effed up nowadays~~~ 6-year-olds acting like they’re 14.

In typical Canadian fashion, [insert name of movie] doesn’t have a dvd distributor yet.

That was said 3 or 4 years ago… there still isn’t a DVD.

So in typical Canadian fashion… nearly 10 years after The Adventures of Shirley Holmes aired its last episode, after so many other shows have been released on DVD – there still isn’t a proper DVD release for the series.

What the fans have to go through? Well, some “savvy” people managed to digitally record the re-runs, and encode them to DVD format, but instead of sharing them, they decided to make some profit. Even if it’s small. Some other fans, get scammed… thinking they’re getting the real deal, to only find out that the episodes have been TV recorded – which I have to admit it’s just a bit silly to believe. – Some other fans just move on… some others end up on YouTube scavenging for clips and episodes… regardless of capture quality, and very appreciated.

Well, waiting is over… of sorts~ the Shirley Holmes Central is working on digital downloads.

It really should have been an elementary exercise. TV shows on demand, new episodes of current tv shows available for streaming immediately after, and sometimes days and weeks before broadcast. This is the media world we now live in, and one in which there is much to admire.

So why has it taken so long to get episodes of Shirley Holmes online, in a streamable, and / or downloadable format ?

There are a few reasons, not least the relative obscurity of repeat airings, and the lack of any official DVD releases, even now, nearly a decade after the show wrapped in 2000. And then of course there was season 4, a somewhat mythical 13 episodes for many fans, because worldwide screening was very limited, with only the home Canadian market, and a few select international markets, including Australia and South America, seeing those episodes broadcast.

So while Forefront, Credo Entertainment (does it still exist?), and Chorus Entertainment… and YTV? Lose some money – seriously… if they decided to make Free Region DVDs, they could sell these in South America, the UK and Germany already.

Because of it, I discovered that Sesame Street has its own YouTube channel, LOL’ Who would’ve thought! I found this pretty interesting and good sequences~~~

Feist – 1 2 3 4
Dixie Chicks – No Letter Better than ‘B’
Whoopi Goldberg – Come to Play
Elmo & Rosita – Te Quiero
and… Amigo.

Also, on the subject of Natalie Portman dressed up as an elephant… There’s Yu Aoi dressed up as a~~~ racoon? On an episode of WOWOW’s Camouflage. xD

Remember those days when Discovery Kids (Latin America) was actually for kids – you know, 10-13 year old kids – and not babies~~ I mean, COME ON! Teletubbies??? Shoot me in the face already!!

Back in the day, when I was a 10 year old kid… my family first got cable. If I recall correctly, Discovery Kids Latin America used to be in channel 65 or 85 or something, and it had awesome programming for intellectual kids like me~~ Truth be told, most my younger cousins didn’t watch Discovery Kids ever, but I did… and I’m an avid TV watcher since I was a kid. That’s my market~

What did I used to watch on Discovery Kids? Well, I had my first introduction to the Internet thanks to them! Cyberkids was one of the programs I used to watch, and probably shaped me in the way that I am today… you know? Blogger, Web Designer, Web Surfer~~~

Yes, I used to watch that. I’m actually SURPRISED I remember the song, HAHA. In fact, I watched Cyberkids all the way to the guest-reporting of Manuel Jose Chavez – who I recall being a crush of mine when he was on the 1993′s Colombian show De Pies a Cabeza on Fox Kids [intro 1] [intro 2] – am surprised he’s in Tiempo Final, and did not recognize him. During that period Daniel Habif (Nunca te Olvidare) was co-host with a girl (who I can’t remember any related projects, so can’t find her name either)…

Anyway yeah… because of Cyberkids, I began browsing the net. I discovered Napster, I’ve been through all music download company there’s been~~~ become a netizen. Voila!

I also was an avid El Fantasma Escritor viewer… but couldn’t find the intro in Spanish, so the original English version will have to do~

As well as PaleoKids, to which I couldn’t find anything. As well as Splat! – which I remember as SPLAT! Animado. Actually, there are some  Discovery Kids shows that I can’t find info on including,

F.R.O.G – with Lani Billard.
La Magia del Cine (Movie Magic)

Other shows they used to have on Discovery Kids then were:

El Narrador de Cuentos – Jim Henson’s The Storyteller
Shakespeare en Animacion – Shakespeare the Animated Tales [Get it on DVD]
Las Religiones del Mundo Animadas – Religions of the World: Our World Faiths Animated [DVD]
Yo Amo a mi Ciudad or Yo Amo a mi Pais, not sure how it goes.
Artemania – Art Attack (the original version with Neil Buchanan)
Mecanica Popular para Niños – Popular Mechanics for Kids (you know back when Elisha Cuthbert and Jay Baruchel were hosting, and all the other hosting rotation)

**EDIT**

Just remembered~~~ La Computadora del Tiempo – A.J.’s Time Travelers!
Cro – I still remember the theme song in Spanish ~~ Cro era un niño listo!!

Any other programs I should be listing? Can’t remember anything else, but then again~ it’s already 5am, can’t blame me for not trying~~~

Algorithm Taisou

Kocchimuite futari de maenarae
Acchimuite futari de maenarae
Kocchimuite futari de maenarae
Acchimuite futari de maenarae

Te o yoko ni ara abunai
Atama o sagereba butsukarimasen
Te o yoko ni ara abunai
Atama o sagereba daijoubu

Guru Guru Guru, Guru Guru Guru
Gu-ru, Guru
Guru Guru Guru, Guru Guru Guru
Gu-ru, Guru

Pacchin Pacchin KASHIN KASHIN
Pacchin Pacchin KASHIN KASHIN
Pacchin Pacchin KASHIN KASHIN
Pacchin Pacchin KASHIN KASHIN

Sutte hakuno ga shinkokyuu
Sutte hakuno ga shinkokyuu

Also, testing out a really useful tool I found. A romanization (or transliteration) tool. In Japanese, it can only read Hiragana and Katakana, though… so it might not be much help reading something like a whole website or lyrics to songs using Kanji, but it sure helps reading simple Japanese to those us lazy like me.

Manmaru SUMAIRU

Nanda kanda de
Itsumo issho dane
Omoshiro SUITCHI mo
Itsumo issho ni ON!

Tsuki he sanpo sora de hirune
Nan’ni datte narerunosa

Kimi ga waratte
Boku mo waratte
Kimi ga naitara
Boku mo kanashikute

Mienai kedo te wo tsunaide
Tsuna gatte rumitai

Soudayo futari nara manmaru SUMAIRU
Kitto ashita ha bokutachi no yume kara umareru

Utaou! Mune wo hatte
Utaou! Koeawasete

RA RA RA

Itsuka sekai juuto manmaru SUMAIRU
Onaji yume wo mirareta nara chikyuu mo manmaru

Utaou! Mune wo hatte
Utaou! Koeawasete

RA RA RA

The show had a main character, I’m guessing around 7 years or so that went around his or her day (not entirely sure on the host policy here) learning about house chores, and easy cooking tips… even gardening! The first kid star in the show was Japanese actress, Hirata Mio, who came back to the show as a cooking aide in 1998 after she was changed in 1994.

Once again, the period I recall seeing was the period of 1998-2000, in which Akita Hiyomi was the starring character. Back then, I had no idea if Hiyomi was a little girl or a little boy, coz she had the most adorable cute short hair EVER. Ha! Hirata was also back, and was featured in the cooking segments. There was also this badly rendered CGI Turtle that resembled those animated icons on RPG games~~

What I thought was the best bit, however, was the introduction show as it nicked the phrase – at least FOR ME – of PIKA PIKA, PIKA PIKA, PIKA PIKA chaji~~~ I don’t even know if I got the romaji right, ha!

According to Japanese Wikipedia, the theme song was called WAKU WAKU Shiteru! (ワクワクしてる!), which Google translates as The Exciting!, but I don’t know what it means. WAKU sounds like Wake to me, as in Wake Me Up… but if you’ve got the right translation, leave a comment. The theme song was apparently nicked my first ever kid starring on the show, Hirata Mio. HOWEVER, I found the introduction entitled PIKA PIKA CHAJI (woohoo! I got it right!) PART 1 and PART 2.

Anyway, the show seemed commercial enough, because I literally found A LOT of merchandising online… from CDs, to cooking books, cooking utensils, and stuff… here’s a last sample~

According to Japanese Wikipedia, the show began in 1990 and went through several changes (as apparently many Japanese kids shows do), even changing the logo in its first years. The period I’m referring to is supposedly known as Happy Land (ハッピーランド), and it featured the English speaker host, Christer Chiari (Sister Chris, or Chris Oneesan), who at first sight looks as rounded-eyed as someone can be, BUT to Occidental people she might look Asian, I don’t know. LOL’ According to Wiki, Chiari was born in Japan to her French father. She’s doing a whole lot more voice acting, and has a website (link here).

The show had songs, and puppets… a green oval thing that was really short named Eddie, a pink Tony the Tiger type of character named Pepper, and a child vixen named May. There was a dude that sang songs (and still does, I think), and another guy who did the gymnastics (these Japanese kids have so much gymnastics in their shows!!) with a segment called Workout 2. That was fun and my fave part of it, ha!

During the show, they also showed an animated segment called Kai and Patch, about a little kid (really little, because he still sleeps in his crib) and his fellow Patch, his talking and moving Pillow. There isn’t much information about that, but I managed to find it on Amazon.co.jp, and on a Program Finder website.

Anyway, that’s it. I will leave you with some photos, and a funny from Google Translates not for the children.

*EDIT*
Couldn’t find a clip of the HAPPY LAND Segment, but I managed to find a recent one, and one from 1994, as well as those letter animation they do…
Spelling Car Animation
Eigo de Asobo 1994
Let’s Play in English Recent