The Distorted Reality of Zack and Cody

One of my favorite films is The Hudsucker Proxy, one of the most underrated films of all time. It was the Coens' first big budget film and it unfortunately flopped at the box office. Even the hardcore Coen fans underrate it, making it almost an afterthought it their body of work. How can you not love a movie where Tim Robbins shows people a drawing of a circle and deadpans, "you know, for kids."?

My nieces live in Oregon and they're 9 and 11 years old, respectively, so they're at an age where they actually have favorite TV shows and know what times these shows are on, not that it makes too much of a difference since their TV is always on the Disney Channel. They watch shows like Hannah Montana and they love High School Musical, just like millions of kids across the country. When I'm in town, I'll sit down and watch TV with them, because that's what a loving uncle does.

I know very well beforehand that I'm not going to enjoy these shows but I don't make that obvious to my nieces. It's not my job to point out overacting, bad jokes, and contrived plots. It's my job to force them to smell my armpit during the commercial breaks or to make fun of how creepy that beedy eyed Mikey kid looks on the Disney 365 segment. When we come back from the commercials, I don't try to enjoy the shows, I try to find out why these shows work, because someone got paid for these show ideas, and I haven't gotten paid for any of mine yet. I mean, it's possible that a robot came up with a lot of these ideas, like in that South Park episode where Butters and Cartman goto Hollywood (where Cartman was the robot coming up with Adam Sandler movie ideas).

So Hannah Montana is the big Disney Channel phenomenon and its' premise seems interesting enough. It's a show about a girl who's a regular public school student by day and pop superstar by night. Wizards of Waverly Place is a show about these three kids who are school students who also have magical powers. Once again, it makes sense why these shows appeal to kids. That's So Raven is about Raven Symone having visions of the future while she's a high school student. Umm, I think this is where Disney started to lose me. Ultimately, I couldn't fathom the premise of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.

If I went into a meeting with a network and pitched a show about two kids who live in a hotel with their single mother, who can only afford to live in this hotel because she works there as a cabaret singer, I'm sure the network would possibly be interested in the show... if it was a drama or a mini-series, not a slapstick comedy. I think it's also important to add that the show has a character spoofing Paris Hilton named London Tipton, who is played by an asian girl. I'm all for diversity in shows, but if you're spoofing Paris Hilton... Wait a minute, why would you even introduce the idea of Paris Hilton to children? (Side note: Parents, if your children have any idea who Paris Hilton is, I'd recommend that you turn on the parental controls on your internet browser. You can thank me later.)

I'm not exactly sure what the show is supposed to teach, because I assume all these shows are supposed to teach kids something. Sure Zack and Cody learn things (they're twins by the way because America loves twins!), but London is still rich even though she's irresponsible and dumb. The show likes to make fun of how the candy counter girl is poor and how the single mom is single and seems to be romantically dysfunctional. Oh, and she's poor too, but you know, they live in a nice hotel so life is AWESOME.

Now, I've done absolutely zero research on who created The Suite Life and maybe Disney decided to completely bastardize his/her idea, but I like to have this idea that they the scene of their pitch meeting played out like this:

The person walks into the room, takes out a piece of paper from their pocket, shows the piece of paper to the executives and deadpans: "you know, for kids."