It's My Screen Time Too

We depart from our regular format to bring you our takes on the new family movies premiering on streamers and in theaters during the holiday season. What deserves our screen time as 2023 comes to a close? We have plenty of options, from the newest Disney animated musical to a family body swap comedy to Adam Sandler’s latest silly voice. In Screen Time in the News, we discuss an article that asks w...

Harriet the Spy, the novel beloved by generations of young readers, has been adapted into a multi-season animated series on Apple TV+. We discuss whether Harriet’s antics are appealing when spread over twenty episodes, whether today’s parents are comfortable with their kids admiring a character who spies on others, free range parenting, and more. In Screen Time in the News, we confront our fears a...

We review Spy Kids: Armageddon, the fifth and latest installment in the Spy Kids franchise. Does the soft reboot on Netflix feel fresh or is Spy Kids better left an artifact of the aughts? In Screen Time in the News, we’re just not ready to give up on spooky season, so we discuss a MovieWeb article extolling the 90s banner days of horror for kids. Contact us and subscribe to our newsletter at www....

Star-studded casts have propelled previous movies based on Disney theme park rides to success (Jack Sparrow ring any bells?). In our review of Disney’s second attempt at a Haunted Mansion movie, we consider whether kids even care that the cast includes heavy hitters like Lakeith Stanfield and Jamie Lee Curtis as well as whether the grim grinning ghosts in this new PG-13 Haunted Mansion are too sca...

We check in with Apple to see how they’re handling the Peanuts legacy with a review of Snoopy Presents: One-of-a-Kind Marcie. Does it have the charm and weight of the Peanuts specials we remember from our childhoods? In Screen Time in the News, we discuss the state of the family film in theaters. Contact us and subscribe to our newsletter at www.myscreentimetoo.com Connect with us on Facebook , In...

In our latest review, we try our best to follow the plot of the overstuffed animated adventure The Monkey King on Netflix. In Screen Time in the News, we discuss the evergreen newsworthiness of parents expressing befuddlement at their kids’ tastes in media by way of a Wall Street Journal article about popular Youtube channels. Contact us and subscribe to our newsletter at www.myscreentimetoo.com C...

We debut a new segment called One For Me, One For You in which we pair YouTube channels beloved by our kids with ones we think have a greater appeal for parents. This week’s theme is animals, and we review Hammy and Olivia and Nat Geo Kids. We discuss a Wired article about YouTube as the future of kids TV, and Katie has an update about her kids and the music of Parry Gripp, a musician we first dis...

We didn’t expect to have quite so many complicated feelings about the new Apple TV+ preschool show Frog and Toad. Find out whether we thought the Frog and Toad stories, originally penned in the 1970s, made a successful transition to the small screen. In Screen Time in the News, we discuss PBS Kids’ expansion efforts into streaming, gaming, and podcasts. Contact us and subscribe to our newsletter a...

We observe our annual summertime tradition of covering a made-for-streaming Disney live action musical with our review of World’s Best. Utkarsh Ambudkar’s tale of a math-loving tween exploring his dead dad’s love of rap had us considering some weighty questions about the legacies we leave our children, but it also had us bobbing our heads to some seriously catchy tunes. Find out whether you should...

We’re joined once again by Julia Washington of Pop Culture Makes Me Jealous for our review of Barbie. We discuss PG-13 movies, when and why we feel comfortable sharing them with our kids, and whether Barbie can be enjoyed by the whole family. We represent a full range of Barbie fandoms - from superfans to casual observers - and cover everything from the appeal of midcentury dream house architectur...

We review Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank, the somewhat improbable animated adaptation of Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles. We discuss the place of sanitized remakes in our family screen time canons, whether and when we’ll feel comfortable sharing Mel Brooks movies with our kids, and the timeless hilarity of cat jokes. In Screen Time in the News, we revisit the current state of Pixar, and Katie shares...

We review Pixar’s latest blockbuster: Elemental. Are we ready for animated rom coms? We also get into our feelings on the throwback short before the feature, Carl’s Date. Katie is not interested in an Up story without Russell and Kevin, but we are both interested in a lot of the trailers we saw before the movie. We talk about the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles installment, the newest Paw Pa...

This week’s lightning round episode is jam packed with our reviews of The Little Mermaid; Spiderman: Across the Spider-verse; and Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai as well as some follow-up about American Born Chinese. In Screen Time in the News, we speculate about the strategy for kids’ content at Max (formerly HBOMax) and where it will fit in the hierarchy of streamers with family-friendly fare. C...

We review Disney’s star studded adaptation of the graphic novel American Born Chinese and discuss how the writer’s strike might affect kids’ movies and television. Contact us and subscribe to our newsletter at www.myscreentimetoo.com Connect with us on Facebook , Instagram , and Twitter or by email at myscreentimetoo@gmail.com

In our latest episode, we discuss whether Disney’s Peter Pan and Wendy is just another in their long line of largely disappointing live action remakes and if we really needed yet another retelling of the Peter Pan story. Is the idea that boys never really want to grow up all that charming anymore? In Screen Time in the News, we talk about frame rates and whether they should really be of concern to...

We review the conservation-minded Apple TV series Jane. Are an adorable 9 year old’s efforts to save endangered species enough to make a dent in Deborah’s climate pessimism? In Screen Time in the News, we discuss The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s box office dominance and whether it means we’ll see greater investment in family films. Contact us and subscribe to our newsletter at www.myscreentimetoo.com...

This week, we review The Super Mario Bros. Movie - a box office smash we saw in actual theaters and not on our couches. Find out whether it was as big a hit with us as it was with our kids. In Screen Time in the News, we speak with author Phillip Maciak about his upcoming book and how having kids has changed our attitudes toward and relationships with the screens in our lives. Contact us and subsc...

We review the animated adaptation of Kate DiCamillo’s The Magician’s Elephant and get into what makes a good book-to-screen adaptation in general. In Screen Time in the News, we add our two cents to Matt Singer’s complaint in ScreenCrush that there are no movies for kids in theaters. Contact us and subscribe to our newsletter at www.myscreentimetoo.com Connect with us on Facebook , Instagram , and...

We return to our first love - preschool television - to review the Paw Patrol spin-off, Rubble & Crew. Can the charm of Rubble’s construction-loving family match that of the original heroes of Adventure Bay? In Screen Time in the News, we talk over an interview with Paw Patrol’s creators celebrating the show’s ten year anniversary and its seismic impact with the under-five set. Contact us and...

For our 150th episode, we take a moment to look back at how our approaches to screen time have changed and how the landscape of children’s movies and shows has changed. We talk about the things we thought would be major hits that never panned out, the things we’re surprised have caught on, and the things we wish would go away already. To celebrate the upcoming Oscars, we look back on past episodes...

We get back into the baby game thanks to a listener’s suggestion that we check out Ms. Rachel’s Songs for Littles YouTube channel. How does this educational baby content stack up against the ones we’ve covered in the past (like Cosmic Kids Yoga or our old nemesis, Blippi) or the ones that were popular when our kids were younger (like Cocomelon)? And do we detect shades of the idealism embodied by...

In our latest episode, we review the big screen adaptation of the stage musical based on Roald Dahl’s Matilda. In Screen Time in the News, we discuss a Michigan State University study of teen self esteem in rural communities with limited internet access and tightly controlled screen time. We also catch one another up on two Asian imports we stumbled upon via Netflix: Gudetama and Brown and Friends...

We’ve got so much to cover after our holiday break. We catch up on what we watched with our families (Strange World, Avatar The Way of Water, National Treasure: Edge of History, and Trivia Quest). We’re pretty nervous to watch Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, so we have friend of the pod Amy Padden on to discuss how to introduce scary content to our kids before we jump into our main review. Our gri...

It’s a super-sized episode to get you through the holiday season! In our main segment, we review Disenchanted, the long awaited sequel to the 2007 musical Enchanted. Was this story of after “happily ever after” worth the wait? In Screen Time in the News, we discuss a roundtable conversation between directors of some of the year’s best and most anticipated animated films like Pinocchio, Strange Wor...

The holidays have brought us tremendous screen time riches, so we’re sharing quick reviews of four new holiday releases: A Christmas Story Christmas; The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special; The Santa Clauses; and Spirited. As a bonus, Katie gives a mini-review of the latest Disney animated release: Strange World. In Screen Time in the News, we chat about the Canadian Pediatric Society’s decis...