Farting Pandas and Burping Raccoons

The daylight hours are wearing thin, my Easycard is almost out of credit, there’s nowhere left to go except wait for the time to go to the airport.

We had a couple errands to run earlier and we went by bus. I think I’ve completely failed to the latest edition to the buses and train stations. Each bus and every train platform now has TVs located on them. They’re showing a “channel” called Bee TV, with no sound, of course. This channel features ads for upcoming movies (I can’t tell you how sick I am of the commercials for “Lord of War”, “Doom” and “Nana”. Those commercials have been playing since we got here. Meanwhile, the commercial for Legend of Zorro only showed for about a week. Other commercials feature ads for Taipei tourism, anti-pregnancy ads and Pili Puppet series available on DVD and VCD.

In between the commercials they show cartoons, mostly Japanese and Korean. A significant portion of them feature farting furry animals.

There’s the panda who likes to drink soda, then farts, which teaching important lessons like, “brush your teeth”.

Today I saw one in which a rabbit was fishing. The fish comes up, pulls the hook up only to see a carrot. He comes up to the rabbit, slaps him with the carrot, tells him he needs to use a worm, then slaps him with the carrot again. The fish goes back into the water. The rabbit looks thoughtful, stands up, sticks his butt into the water, farts, then walks away.

The fish surfaces and gasps for breath.

Sure, it’s funny, but what does it mean?

In another a raccoon comes and burps on the rabbit.

And then there’s Mr. Boomba. In the latest one I saw, he spies a fly in the urinal and so targets the fly and drowns him. The fly, not actually dead, flies up and goes straight into Mr. Boomba’s mouth as meditated revenge.

Is this really wholesome family entertainment for the masses on busses?

On another miscellaneous note: There’s a new flavor of Doritos in town. In the last couple weeks Doritos and Lays have been promoting their “Fusion” line of International Flavors, many of them involving seafood or other totally inappropriate flavors. Today I spied “Tomato Smoked Chicken” Doritos. I can’t even comment on the mentality that came up with that idea.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Commentary, Taiwan, Travel