Gerbert

Gerbert has been one of my favorite shows since my childhood. Life lessons taught 20+ years ago still stick with me today. Thanks for being a friend Gerbert

Gerbert is absolutely terrifying, and I would absolutely not let my hypothetical children anywhere near it. Aside from the cringe-inducing Christian overtones, his lifeless eyes and creepy voice make him a frequent visitor of my nightmares.

Also, his horrifying puppet feet traumatised me. 0/10 would watch again.

I bought a whole set of this series in VHS format to watch with my then 2-year-old. We had many hours of pure delight watching it. When my other children came along, they loved it too. The puppetry was excellent, the scripts simple to understand, and the values taught are invaluable. The set was wonderfully conceived and very attractive. The stories vary from confidence building, dealing with disappointments, to episodes of self-reflection, questions about God, and so on. The puppetry and acting were very natural and engaging. Later, I had them copied into DVDs before the tapes wear out. It was a great investment. As a parent who wants my children to grow up knowing God, this series is good to be a part of their young lives. Now mostly grown up, they do recall fondly the fun they had watching it.

I had invited all the guys over to watch a closely matched NFL rivalry game with major playoff implications on a large 8K screen. As game time approached, I played a voice over saying that "Due to NFL regulations, the following programming must be shown instead to today's game." Then as kickoff time approached, a Gerbert marathon started and we all sat there and binge watched it for hours. Needless to say, there was a lot of excited high fiving and jumping up and down with fists pumping during many of the highlight moments. Like whoa, was that Gerbert or was it Pat Mahomes, because all the guys were carrying on like it was the most exciting game of the year. It was like a modern day Heidi game experience.

If there's one thing Christian children's shows all have in common, a majority of them have an episode budget of about 100 dollars and have a main character that has a love of doing Christian things so strong that no real kid can relate.

Gerbert fits this example to a T. He claims he loves reading his bible and going to church. However, when I was a kid, most kids I knew hated being at church and the ones that did had a mother like the lady from Jesus camp and a dad like Ned Flanders.

I haven't seen too many episodes of gerbert, but they give off the impression that all kids can be easily programmed. One of the episodes I've seen, Gerbert is suckered into giving a neighbourhood kid a dollar to join a secret club which doesn't exist. When gerbert admits he's been tricked to an adult, she tells him to go back to this kid and say he's not happy, and wants his dollar back. Believe me, I've tried that before. In a real show, Gerbert would either get beat up or the kid would lie. he wouldn't just give up the dollar like he does.

Heck, even Gerbert lies at the beginning of each episode. He says "We're really gonna have a good time!" 3/10