Where's Ollie?

So, I've been a bit absent lately. A long bout of illness, helping Grandma and Mum move in (YAY), preparing for Lily's party and reactivating my World of Warcraft have all gotten in the way of blogging. I owe 1 weaning blog (it's a good one too! about homemade vs store bought cost effectiveness) and have another blog about Lily up my sleeve. And then there'll be Lily's second birthday post. So they are all planned, just sitting down to write them has been a bit of an effort lately. But I really wanted to write this blog today. Today was the first day that Nick Jr has removed Ollie, the Australian muppet, from their programming schedule. Both my kids love Ollie. I love Ollie. His little inbetween segments were fabulous. I remember when Lily was very small, I'd make a point of having Ollie on for the days of the week song, which marked breakfast time. Even today, as busy as she is, she will stop what she is doing and say "Ah-yi!" and watch him when he comes on. Archer will stop crying, breastfeeding, playing, whatever it is he is doing to watch Ollie as well. I'll miss that fluffy yellow monster. I can hear everyone reading this thinking "Get a grip woman, it's just a TV show!" One of my problems is that, while okay, the new show, Didi and B is not as good as Ollie. They are cute, but Ollie was awesome. BUT I'm sure I'll get used to them, and children's programming is, and always has been, cyclical. I'll get over it, my kids won't even remember next week. My real problem lies in how it was executed. Didi and B has been advertised for a while now. From the advertising, I was under the impression it was a full half hour show, not the 5 minute segment it is. And, for all the advertising, not once was it acknowledge that it would be replacing Ollie, who is a very popular little dude. Not only that, when I went to check on the Nick Jr facebook page if anyone was talking about it, the comments were no longer visible, which I'm assuming is in response to the absolute hysteria when Nick Jr America removed Moose and Zee earlier this year. So, rather than respond to complaints (as hysterical as some them were) Nick Jr simply removed people's ability to complain publicly to them. So then I went to the Nick Jr Australia website. And he's gone. And I felt creeped out, angry and annoyed. This kind of aggressive decision making on behalf of the consumer, with a 1984 esque way of executing it, no matter the age group of the consumer, is really quite unsettling. I think we'll be watching a lot more ABC Kids in our house, if only just to catch some Seasame Street muppet action. I also think we won't be buying much more Nick Jr merchandise, which is already horrendously overpriced for the quality (which, FTR, is actually quite good). Just disappointed and frustrated that I've actually had to see such a creepy level of consumer targeting on our favourite channel here in Maidens house. And, just so you know, Lily is far too busy to watch much TV (although I do keep it on, because otherwise I feel a bit lonely) and we balance it with plenty of other games, books and outside play.