I’ve long wondered if the reason I used to get so many YouTube ads for our local weed store was that we used the same account to watch both kids’ shows and more adult fare, and they just assumed that anyone who would do that was a stoner. As opposed to, you know, a parent. However, even waiting long enough to skip past those ads was better than kids’ shows that feel to me to just be stoner shows in disguise.

Little Big Awesome is about two best friends, Lennon (Jessica McKenna) and Gluko (Fred Tatasciore). They are inseparable enough that the little worm thing that lives in Lennon’s head, Stuhven (Ennis Esmer), calls them codependent. They even play hide and seek while holding hands. They have all sorts of weird adventures in and around their home in Townopolis. Lennon is a little purple guy, and Gluko is a large purple gelatinous humanoid.

There’s an episode where they help an evil cat, Mr. Sprinkles (Roger L. Jackson), attempt to find friends, and it’s a whole big Thing that they are themselves making all kinds of friends. But there’s another episode where they can’t face apart from one another for five minutes and fake new identities to keep hanging out after they decide they should spend time apart. Because they are so tightly entwined that they can’t do anything other than hang out together, even if they have other friends. Stuhven is right; they’re codependent.

I’ll admit my kids like it, or anyway my six-year-old does. But I just don’t feel like it’s written for him. I feel like it’s written for stoned college kids. And that’s fine; stoned college kids are entitled to entertainment. But it’s marketed to my kids, not them. And I’m quite sure my kids miss a fair amount of it. Sure, part of that is that you have your standard “we are putting in celebrity guests to appease the parents” thing; Mr. Sun is played by Weird Al, for example. But it’s also that some of the jokes just don’t feel like kids’ jokes.

I’m certainly not shaming adults who watch kids’ shows, whether they’re stoned or not. Goodness knows I’ve spent plenty of time over the years watching kids’ shows even when I was a single adult. I’m also not upset when kids’ shows go out of their way to make watching them more fun for adults. I prefer that, honestly; I do spend an awful lot of time watching stuff with my kids. But there’s a certain level of surrealism that’s obviously not intended for kids, and I have little patience for those shows. Unfortunately, my son does.

In this time, it remains more important that you support your local protesters than me.