Geeks-In-Training

It's kind of hard for the boys not to be exposed to "geek culture" when I play dungeons and dragons and read sci-fi and fantasy books and my husband is a computer programmer.  The boys know that once a week (and sometimes more!) I go to Robbie's house to play D&D and they want to play, too.  I gave them a box of plastic minatures and some dice and they set the mini's up, along with little card board castles they got in a Wendy's kid's meal and "play" D&D, too. 

We were watching the pilot episode of Farscape yesterday and during the scene where Crichton's ship enters the swirling, blue vortex, I asked Xander if he knew what that was.  Xander answers, matter-of-factly, "It's a worm hole."  The kid is 5 years old and he already knows what a worm hole is.  I joke about teaching them how to be geeks but thanks to cartoons and movies, they are exposed to geekdom all on their own.

I was watching a cartoon called Fanboy & Chum Chum with the boys this morning and there was a character named "Janitor Poopatine" on the show. He was the school's janitor and a wizened & bitter old man that rode around in an electric chair, shaped much like the chair on the Death Star. I love it when geek icons like Senator Palpatine are used to create characters in children's shows.

I think you'll find that the water fountain is fully operational.

Cartoon Network also has a new show called Adventure Time With Finn And Jake coming out that looks like a D&D spoof.  It's about a little kid who travels around with a giant dog and the little kid wants to grow up to be a great hero.  The cartoon isn't even out yet but the boys are quoting lines from the commercials already.  Ice King:  "Do you know what Ice King means?"  Dog: "I know what Ice King means...A BIG NERD!"



What time is it? Adventure Time!
Dreamworks has a new movie coming out in March called How To Train Your Dragon and it looks really cute.  How to Train Your Dragon is based on a book by Cressida Cowell, and features the voices of Gerard Butler (Yum!!!), Craig Ferguson (Yay!), and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (McLovin'!).  Every little kid who sees this movie (and some adults) are going to want a dragon of their very own.



We have dragons!
And of course, we can't forget Cartoon Network's Star Wars: The Clone Wars.  You want your kids to grow up to be geeks?  Just send them straight to the source!  My boys know more about the Star Wars universe than I do and they both want to build their own lightsabers.

Janitor Poopatine..err...I mean Chancellor Palpatine

And even though The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy has been cancelled, I would be remiss in not mentioning my favorite episode: The Prank Call of Cthulhu.  Billy finds the phone of Cthulhu, the most dangerous phone in the universe, and he uses it to make prank calls.  As a result of his prank calls, Billy's nose starts to resemble a cuttlefish.

I couldn't find an actual picture so I had to make my own

Maybe with the influx of sci-fi and fantasy related cartoons & movies, it won't be such a stigma to be geeky when the boys get older.  One can only hope.