Paw Patrol

Channel: Channel 5/ Nickelodeon

Running Time: 12 mins

Date: 2013 - present

Start with the toy, and work backwards to get a TV show

Premise: A ten-year old boy has somehow been put in charge of a municipal emergency services operation, and his employees work for dog biscuits (and a company vehicle). Every episode, a minor or major catastrophe (“no job’s too big, no pup’s too small!” as the theme tune has it) occurs, and the pups save the day. Eerily, this it is the kind of setup that you could imagine ham-faced coward (and former Prime Minister) David Cameron advocating as part of his ‘Big Society’ brainwave, where public services are underfunded to the extent that a primary school kid and some pre-pubescent canines have replaced the police, fire and ambulance service.  

The ten year old is Ryder, and his pups are Marshall, Rocky, Zuma, Chase, Rubble, and Skye (named after the island off the coast of Scotland, which is where you’ll want to run away to each time your little one asks to watch Paw Patrol). Each pup has a specialised vehicle and modus operandi, for example, Chase has the characteristics of a police dog, Marshall is a firedog and medic, and Skye is in charge of flying in a pink helicopter and giggling, because gender stereotypes. Rocky appears to have drawn the short straw - like the kid whose superpower was ‘heart’ in Captain Planet - and is in charge of ‘recycling’, which I’m all for, but maybe not as part of the emergency services. Then again, looking at the state of the oceans, perhaps it should be.

Each time there is a crisis, Ryder gets a video call on his phablet, summons the pups to headquarters, and outlines the situation to them, with the same kind of flat, monotonous tone that Britain has become used to with Theresa May’s takeover from Ham Man. Then the pups slide down into their individualised vehicles, which have been designed expertly to sell toys deal with various emergencies, and off they go. Imagine Thunderbirds, but designed for an era where two-year olds are routinely having decayed teeth removed under surgery, children can’t grip pens properly because their hands don’t have the strength to do anything other than tap touchscreens, and OH GOD JUST MAKE IT ALL STOP.

Background: In the past, TV shows such as Thunderbirds, or films like Toy Story made a huge amount of money from merchandising. And that’s OK, given that it rarely compromised the integrity of the stories themselves. Well, it’s time to give capitalism another big pat on the back, as Paw Patrol sees this concept work in reverse. The Canadian toy and entertainment company Spin Master had a prototype transforming toy that they wanted to make some more Canadian dollars out of, and other currencies as well, ideally. They approached the British producer Keith Chapman (Bob the Builder) and asked him to invent a franchise out of this toy. And thus, from one of Chapman’s concepts, Paw Patrol was developed by toy designers (do you spot the theme emerging?)

WHY IS SHE NOT WEARING A HELMET?

Nickelodeon announced it had picked up the franchise at the 2013 Licensing Expo in Las Vegas; the words ‘franchise’, ‘Las Vegas’ and ‘Nickelodeon’ being three of the worst things ever to be associated with children’s television, or humanity in general.

But wait! Here’s a line from a 2016 interview with Ben Gadbois, global president of Spin Master, which will curdle your very soul: “We’re continuing to invest in keeping the Paw Patrol content fresh, with new characters and themes in order to increase the longevity of the franchise.”

The tenth circle of hell that Dante didn't have time to include

It is hard to like Paw Patrol; it is harder to like it when you learn that essentially it is designed explicitly to sell toys as its primary function, rather than a happy sideline. Canada has given the world a lot of wonderful people - Mike Myers, Michael J. Fox, and Ellen Page among them - but Paw Patrol very much has to sit in the same row as Bryan Adams and Celine Dion.

Canada: Not as innocent as it seems

Entertainment: There is a huge amount to dislike, from the beginning title sequence to the end credit sequence, to the moment you realise you’ve had the theme tune in your head all week. The animation is sickly-smooth, but lacking any real heart; it resembles the graphics on a bad smartphone game, and leaves you contemplating the futility of existence in much the same way. Animation can thrive on its complexity (Wallace and Gromit) or its simplicity (Hey Duggee!) and Paw Patrol fits neither category.

The voice acting is dubbed for British audiences, and although it might be a cheap shot to have a go at child actors, it must be said that there is a woodenness to the delivery, extremely ironic given the amount of plastic that will be going into all those toys. The scripts mirror the animation in that they too sorely lack any heart - no one individual at any level really seems to ‘own’ Paw Patrol in the way that the Andersons did with Thunderbirds, so no-one cares that everything is geared towards shifting units at the expense of literally everything else.

In terms of plot lines, early episodes deal with stock animal rescue scenarios usually seen in Octonauts - saving a beached whale, saving some turtles, etc, quickly followed by the extraordinarily contrived - the pups fix a train line so a new version of a computer dance game will get through on time. Season Two sees the exact storyline pitched by the LA pigeons in Bolt - “aliens!” which should have pointed to the shark very much being jumped, and by season 4 we have occasional character Tracker dreaming that the rival mayor to Adventure Bay’s Mayor Goodway (keep up) has become a baby; I have not been able to clarify if David Lynch was guest director on that one.

The most worrying thing about this all is that children absolutely adore it. My own two-year old, otherwise a highly intelligent child, not only requests it with the kind of euphoric glee I reserve for a night in with a tub of hummus and a big bag of Kettle Chips, but requests the same three episodes over and over again. Today he hid in a box and said he was talking to Marshall. Somehow some Paw Patrol pants have worked their way into his chest of drawers. It’s like the film The Blob, only the Blob was supposedly a metaphor for communism, whilst Paw Patrol is being smacked over and over again in the face by rampant consumerism, if rampant consumerism came in the shape of a baseball bat with nails driven through. Which it does.

Paw Patrol is taking over your house; you'll wish you were as happy as that woman.

Ratings:

Sex: Although extensive breeding processes must have taken place in order to get to this stage, no obvious romantic sub-plots are evident. Ryder has a friend called Katie, who, as another ten year old, has been deemed qualified enough to run the local pet clinic, but it’s all very platonic and dull. None of the male dogs seems keen to take a run at Skye, which suggests that Katie maybe dealt with these pups a little while ago on a professional basis, and would account for all the unbroken voices.

Music: Upon listening to the theme, your initial reaction is, ‘my god, Sum 41 have fallen on hard times’. And upon googling Sum 41, you’ll see that they’re also Canadian (move up Bryan, Celine), and wonder whether there’s something in your initial thesis. But ultimately, no, the pop-punk sound has been taken, sanitised and turned into a powerfully catchy ditty by a group with the most obvious of names: Voodoo Highway Music & Post. The most irritating aspect is that you are led to believe that one of the dogs is called ‘Yeah!’ as the roll call elapses: “Marshall! Rubble! Chase! Rocky! Zuma! Skye! Yeah! They’re on their way…” Deal with the profound earworm by listening to Blink 182 again - the best example of a now-corrupted genre. (3/10)

Plausibility: Talking dogs who act as the emergency services, a ten-year old in charge, and a large urban area with no visible litter - you have come to the wrong place for verisimilitude. However, the fact that only one of the six pups is female does mirror current gender inequalities, so that’s very 2018. The most prominent female in a position of power, Mayor Goodway, is a ridiculous caricature of a ditzy, bumbling woman with a successful career in public service, much like the Daily Mail imagines Diane Abbott (or all women with jobs) to act - so is this plausible in terms of the representation of attitudes to women in politics, rather than the reality (which it obviously isn't)? I'll get my Sixth-Formers onto the case after the holidays. 

Popular representation of women in politics, 2018

Overall, the fact that the whole show is being played for the merchandising very much fits current trends of much of modern life being too painful to contemplate. (4/10)

Education: Tricky to place. Children won’t really learn much about the realities of the emergency services or local government, or how to ensure a gender balance in children’s TV, but in conversations with parents and caregivers they should be able to grasp concepts like ‘saturation point’ and ‘shareholder dividend’, so it’s swings and roundabouts really. (2/10)

Overall: What children’s TV would look like if Rupert Murdoch - a man so terrible, Dennis Potter named his cancer tumour after him - got his hands on it. Love and cherish the BBC, pay your licence fee, and don’t feel too bad about Toys ‘R’ Us closing down, because the toy companies are coming after your wallets, and your souls. (1/10)