This guy has a pretty interesting article on what he considers “the worst of children’s entertainment.”  With the exception of his take on Clifford, I think he’s pretty spot on. 

Oddly enough, I’ve been thinking along the same lines as this author with regard to Clifford and shame — minus Clifford, which we love, by the way. 🙂  I’ve been kicking around the idea that we’ve given shame a bad rap — that we’ve become so concerned with self-esteem that we’ve given up on a very powerful form of negative reinforcement (a method of teaching that is probably the origins of shame’s current predicament).  I don’t think we need to be wielding shame like a hammer or putting giant scarlet letters around people’s necks, but it seems that sometimes we rush too quickly past any sense of shock and horror when confronted with some sort of grievous failing, whether in others or ourselves.  I would think that if we let shame, even if just a little bit, settle on us (and especially on ourselves, as we should all “tend our own gardens” first), that repeats of the action in question would be much less likely.  I think.  I still haven’t made my mind up on that.  In the vague and never fulfilled final words of a Matt Drudge story, “Developing…”

Update: Here is an interesting piece on this very topic. (hat tip: Brian)