All Rise...

This is what Judge David Johnson will tell his children before they go to bed: "If you don't eat your vegetables, Sportacus will come down and take you to his blimp and you'll never be seen again."

The Charge

Screw chocolate.

The Case

We're back for another round of pastel Icelandic healthy living puppetry as Stephanie, Sportacus and Robbie Rotten square off to teach young viewers about the glory of eating roughage. For those unfamiliar with this crazy live action series from Nick Jr., here's the scoop: Lazytown is populated by puppets and one human girl named Stephanie. They have to constantly fight against their impulses to indulge in eating junk food and, well, laziness. To help them get fit and disciplined is Lazytown's resident superhero, Sportacus (creator Magnus Scheving), an eccentric bachelor who lives in a jet-powered blimp and flips, twirls, and tummy-tucks to the rescue whenever he's needed. His adversary? Robbie Rotten, a lunatic with plastic hair who wants to see the Lazytown residents get fat and stupid.

Sports Candy Festival packages four episodes:

• "Sports Candy Festival"
The Lazytown kids are impressed by Sportacus's ridiculous amount of energy and want to know what powers him. He happily reveals his secret: produce! He reels off a list of the healthy fruits and vegetables he eats and the kids get excited. So excited, in fact, they organize a Sports Candy Festival ("sports candy" is apparently a hip euphemism for "gross-ass broccoli") to celebrate the joy of eating tomatoes. But Robbie is intent to get the kids back on candy and dresses up like various pieces of fruit to sneak into the festival.

• "Happy Brush Day"
It's Ziggy's birthday and all he wants to do is stuff his little, plastic face with taffy. Sportacus refuses to let him rot his teeth out, so he gives him a toothbrush as a gift. Amazingly, Ziggy doesn't punch Sportacus in the throat for giving him such a crappy present. Robbie unleashes his own present, a voice-activated taffy-making machine, which goes haywire and threatens to bury all of Lazytown in taffy when Ziggy can't turn it off because his teeth are stuck together. No, I did not just make that up.

• "Play Day"
It's Play Day in Lazytown, a time set aside for all the residents to engage in a variety of athletic competitions. You know Sportacus is all over that, but once again, he will have to swoop out of his blimp and put the kibosh on Robbie Rotten's plans to screw everything up.

• "Sportafake"
Robbie creates his most ingenious costume yet, making himself up as a Bizarro Sportacus. He infiltrates Lazytown and manages to convince Stephanie and the rest of the crew that he is indeed Sportacus and they should start eating junk food. The real Sportacus shows up but faces an uphill battle convincing everyone he's the real deal. Lazytown residents are stupid.

I dig this show. It's a surreal blast of energy and color and everyone, no matter how nightmarish and weird they may be, is likeable. The puppets and spontaneous breaking into song adds a nice twist to the kids show formula. Bonus points are awarded for the sound moralizing about healthy eating and exercising. These four episodes are characteristic of the show: fast-moving, light-hearted, malice-free and cerebrum-torchingly nutso. In other words—recommended!

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