My daughter is infatuated with The Wonder Pets, a show that features three singing animal superheroes of sorts who work together to save other animals and storybook characters who in trouble.
“There’s an animal in trouble, Daddy!” is one of Clara’s constant refrains.
Mandy Patinkin, the Broadway and television actor and singer, inexplicably guest starred in a recent episode that featured him as a groundhog looking for a new home.
I say that his appearance was inexplicable because I’m not sure what benefits the producers of The Wonder Pets derived from Patinkin’s performance. My two-year old did not register his presence as anything but another singing animal in trouble, and I only became aware of his presence after hearing the show from the other room and wondering what animal had decided to overly dramatize and purposefully attempt to outperform The Wonder Pets in terms of his singing.
He stuck out like a sore thumb and did not exactly sound as if he was singing for toddlers.
I sincerely hope his work on the show was pro bono.
But worse, last night I had a nightmare in which Mandy Patinkin invaded all of the other shows I watch. He strode through the streets of Portlandia, occupied Don Draper’s couch, sat beside Jim and Pam in The Office, wandered the sidelines at a Patriots game, and joined Jessie as he cooked up crystal meth in a trailer on Breaking Bad.
In each show, he sang, narrating the action in the overly dramatic, singsong voice that he used in his episode of The Wonder Pets. Every time I changed the channel, Patinkin was there, screwing up another show by crooning to the characters who I have come to love.
I rarely have a dream in which someone is not trying to kill me. Almost every dream of mine is a nightmare. It’s no fun.
But I have to tell you… This was worse.
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you’d be so LUCKY to have what it takes to make it in this buisness. But Mandy patinkin is an asset to the t.v shows considering he actually act’s while people carry his h20.most men are jealous of him and I was to for a long time.But he does not have to work at being the best looking man in THE room and his cloths are perfect the way they hang on him. He does have two minor flaws but his acting ability makes it part of him.I went years with this man at the back of my mind after discovering him in 95 while living in Malibu and watched Chicago hope and then I moved on and see him in dead like me and say hay look it’s that man,then finally in 2013 I had Showtime and I wanted to check out Clair Danes but the very thing that made me like her in a 2 hour movie got on my nerves in homeland and I finally learned Mandy patinkins name.your review was over done.you are stuck at home doing a wife’s job and you feel bad but don’t hate on a valuable a an asset to t.v. There are people who in this world were just gonna make it on just G-D given gifts.I’m sorry you are a stay at home dad who harbors angst twords men who are in control over the household they created. People will be benefiting from his hard work for years to come. Misplaced anger is a sign of unresolved issues.I had a chessy quote book and 1 said "hurt people hurt people " And we all fall victim of it at one time or another. G-D bless shalome aleem and happy Hanukkah&new year
Hi Dar,
I just read your comment, and then I had to go find the post that you were referring to. I wrote that five years ago at the dawn of my introduction into children’s television, and today, my words would be different. I have heard major film and TV actors all over children’s programming, lending their expert voices and acting to the show. I get it. I appreciate it.
I don’t doubt that at the time, Patinkin’s voice confused the hell out of me and caused me to wonder about the rationale, but this is the perils of inexperience and the willingness to write your feelings down at the moment they happen.
I’ve since been watching Patinkin in Homeland and have fallen in love with his performance. But again, that post was of a time in my life when things made less sense to me.
Thanks so much for taking the time to write.