The Top Ten Children's Songs
But just from shows.
Maybe you get to “rock out” to music by your favorite band or solo artist. Maybe you have all the latest singles and LPs from Four Non Blondes and Snow on your iPod mini. Maybe you even get to a Korn show from time to time. Sadly, this is not my existence. I have a 1st grader who has very specific artistic tastes and I have to just quietly judge those tastes in my mind and do my best to steer her towards things that I also enjoy. Oh, and did you know you can make certain shows “disappear” from Netflix?
(I am willing to bet that if you aren’t a parent, you will not be interested in my commentary on children’s media, but you should at least listen to the songs so you can fight me if you don’t like them. Some will be better without actually watching the cartoon they come from anyway.)
Anyway, here’s my list of best songs from shows my daughter likes, making this list definitive and indisputable.12
“Doggytreats” - Mr. Puppy Paws, Superkitties
Look, this is not a list of shows that I like: this show is very bad. All the villains apologize and are forgiven at the end of each episode, possibly encouraging children not to disproportionately react to conflict or seek punitive revenge on anyone who has wronged them. Which, like, yeah sure I AGREE with that, but also Mr. Puppy Paws essentially drugs people to do his bidding and then comes back in a different episode to steal the entire city’s fireworks. I don’t like fireworks either, man, but at least set up a buyback program, you know? Sometimes people are jerks and there should be natural consequences for their behavior and maybe, at some point, Mr. Puppy Paws should have his evil inventing license revoked or something.
Regardless, this song is a certified banger, and the voice actor, James Monroe Iglehart, absolutely obliterates his assignment.
“Thank You Parrotfishes (For Pooping Out Sandy Beaches)” - Splash and Bubbles
This show is one of the ones made by the Jim Henson Company that digitizes the hand/or body movements of puppeteers and then animates them, and maybe it’s the best one of this kind. Others include Sid the Science Kid and Word Party, which are in what can only be described as “the uncanny valley for puppets.” It’s unsettling, the improv from the actors isn’t charming like on Sesame Street (despite having some of the same puppeteers working on them). Like, I have gone on the record saying that I would donate my organs to the Muppets if called to, but these aren’t Muppets. I lose my actual, IRL appetite watching them.
But this song is from a live action interstitial segment with stock footage, so you don’t have to worry about seeing puppets struggling to be cartoons. You just get to learn about where white sand comes from this real toe-tapping, stone groove.
“Welcome to the Bay” - Centaurworld
I am conflicted about Centaurworld. Obviously a lot of creative work went into it, and the show is built around the songs and their (very talented) singers. I could also easily put “Frustration Tears” “The Butt of the Joke” or “Becky Apples” in this list, (but another rule I made up was that I would only feature one song from each show). Centaurworld has subversive and surreal humor, it deals with very big topics (like suicide and war orphans) as well as smaller but still serious topics (like infatuation and consent and parental abandonment), it has very talented animators and voice acting. But somehow all those things just don’t add up. There’s a thread missing that should keep all of this woven together, like it wants to be greater than the sum of its parts, but it’s actually just a pile of parts and you can look at and admire each part but not feel very satisfied when you’re done.
But I really like this song by the weird murderous whaletaur shaman who always cries (underwater) and sings through her baleen and who wants to eat Horse but she thinks she’s being helpful? Who knows!
“Stegosaurus” - StoryBots
Also runners up are “Velociraptor” and “Apatosaurus.” All their dinosaur songs. I actually like the StoryBots shows (unlike, apparently, all the other ones so far). The planet songs and the color songs are also really good. And the updates of children’s folk music like “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” and “The Wheels on the Bus.” And all of Parry Gripp’s songs (s/o Nerf Herder). Do we watch too much TV? Don’t answer.
“Too Cute” - Sunka, Spirit Rangers
When my kid found out that I was making this list, she said that “I Don’t Want Your Help” should be the one I include from Spirit Rangers, but she’s wrong. That song is fine, but also “With Your Sisters By Your Side” is a better song than that too. Spirit Rangers is also a great show about family and to learn about the Chumash tribe and the value of “Traditional Ecological Knowledge” as it is sometimes called3.
“Bartleby Finnegan” - Bartleby, True and the Rainbow Kingdom
My kid doesn’t like True and the Rainbow Kingdom anymore because it’s for “babies” but she doesn’t understand that despite being 7 she IS a baby and will always be a baby and you won’t convince me otherwise!
Also, did you know you wanted an update to “Michael Finnegan” with references to a universe about magic wishes and what Netflix refers to as “every day smarts”? Well, now you do know that.
“Time to be Awesome” - Rainbow Dash and that parrot voiced by Zoe Saldana, My Little Pony
Here, Rainbow Dash is gifting you a daily affirmation and you must not waste it. I didn’t understand why Bronies existed, and I am not one, but I also do now believe that Friendship is Magic. So yeah. I get it.
Sometimes I’m bummed that these songs are so short, but the great thing about children’s music is that you will listen to it over and over and over and over and over and over, so the songs never truly end. You do.
Also, “Apples to the Core” by Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Granny Smith, Apple Bloom, and Big McIntosh is one of the best country songs ever written4.
“Go!” - Teen Titans, Teen Titans GO!
The show is very good and if you don’t like this song then we will never be friends.
“The Evil ABC’s” - Petey and Lil Petey, Dog Man: The Musical
For kiddo’s birthday a few months ago, we went and saw Dog Man: The Musical. We all got Covid for the first time shortly afterwards, but this was the first play that our kid ever got to see, and it was the only musical she knows and likes.
This list is also a reflection for me on the last four years of the pandemic and how so much of our world has been spent separate or distant from people, how so much of our art has been screen-delivered and alone. The books and shows and music we consume together as a family help define who we are, whatever our culture is, and we’ve grown, are growing together through these songs that we listen to on the way to the woods or during baths or bedtime. Basically, this list is another way for me to think about and hope for and love my daughter, which is actually my favorite thing to do. So thanks for letting me subject you to that, through this socially distant screen.
She’s the best.
“What Have I Done?” - Luna Loud, The Loud House
Luna Loud is a queer Joan Jett-y rockstar character and in this episode she almost “sells out” to become the popstar “Lulu.” She ultimately resists, which is a fine lesson, but I’m just telling you this so you have the context of the song. Honestly, being bewildered by incremental changes to my life and personality that transform me and my loved ones into different people speaks directly into my soul.
There you go. A mixtape built from love. What’s yours?
Why am I making this list? I don’t know. Why do people write online reviews for Doritos? Why do you do the things you do? Let’s not dwell.
Not songs from movies unless the movie is based on a show and not from children’s musicians. I don’t make the rules.
Other times, it is called “knowledge.”
I assume.