Tis the season for new toys! We discuss a New York Times story about Ms. Rachel’s new line of toys and the role licensed merchandise has played in our lives and our kids’ lives. Plus, we catch up on what we’re watching with our kids and what we have our eyes on for grown-up screen time.

Things We Mention in this Episode:

Ms. Rachel, YouTube Star, Is Creating a Holiday Toy Frenzy by Sapna Maheshwari published by The New York Times on November 29, 2024

Dirt-cheap toys imported into U.S. can be dangerous, group says. Here's what to know from All Things Considered on NPR

Previous Episodes We Mention:

• Ms. Rachel’s Songs for Littles

What our kids are watching or what we’re watching with them:

• Is It Cake? Holiday Edition
• Deadliest Catch
• Skeleton Crew

What we’re watching or looking forward to during grown-up screen time:

• A Complete Unknown
• Hot Frosty
• Gladiator II

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Join us for our review of what is certainly the brownest Christmas movie of the season, An Almost Christmas Story. Did this twenty-minute special fulfill our desire for short family programming to get us in the holiday spirit? Listen to find out!

Previous episodes we mention:

• Peter Pan and Wendy
• The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
• Pinocchio

An Almost Christmas Story made us think of these movies and shows for grown ups:

• The Martian
• Book Lovers

We cast our gritty reboot with these actors:

• Paula Poundstone
• Natasha Lyonne

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We scoured the internet for a rundown of this year’s kids and family Christmas movies and found…not a whole lot. In this Screen Time in the News episode, we discuss the lack of new kids’ holiday content this year and why the cheesy holiday romance seems to have replaced the heartwarming family Christmas tale.

Things we mention in this episode:

The 13 Best Christmas Movies of All Time and Where to Watch Them from InStyle

The 16 Best New Christmas Movies of the 2024 Holiday Season from Good Housekeeping

Previous Episodes We Mention:

All I Want for Christmas Is You

Klaus

Jingle Jangle

Spirited

Bad Guys Halloween Heist

What our kids are watching or what we’re watching with them:

• Gold Rush
• Mystery at Blind Frog Ranch
• Warriors fan videos on YouTube
• Encanto

What we’re watching during grown-up screen time:

• Silo
• Dune: Prophecy
• Somebody Somewhere
• Slow Horses
• Man on the Inside

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Wicked made a splash this Thanksgiving season, but is it a good movie to see with kids? We weigh in on all the high points of Wicked discourse: whether Ariana Grande will ever step out of her Glinda performance; whether this movie is too long for a Part I; and whether singing in the movie theater is ever okay. But most importantly, we discuss how we approached seeing Wicked as parents.

Things we mentioned in this episode:

Is Ariana Grande Going to Be Stuck Like This Forever? by Fran Hoepfner in Vulture

Wicked made us think of these movies and shows for grown ups:

• Gone Girl
• Swing Kids
• Amelie

We cast our gritty reboot with these actors:

• Amy Schumer as Glinda
• Leslie Jones as Elpheba
• John Cho as the Wizard
• Fred Armisen as Nessa Rose

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We used to fret over our kids’ time spent in front of a screen. Now they’re a little bit older, and we get to worry over their time spent in front of multiple screens. We had so much fun discussing an article from Wired about second screening, third screening, and even fourth screening. Are we, as grown ups, surrounding ourselves with more than one screen at a time? How do we feel about our kids doing the same?

This week’s Screen Time in the News article is “Forget Screen Time. We Need to Talk About Screen Real Estate” by Angela Watercutter in Wired.

Here’s the cord hider we talked about in this episode. Listeners, have you used something like this?

What our kids are watching or what we’re watching with them:

• Nailed It
• Beyblade X
• Nugget is Dead

What we’re watching during grown-up screen time:

• Slow Horses
• Drops of God

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We welcome the holiday season with a review of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. This small story makes for a big contrast with the bright, toy-filled Christmas stories we’ve gotten used to of late, and we discuss what resonated with us and what they should have done differently to bring this tale from our childhoods to life.

Previous episodes we mention:

• Wild Robot
• Klaus
• Let’s Go Luna

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever made us think of these movies and shows for grown ups:

• Synecdoche, New York
• GCB

We cast our gritty reboot with these actors:

• Jenny Lewis as Imogene
• The guys from Atlanta as the Herdman brothers
• Judy Greer and Nat Faxon as Mom and Dad

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Our Screen Time in the News article this week broke the news that Netflix is axing almost all of its interactive content, so we spend some time pondering why the technology never took off the way we thought it might. Deborah wonders whether it can be compared to an ill-advised Cheerios flavor, and Katie uses the phrase “petit filet ice cream” for the first time in her life. We catch up on what we’re watching with our kids and what we’re watching during our kid-free screen time and discuss where the New York Times daily games fall when it comes to screen time limits.

Netflix is removing nearly all of its interactive titles by Jay Peters in The Verge

Previous Episodes We Mention:

• Lyla in the Loop
• Buddy Thunderstruck
• Stretch Armstrong

What our kids are watching or what we’re watching with them:

• Curses!
• Big
• Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage

What we’re watching during grown-up screen time:

• The Diplomat
• Ghosts
• Football
• Matlock

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Find out whether this tearjerker has enough substance for grown-ups and enough laughs for kids in our review of The Wild Robot.

Previous episodes we mention:

• Kung Fu Panda 4
• Wish
• Despicable Me 4

Article in The Cut by Kathryn Jezer-Morton titled “Who is all that obsessively detailed college-dorm decorating really for?”

The Wild Robot made us think of these movies and shows for grown ups:

• The Last of Us
• Castaway
• Saint Vincent
• First Wives Club

We cast our gritty reboot with these actors:

• Sad Ben Affleck
• Lena Headey

Contact us and subscribe to our newsletter at www.myscreentimetoo.com

Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter or by email at myscreentimetoo@gmail.com