Quick, does anyone know Ursuala Ziegler Sullivan?

Ursula Ziegler Sullivan writes children’s literature. Which makes me somewhat envious. Writing children’s literature to me is one of the few jobs in this world that I might enjoy as much as teaching. You wouldn’t be rich. You wouldn’t be famous. Unless you are Ursula Ziegler Sullivan. UZS is a head writer and executive producer of one of my daughters past favorite kids show, the Paw Patrol.

Like most shows and books my family and I immersed ourselves in during those early years I’m not sure how it happened. But, between the ages of 2 and 4 the only show we watched more in our house was Daniel Tiger. As a family we collectively watched the first four seasons repeatedly. If you are unfamiliar with the show it started off simply enough. A boy named Ryder and his five pups run emergency services for the town of Adventure Bay. They help protect the people and the environment from any number of catastrophes big and small.

Chase, the police pup. Marshal, the fire pup. Rubble, the construction pup. Skye, the air rescue pup. Zuma, the water rescue pup. My personal favorite, Rocky, the recycling pup. It had all the elements of a hit kid show: a catchy theme song, short episodes, and was basically harmless for the first handful of seasons.

Do you remember when your kids out grew Paw Patrol?

I never bought into any of the conspiracy theories. Are the adults in this show imbeciles? Yes. It’s a kids show on Nickelodeon that was and still is a part of the founding premise of that station. The unflappable Marc Summers excluded.

During our time with Paw Patrol we stuck around to see two new characters added to the team in Everest and Tracker. Once the lovable pups started turning into more comic book heroes than a small town volunteer emergency services provider I made the conscious decision to stop streaming the show. It was pretty ridiculous the pups had more gadgets, transportation options, and gizmos to rival the Marvel Universe and far outnumbered the bat cave.

Yesterday, we came back to the franchise. It was Sunday. We all wanted to veg out so we watched the newly released Paw Patrol movie. I’m glad we got to watch it during our free trial of Paramount Plus. What this cute little show has turned into is not what it started out as and I’m ok with that. During the movie my youngest daughter constantly picked the inaccuracies. It saddened me all of us that Chase, or any of the pups, were used to showcase fear and sadness during this origin story to go along with the rough and tumble Adventure City.

Mayor Humdinger predates Donald Trump’s rise to political power. But, the irony between the two characters is shocking in it’s obviousness. Some how they both were elected : ^ ) ~

This movie was obviously a final cash grab for all those associated with this show. Not that they really need it. At an estimated net worth of $7 billion dollars the folks at Spin Master and Nickelodeon have successfully exploited the Pre K market. Parents, myself included, have willfully given our money to them.

It was fun Paw Patrol.

But not anymore,

Ken