Sunday, May 2, 2010

Oh, Diego...

Dear Diego,

I have not had much opportunity to watch your television show, but stumbled upon it today. I did not see the complete episode (I joined it in progress), but it left me with several questions. If you could help clear some of these questions up for me, I would appreciate it.

The episode in question was entitled "Giant Octopus to the Rescue." And again, I apologize if any of my questions would have been answered in the first 5 minutes of your program. Frankly, I couldn't be bothered to wait for another episode to find out.

  1. In this episode, you are piloting a one-man submarine of some sort. This leads me to several questions, but the first one is: How do you know how to pilot a submarine? Are you some sort of baby genius?
  2. Also, how did you acquire said submarine? Are you related to Richie Rich? Or did your cousin Dora float you a loan from the profits she has made on her mass media marketing? (I swear that girl has her face on more stuff than Gene Simmons.)
  3. This is not a question in its own right, but more of a follow-up to question #2, and possibly an apology. I just read on Wikipedia (THE source for encyclopedic knowledge on child television) and discovered you own something called a "Rescue Pack." Apparently, this messenger bag can transform itself into any object. Perhaps this bag turned into a submarine for you, which would explain why you had access to a submarine. But, it does beg the question, how did you acquire this magic backpack? And, exactly what kind of black arts are you practicing, Diego? Furthermore, do the Wonder Twins know that you are ripping off their gimmick?
  4. As the episode's title suggests, a giant octopus helps you out. Okay, I can buy that. However, you seem to be able to communicate with the giant octopus, even speaking to him. Are you Aquaman's illegitimate son? I thought Aquaman was gay. How did this happen?
  5. For about five minutes you were distracted from your mission (which I will get to in a minute) to try to find the giant octopus (who was obviously trying to hide from you). You need to focus, son. Haven't you ever seen an episode of MacGruber?
  6. My next question is a tad sensitive in nature. According to the Wikipedia article I mentioned above, you tend to sugarcoat the predator/prey relationship by having the prey be afraid of the predator. I understand the desire to do this. Your audience is little children. No need to scare them unnecessarily. But I don't understand what happened in this episode. You and the giant octopus come across several whales in the ocean and the giant octopus is scared of them. Now, these whales are smiling and look pretty friendly, but even if they are not, this is a GIANT octopus. And he looks to be about the same size as the whales. But you encouraged him to squirt his octopus ink and run away. So, my question is this: Do you really think it is a good lesson to teach small children that the best way to deal with your fears is to run away from them?
  7. Very shortly after this, we see an example of blatant hypocrisy. This giant octopus, who you helped run away from whales (presumably to avoid being eaten), finds some crabs on a rock and starts eating them without a glimmer of conscience. Do you think you could have said something to the giant octopus at that point to shine a light on the double standard?
  8. Here is another non-question. It is more of an observation to encourage critical thought. In a brief span in this one episode, whales have been denigrated as scary and crabs have been reduced to not important enough to live except for food. I guess all animals are not created equal, eh?
  9. Finally we get to the main point of this episode. The rescue of some ocean animals. But not before some "ocean rocks" start falling towards your submarine. Are ocean rocks different from land rocks? Did I miss a memo? Regardless, the octopus saves your ass by catching each of the 8 ocean rocks that are falling. Wow. What a coincidence that there were only 8 rocks falling so the octopus could catch one in each tentacle! That's some lazy writing there, Diego. I would fire that writer immediately.
  10. We also get to witness a video conversation between your sister and you on your laptop. Or is it an ocean laptop? The conversation serves no purpose, as your sister tells you to do the same thing you have been saying all episode long - go save the ocean animals. Maybe you just needed to hear it from someone else. After all, you have demonstrated a lack of focus already in this episode. But that is not the point here. I am very curious about something now. Diego, you speak with an accent that sounds like you live in Central America somewhere. However, your sister has no trace of an accent. Did she go to finishing school somewhere or was she sent off to live with an aunt in the middle of Kansas or something? I am now officially more curious about your sister's (possibly scandalous) backstory than your adventures.
  11. Oh, I almost forgot. At one point I big flashlight fell off your submarine and into a hole. You said that you needed it in order to find the animals in trouble. But you made that statement while we were looking at your submarine that still had two huge lights shining all over the place. I believe you were exaggerating a little bit. But you were able to manipulate the giant octopus to stretching himself down the hole to retrieve your precious flashlight. I'm glad to see that you did not concern yourself too much with the health and well-being of the giant octopus as long as you were able to put your flashlight back on the sub. You even had him screw it back in! I hope you paid him well for his service, but I doubt it. Yea, I know, I am supposed to ask a question here. Okay... Assuming your sub is actually your rescue pack transformed (ignoring the physical law of matter conservation), couldn't it just transform another light? And if it is your backpack, wouldn't you be a little more concerned that parts of it were falling off? What if it was part of the hull? You'd be a dead little Diego, wouldn't you?
  12. You and your giant octopus slave now reach the ocean animals in danger. They all appear to be adult animals, which is good for you, because otherwise The Wonder Pets might have tried to steal your glory. Let me set the scene - There are 6 animals (two dolphins, two turtles, and two sea horses). They are trapped in what we are told are coral caves (but which looks suspiciously like a jail cell). And you have to rescue them before 6 volcanoes erupt above them. Now, I am not a geology major, but I have never seen SIX volcanoes that close together. And especially not where they were all going to erupt at the same time. Was one volcano not sufficiently scary? Seems a little fishy to me... Are you sure this wasn't a left-over Batman script you are using, with The Penguin or some other arch-criminal concocting an elaborate and unnecessary scene just for some dramatic tension?
  13. Just so you know, I am ignoring the fact that the volcanoes all have smiley faces and sing. Happy volcanoes? Really? But, skipping ahead a bit, you count down to when the volcanoes erupt. How did you know the EXACT second these volcanoes were going to erupt, Diego? Should we be investigating you?
  14. But back to the daring rescue of the ocean animals... Why were they there in the first place? Since there were 3 couples of animals, was this some kinky inter-species swinger party that got out of hand? Or were they captured by some criminal mastermind? Or were these 6 ocean animals actually criminals themselves? They could be murderers, rapists, or terrorists for all you knew. Maybe this was the ocean court's death penalty being judiciously applied. Is it possible that you just helped the six most dangerous criminals in all the ocean escape from punishment? Poseidon is gonna be pissed!
  15. Well, there you are, in front of the coral jail cell in your submarine. What are you going to do now, Diego? Jump out and swim to the animals and physically tear the bars apart? No, of course not. Why bother to do, you know, anything at all when you can just send your giant octopus slave in to get them. The giant octopus tunneled into the jail cell, creating a nice little escape route. While the animals were playing rock (ocean rock), paper, scissors to determine who would leave first, I couldn't help but notice ... the sea horses were pretty small. It looked like they could just swim through the coral bars. Was it electrified coral? No, of course not, they were underwater. Duh. Okay, so, Diego, why did the sea horses need your help exactly?
  16. Out come the turtles, then the dolphins, then the sea horses. But wait! The escape tunnel is starting to fill up with sand again! Will the giant octopus make it out? You were screaming and trying to encourage everyone to help the octopus swim out before the tunnel became filled with sand. Why? The octopus had no trouble digging his way into the cage. Why would he have trouble tunneling back out? Maybe it was a timing issue... You did seem to know exactly when the volcanoes were going to erupt. But it seemed like there was plenty of time... I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on this one though.
  17. Now all of the animals are free and partying outside of your submarine. But you realize everyone should hightail it out of there, since there are six freaking volcanoes about to erupt. The animals seem prepared to follow your instruction, so you give the order - everyone go UP! Dude, these are volcanoes. They erupt UP. Are you trying to get everyone killed? Luckily, we see that the animals are smarter than you and start to swim up and away from the volcanoes, and you follow.
  18. At this point we see you count down to the volcanoes eruption. All this scene needed was some dramatic music and you summoning an evil laugh. Highly inappropriate, Diego. What would Dora do?
  19. We get to watch the six volcanoes erupt, which is quite a sight. The six volcanoes apparently spewed six different colors of smoke under water! I did not see a single bit of lava though. And we got several shots of the coral cage at the base of the volcanoes after the eruptions. It appeared to be perfectly fine. So from what did you help the ocean animals escape exactly? Or are you trying to make some grand statement about the pointlessness of life or some other philosophical theory to which you subscribe?
So, Diego... congratulations on rescuing the ocean animals from ... well ... nothing really. Good work.

As I conclude this missive, if I may, I am going to attempt to summarize you, your show, and your purpose. Please let me know if I am incorrect.

Diego is an insanely rich and freakishly intelligent child who practices dark magic with his rescue pack in whatever scientifically impossible form it takes. Diego also has inherited Aquaman's ability to speak to sea creatures, possibly by black magic as well given Aquaman's sexual preference. In addition, Diego hates whales, looking to slander them whenever possible, and considers crabs to be good only as food. Diego also enjoys forcing indentured servitude on giant octopi. Diego prides himself in teaching children to run from the things that scare them, thus ensuring himself a group of potential clients for his "rescue" operations. It is possible, but not proven, that Diego also masterminds some of these scenarios himself in order to provide the necessary rescue. If true, Diego is a psychopath of the highest order and should be locked away immediately. And finally, Diego has a sister whose past is possibly even more outrageous than Diego's biography.

But, on the plus side, he doesn't force a monkey to wear boots like his cousin does.

Diego, I look forward to your response. Please respond personally and do not force your slave octopus to write back. Octopus ink smears and it would be difficult to read. Thanks.

Sincerely,
me

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