It’s time once again for another post in my continuing Children’s Television Survival guide series! OMG you guys, I am so excited to share this show with you. I can’t believe how many people have never heard of this show–probably because you can only find it on Netflix, I guess? But it’s so fantastic, everyone should be watching it. Without further ado, I give you Mighty Machines.
Mighty Machines was made in Canada, and it features real footage of all different kinds of mechanical devices. We’re talking trains, dump trucks, street sweepers, bulldozers, airplanes, mining equipment, submarines–if it has an engine, they probably made a Mighty Machines episode about it. But it’s not just footage of the machines, because, yawn, that would be dull. It’s that the machines are talking. TALKING. Like, “Hello, my name is Spike, and my job is to drive over the garbage at the dump and crush it down.” This would be one of those times when I desperately wish I wasn’t a square and was into drugs, because imagine how cool that would be if you were high while watching this show. THE MACHINES ARE TALKING, MAN.
My favorite episode is probably the one at the airport, uncreatively titled “At the Airport,” because a big part of the episode is following Sammy the Suitcase (who is actually a duffel bag) along the conveyor belt under the airport and being tossed onto an airplane. Sammy talks too, for some reason, even though he isn’t a machine, but you don’t care about inconsistencies like that, because he and the airplane are TALKING TO EACH OTHER. In a Canadian accent, because it’s filmed in Canada. But when the British Airways plane appears, it has an English accent. And once in a while, a machine will have a Quebecois accent, because it’s Canada.
There are over 30 episodes on Netflix, so the good news is, you don’t have to get bored watching the same 10 episodes over and over. And there’s enough variety of episodes that there is bound to be at least one that appeals to your kid. In fact, there are several on garbage/recycling, several that are set on the water, and three that have to do with airplanes. So even if your kid is obsessed with a particular topic, you can probably find more than one episode on that topic.
True story about this show: one time I had to bring The Boy with me to work because his school was closed, and I brought along a DVD player and a DVD with an episode of Mighty Machines. One of my coworkers came in at lunchtime to say hi to me and The Boy (I love my coworkers, they are super kind to my kids on the rare occasion they are at the office), and The Boy said, “Hey, I’m watching Mighty Machines” and proceeded to explain the show to my coworker. And I swear to god, the two of them sat there watching the whole episode together and commenting on how cool the machines were. Literally, it is so good, it sucked in an adult.
Big kudos to Canada for bringing us this show–it almost makes up for Caillou. Almost.