By Kim Voynar Voynar@moviecitynews.com
Ghosties
I don’t watch or write about television shows much, but right now it’s 6:30AM and I’m sitting here wating Cartoon Network’s The Othersiders with my 10-year-old son. He totally digs this show, but his younger sibs wouldn’t let him watch it last night, so I promised to watch it with him today.
The Othersiders is a kids’ reality show about a group of teenagers who investigate places reported to have paranormal activity. I actually really like this show — not just because of the paranormal stuff, which is occasionally kind of cool, but more for the way in which it presents the teens on the show.
As a mom of a pack of kids, one of whom has already navigated her teen years, and the other four who are heading that way, I feel like teenagers often get a bum rap. Yes, they can be loud and annoying, particularly when they run in packs. They can me mouthy and rebellious and slam doors and roll their eyes spectactularly. Guess what? So did we when we were teens. I don’t know about you, but when I was a teenager, I was a real pain in the ass. I know, it’s hard to imagine, but it’s true. Just ask my mother.
On The Othersiders, though, the teens are presented not as irritating creatures to avoid, but as intelligent beings who have smart things to say. The teens have “jobs” on the show — webmaster, technical manager, etc. They go into creepy, dark places — haunted camp grounds, haunted houses, Alcatraz — in search of proof that ghosts and such exist. Honestly, some of the places they go creep me out just watching them on TV. I don’t think I would be as calm and rational as some of these kids are.
At the end of each episode, the whole team gathers back at their headquarters and reviews all the evidence they gathered, and then votes as a team on whether they think the place they’ve investigated might actually be haunted. This is my favorite part of the show, because I like seeing how carefully these teens peruse their evidence. Zack,the nerdy-but-cute technical manager, and team leader Riley are always the hardest to convince. They don’t actually agree as a group very often that a place really is haunted.
On a recent episode at a haunted campground, though, the team gathered evidence ranging from unexplained thermal “hot spots” to ghostly voices recorded on their high tech recorders. In that case, when the team analyzed all the evidence, they voted unanimously that the camp was haunted – rarely do they all agree that way.
On the Alcatraz episode, KC and Riley just clearly heard banjo music from the shower … that’s the place where for years there have been rumors that one-time Alcatraz guest Al Capone, who reportedly went insane in the prison, used to play his banjo. Creeeeeeepy. Is Alcatraz haunted? Jury’s still out, we have to watch the rest of the episode to find out.
These are smart kids who will later be able to apply their gig on The Outsiders for grown-up jobs. Imagine a future job interview: “What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done?” “Well, I was in Alcatraz and heard Al Capone’s ghost playing his banjo ….” Groovy.