By Karen Feigenbaum
[**½ out of *****]
Sigh - will there ever exist a kid's television programming companion
web-site that truly captures all the opportunity that exists for a
URL aimed at a generation who grew up on the Internet? It's a shame
to see such promise go to waste…particularly in the case of content
that's so utterly ripe with web potential, such as children's afternoon
shows!
Fox Kids' web-site opens with the Flash animation "Mutant Snowmen
Game;" an evil-looking snowman cartoon darts erratically, dodging
barrels of toxic waste being hurled at him. That's right - evil snowman
dodging cans of toxic waste - you can't make this stuff up. The animation
implies that this is an interactive game, but refuses to actually
let me join in the fun despite repeated attempts to click on the controller
icon or the animation itself. The first thought to enter my mind is:
Oh God. It's another one of these sites.
Sadly, further exploration merely confirms the accuracy of this assessment.
The homepage itself is somewhat chaotic, with haphazardly arranged
links and flashing banners. And I'm struck by an overwhelming urge
to eat Lunchables. To its credit, the page is not intolerable, and
the site map at the top allows me to make moderate sense of the lunacy.
But, to its detriment, while the banner links are perfectly functional,
the same does not hold true for many of the linked pages' links. For
example, the Games page, much like the Mutant Snowman at the site's
intro, taunts the guest with empty promises of delightful fun and
maddeningly ineffectual impotence in clicking. In other news, my urge
for Lunchables' is now growing…
Thankfully, other pages, such as Toons, offer up more effective linking,
providing somewhat fun interactive experiences. And don't worry -
the link to the Lunchables' sister site is wholly functioning!
But the true failing of the site, in my opinion, is the difficult-to-reach
page on cartoon character bios that offers only three-sentence blurbs
which any aficionado of the show already knows. In my life, one of
the most interesting items I have ever encountered is the Marvel Encyclopedia,
describing every character in detail beyond just what's mentioned
in the comics. Ever wonder why Cyclops' vision blasts through building
walls but not simple sunglasses? The encyclopedia explains all!! And
when I partook of the game Mortal Kombat in college, nothing was quite
so interesting as perusing web-sites to learn information about the
characters' back-stories over and beyond what the game merely supplied.
Information such as this made me feel more committed to the comic/game
such that I would watch/play/read with a sense of pride, feeling that
I were somehow superior in my fan-dom to other mere "part-timers".
And I guess this is the lost potential I see in FoxKids.com. The
site could catalog the Digimon in disgusting detail, or provide intense
back-story for each Power Ranger - things that would require more
time than the TV show can provide. When consumers know this minutia,
there's a kind of psychological phenomenon that occurs, binding them
closer to the product. How about an X-Men relationship tree? I mean,
do the Mutant Snowmen even have a show on Fox Kids? To provide detailed
information on the characters of their television shows is not overtly
commercial, but will help increase the loyalties of their existing
viewership. And I have no doubt about the successfulness of the Lunchables
campaign, thus securing their revenue flow.