This clip makes me want to punch Russell Crowe square in the face

"Hey kids! Don't my breasts look great when I squeeze them together like this?!"

Just so you know where this clip came from, I have a wishlist on my TiVo for the keywords "Puerto Ric*." For those of you who don’t have TiVos (TiVii?), you can set up a wishlist to automatically record shows for you based on keywords like someone’s name, or pretty much anything that will show up in the program listings. The asterisk (*) is a wild card; the wishlist I mentioned earlier will automatically record any show which has Puerto Rico, Puerto Rican, etc. in the title, synopsis or credits (in the program listings).

Pretty cool, huh? It is for the most part, except once in a while, I see something that really pisses me the fuck off. The clip below is from an Australian "educational" children’s show called Hi-5, which airs in the US on Discovery Kids. In one segment of this particular episode, "Curtis is a Puerto Rican singing frog," according to the descripion, which is why my TiVo recorded it.

If you’ve ever been to Puerto Rico, I’m sure the melodic love song of the coqui immediately popped in your head. If you’ve never been, take a quick listen to familiarize yourself:

Sounds nice, don’t it? Now check out the clip (don’t get distracted by Kimee‘s cleavage!) and I’ll explain what pisses me off so much about it. You’ll also note from the credits that Russell Crowe had nothing whatsoever to do with the production, but I’ll get back to him too.

First off, I can’t believe that this shit is passed off as educational on at least two fucking continents! The routine barely contains any material that can be considered educational, and what’s there is rife with inaccuracies. Where the fuck was the due diligence on this?

Right off the bat, coquis are not green, they’re a shit color brown. They don’t all sing, only the males do, it’s a mating call (if I really wanted to break balls, I could say that there shouldn’t be any chicks in the number, but without them, there probably wouldn’t have been a number [although they probably should’ve aborted this one early]). Coquis are also nocturnal, which means they don’t sing during the fucking day (just to be clear, the definition of the word nocuturnal is they sleep during the day, which is why they don’t sing during that time).

Okay, the frogs in Puerto Rico do sing a special song, but they don’t go "ribbit, ribbit," and they sure as fuck don’t go "crooooaaaak!" They go:

, which is why the frogs in Puerto Rico are fucking called coquis! Maybe if they had been referred to as coquis and not Puerto Rican singing frogs, someone might have picked up on that.

"RIbbit my ass mother fucker!"

Did I mention the song is a mating call? It’s the amphibian equivalent of Snoop and Akon‘s I Want To Fuck You. That "frog-fiesta" is really a full-on-frog-fuck-fest. How’s that for subtext? The choreography with the kids gyrating their hips and bouncing up and down with their legs spread, combined with the garish set decoration made the show seem like Austin Powers’ Shag-a-delic Down Under Pad, where the age of consent is only a groovy 16, baby. I mention this because I’m pretty confident that Australian toddlers don’t masturbate, so what’s with all the bouncing boobies? What’s up with the fringe on the outfits the girls wear during the credits dance? That shit looks like stripper tassels.

The icing on the cake is that this shit aired on Discovery Kids, which is supposed to be pretty reputable when it comes to this educational shit. I know they mostly likely purchased the show as part of a syndication package, but didn’t anyone screen it for accuracy? What are they going to teach kids next? That dolphins are fish? The history of Xenu? How cats steal your breath while you sleep?

The coqui is the mascot of Puerto Rico, so you understand that my consternation at this indifferent misrepresentation of my culture and heritage, and the perceived insult that comes with it, was pretty fucking great. I was so appalled that I felt the need to unload on someone. Not the kids on the show, because they seem to be an energetic bunch who are just happy to be on TV. I guess my anger should be directed at the writers or the producers or whoever signed off on this sketch, but I really wanted satisfaction.

I am not a violent person, nor am I bully who derives pleasure from victimizing the weak or those less fortunate than myself. I’m not going to feel vindicated laying out any old schmuck; it’s going have to be someone pretty tough for me to get satisfaction, and the burliest Australian I can think of is Russell Crowe, followed by The LaPaglia Brothers at 2 and 3, Vernon Wells at 4 and Steve Irwin at 5. I know Mr. Irwin has been dead for close to a year, but I’ll lay even money he’s still burlier than Hugh Jackman or Paul Mercurio. Not that I even want to punch Steve Irwin’s corpse; in fact, he was so into educating people about wildlife that if he had seen this Hi-5 clip, he would have been so outraged by its inaccuracy that he probably would have held Russell Crowe while I hit him.

I’ve got nothing against Russell Crowe personally. He seems like an okay dude, with some anger issues, sure, but who the fuck doesn’t have those? He’s even making a surfing movie. I just want him to be a proxy. I’ll even be a gentleman and grant him the first attack: he can throw a phone at me from 10 meters away. If he doesn’t take me out, I’m gonna whale on him; then buy him a beer to show him there are no hard feelings, only Latin pride. Peace!