Tis the season for new toys! We discuss a New York Times story about Ms. Rachel’s new line of toys and the role licensed merchandise has played in our lives and our kids’ lives. Plus, we catch up on what we’re watching with our kids and what we...

Join us for our review of what is certainly the brownest Christmas movie of the season, An Almost Christmas Story. Did this twenty-minute special fulfill our desire for short family programming to get us in the holiday spirit? Listen to find ou...

We scoured the internet for a rundown of this year’s kids and family Christmas movies and found…not a whole lot. In this Screen Time in the News episode, we discuss the lack of new kids’ holiday content this year and why the cheesy holiday roma...

Wicked made a splash this Thanksgiving season, but is it a good movie to see with kids? We weigh in on all the high points of Wicked discourse: whether Ariana Grande will ever step out of her Glinda performance; whether this movie is too long f...

We used to fret over our kids’ time spent in front of a screen. Now they’re a little bit older, and we get to worry over their time spent in front of multiple screens. We had so much fun discussing an article from Wired about second screening, ...

We welcome the holiday season with a review of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. This small story makes for a big contrast with the bright, toy-filled Christmas stories we’ve gotten used to of late, and we discuss what resonated with us and what...

Our Screen Time in the News article this week broke the news that Netflix is axing almost all of its interactive content, so we spend some time pondering why the technology never took off the way we thought it might. Deborah wonders whether it ...

Find out whether this tearjerker has enough substance for grown-ups and enough laughs for kids in our review of The Wild Robot.Previous episodes we mention:

We discuss the lawsuit against TikTok and the internal documents exposed by Kentucky Public Radio about the video platform’s addictiveness to vulnerable teens. Previous Episodes We Mention:

Can Apple TV+ break this year’s curse on fresh Halloween content for families? Listen to our review of Curses! to find out.Things we mentioned in this episode:Previous episodes we mention:We discussed a Good Housekee...

We discuss The Guardian’s review of Ashley Spencer’s new book Disney High: The Untold Story of the Rise and Fall of Disney Channel’s Tween Empire and lament being too old to experience the channel’s heyday as tweens but too yo...

We celebrate our 200th episode with a look at where the show has been and where it’s headed. We ring in spooky season 2024 with a quick review of the Netflix special The Bad Guys Haunted Heist.Previous episodes we mention:

In our last episode before our fall break, we review Apple TV’s Yo Gabba Gabbaland, a reboot of a 2000s show beloved by hipster parents everywhere. We bemoan being too old to recognize any of the impressive musical guests, and we discuss whethe...

Peter Thiel and the San Diego Zoo gorillas help guide our conversation about our families’ back-to-school screen time policies.Previous Episodes We Mention:

We have a great time reviewing Apple TV’s nerdy time-traveling adventure series Time Bandits, which manages to make ancient history look realistic while still being fun.Previous episodes we mention:

The box office numbers are in, and parents’ taking their kids to see movies like Inside Out 2 and Despicable Me 4 are saving an otherwise disappointing season in Hollywood. We pat ourselves on the back for rescuing the entertainment industry an...

We review the latest installment in Disney’s juggernaut tween Descendants franchise: The Rise of Red. Can Aurodon survive the replacement of its core cast? Does the soundtrack live up to previous installments? Most importantly, how happy are we...

We talk about the trend of people dumping their smartphones for so-called dumb phones and whether this could be a smart strategy for our kids. We reminisce about our favorite flip phones and catch up on what we’re watching with our kids and wha...

We review the most anticipated release of the summer: Despicable Me 4! Did we need a sixth movie about Gru and his little yellow henchmen? Maybe not, but we did appreciate the opportunity to re-familiarize ourselves with the works of Culture Cl...

We discuss two short articles about screen time: one from Time that says it’s totally fine to talk about screen time using the language of diet culture as long as we don’t count minutes like we count calories and one from the Wall Street Journa...

In our review of Inside Out 2, we pick our faves from Riley’s new emotions and get into the puberty of it all by comparing Inside Out 2 to another similarly themed Pixar title, Turning Red.Previous episodes we mention:

We discuss summer movies--the films we want to watch with our kids and a few we’re planning to watch for date night. We cover our hopes for all the new installments of our favorite franchises including Inside Out 2, Despicable Me 4, Descendants...

In our review of The Garfield Movie, Deborah mourns the absence of the fundamental pathos of the Garfield comic strip in this zany animated take on everyone’s favorite lazy tabby. Katie betrays her co-viewing values and dares to suggest this wo...

We discuss lawsuits filed by parents against video game companies for allegedly causing psychiatric disorders in children. Are lawsuits really the way forward in managing our anxieties about screens? We also catch up on what we’re watching duri...

We review the recently released movie IF. This might be the first kids movie of the summer season, but we question whether this Ryan Reynolds vehicle is really a kids movie at all. Is it just a sneaky way for us to confront our anxieties about ...