Bet on Your Baby

M-Net, Channel 101, Thursdays, 18:30

Kids can be extremely funny, everyone will probably agree. You can hop onto YouTube and find countless videos of children doing and saying hilarious things.

There have also been game shows that tried to capitalise on their unpredictability, such as

Kids Say the Darndest Things, a show hosted by Bill Cosby that was based on a segment of the popular radio show Art Linkletter’s House

Party , in which kids were interviewed and asked challenging questions to see how they would respond. The Cosby-hosted show inspired a UK version called Kids Say the

Funniest Things, hosted by Michael Barrymore. The point of all this: Kids make us laugh — a premise this mildly controversial new show attempts to run with. It aired in the US last year and had a second season this year. The idea is five teams — mom, dad and toddler — compete to earn cash for the kid’s education.

One parent goes into a playroom with the child to instruct them to complete several game-like tasks, while the other parent stays outside with hostess Melissa Peterman and bets on whether or not the kid will do it. There are all kinds of distractions, such as remotecontrol cars that enter the area loaded with sweets, to make the outcome more uncertain.

But, as with almost anything, it has its opponents. The reasons cited by naysayers include the messages the kids on the show infer as their desperate parents try to bribe them into doing the right thing; the possible hurt feelings the losing kids might have seeing the show later in life (really?); the parents getting more screen time than the kids, and the rampant commercialism by the various baby product sponsors — like we’ve never seen that before.

Maybe they have a point, I wouldn’t know. I’m no shrink or sociologist. The goal is admirable, surely? True, not all of the kids can win — but that’s life, and life is unfair. That’s always a good lesson.