Baby Shark the TV series is coming – haven't parents suffered enough?
There is going to be a Baby Shark cartoon. A real Baby Shark cartoon. Not just another YouTube Baby Shark cartoon, where the baby shark swims around and sings about how he’s a baby shark. This is going to be a proper, broadcast, legitimate Baby Shark cartoon that will air on Nickelodeon. Pinkfong, the Korean company that created Baby Shark, is partnering with the network on the cartoon, which does not yet have a premiere date.
A Nickelodeon spokesperson heralded the news by saying, “At the heart of any popular piece of content is a terrific character, and we have a great opportunity to further explore the world of Baby Shark and follow this family through some great animated adventures on Nickelodeon”. Meanwhile, a representative for all the parents of the world reacted to the news by screaming, digging their fingernails into their own eyeballs, dropping to the floor, vomiting, crying, vibrating until their brain literally exploded inside their skull, muttering “Thank you god for the gift of a merciful death,” and then dying.
If you have young children, you’ll understand. I have two young kids, and the prospect of more Baby Shark in the world fills me with abject dread. I’m not even sure how there can be more Baby Shark in the world than there already is, because it is already everywhere I look. The original Baby Shark YouTube video has been watched close to three billion times, and I honestly think my family might be responsible for a full third of that.
My children watch Baby Shark when they wake up. They ask Alexa to play the audio version when we’re eating dinner. Any time my family goes on any sort of road trip, the moment inevitably comes where the youngest one starts crying in the back, and the only thing that will calm him down is when my wife has to physically hook herself around the passenger seat, load up a Baby Shark video and show it to him on repeat at top volume until we get to wherever we are.
I wrote about Baby Shark last year and, to thank me, Pinkfong sent me a Baby Shark toy that plays Baby Shark in its entirety whenever anyone touches it, which is all the godforsaken time. Hand on heart, my youngest child could sing Baby Shark before he could say ‘Daddy’. In short, I need a Baby Shark cartoon like I need someone to perform a colonoscopy on me with a burning bus.
Maybe you don’t know what Baby Shark is. If that’s the case, screw you. Go and look it up somewhere else. I’m not going to tell you what Baby Shark is, because I’m legitimately jealous of your beautiful ignorance. My entire life is Baby Shark, and I hate what it has done to me. You could kill me and leave my body in the desert, and after a thousand years my desiccated bones would still reverberate to the sound of Baby Shark. That’s how deeply embedded the song is. This is the hell of my existence.
Still, back to the series. There’s usually something desperate about a traditional broadcaster like Nickelodeon licensing a YouTube character, because it smacks of a old-fashioned media on the ropes. Certainly, the series it is making with Ryan’s World Toys – a YouTube channel about a seven-yearold boy who unboxes toys emblazoned with his own likeness – is craven to the point of genuine creepiness.
But Baby Shark might be different, because it already exists in such a wellestablished universe that Nickelodeon has plenty of options. There’s the original Baby Shark video, of course, where the Baby Shark family unsuccessfully attempts to hunt a shoal of fish. But there’s also the Baby Shark video where the fish form a union and start hunting the sharks. And the Baby Shark video where Baby Shark plays with a ball, gets lost and has to recruit an angler fish to find his way home. And the Baby Shark video where Baby Shark chastises an octopus who was mean to the fish. And the Baby Shark video where Baby Shark goes on a picnic. There is the Baby Shark video where Baby Shark’s grandparents renew their wedding vows. And the Baby Shark video where Baby Shark reveals his aspirations to become an architect.
Realistically, Nickelodeon has a wide open canvas to play with here. In fact, factor in the world of Monkey Banana (which is literally just Baby Shark, but with all the words changed to ‘monkey banana’), and you have a potential for a shared universe the breadth of which would make Marvel blush. Hell, why stop at a Baby Shark TV show? Why not make a Baby Shark film? Why not publish Baby Shark novels? Why not send astronauts into space so that they can carve Baby Shark’s face into the moon? Why not just inject Baby Shark DNA into our nervous systems, so we all become part Baby Shark and go around unsuccessfully hunting shoals of fish with our families all day? Baby Shark has already eaten my life, so I might as well properly commit.