Shark Tank, you fucked up, you fucked up bad.
I was watching the latest episode of Shark Tank (Season 7, Episode 5) with my
daughter when I had to abruptly stop the show and make up an excuse as to why
we were no longer watching the show.
The segment about the Switch Witch had just come on and after a brief
moment I knew exactly where they were going with it. What I wasn’t sure of was
whether or not they were going to be specific enough about the product in such
a way that would completely obliterate the years of magic my wife and I have
created with our daughter.
They did, and I’m glad I stopped it when I did.
The product is very much like the Mensch on a Bench (so it’s a copy
of a copy?) that was featured on a previous season. At the time my daughter was
younger and the Mensch pitch didn’t go into any specifics about the magic.
The Switch Witch pitch though, Robert makes a reference to the parents leaving
a present in exchange for the candy. The guy doing the pitch corrects him that
“the witch leaves” the gift. I’m unsure whether or not that would have clicked
with my daughter and opened up a whole can of questions about our Elf on the
Shelf and holidays in general.
Maybe I’m just overreacting, but the fact is, we raise our daughter to ask
questions and find logical answers for things. We have also preserved a bit of
childhood innocence and a belief in magic. Shark Tank also made it into the
things we expose our daughter to because we think it’s pretty education and for
the most part, pretty damn wholesome.
Sadly, Shark Tank has to be downgraded from “good to go” to ”needs parental
pre-screening”. I’m hoping that just going over the list of pitches before we
watch an episode will be enough of a buffer.
