We just got back from

We just got back from Bob The Builder Live. Can we fix it? Yes we can. But, unfortunately, I am not sure I can say that about Bob. This fellow should have his license yanked. The story begins with some vague bureaucrat giving Bob the commission to “clean up that old vacant lot and put something nice in it.” Bob, who is a disaster of a general contractor, apparently has gifts as a mind reader. “A park!” Well, yes, that is exactly what the mayor had in mind. And the target finished date? The jubilee tomorrow!

Now, maybe Bob is a symptom of the goofball city he lives in. No bidding process? No budgeting at the City Council meeting? The mayor gets an idea and the assistant goes out and hires his buddy, who happens to be a middle aged white male. We figured that his “sidekick” (although even in a show targeted for 2-6 year olds, they had to introduce some sexual tension – more on that later) must have a significant ownership in the company so that it qualifies as a woman owned business. Either that or Bob is a veteran. Once Bob gets his marching orders (he doesn’t even give the City a written estimate – and if you watch this clown work, he has cost overrun written all over his face), he sets off to the work site, some cluttered old structure. At some point the City fellow leaves, off to inspect buildings. What? The guy who hires the contractors is also the building inspector? What sort of dingbat town is this?

The first bit of construction goofiness is that Bob completely overuses heavy equipment: some cardboard boxes have to be flattened to get taken to the recycling center? Have a steamroller go over them! Then, he realizes that, in spite of having an army of trucks, Bob has forgotten his toolbox, his lunch, and does not have paint. He sends his smiling equipment off to fetch his things. While they are off, hijinks with a scarecrow ensue that seem more like filler than anything. Part of this scarecrow nonsense involves the straw man stealing Bob’s ladder. Well, who should be by but the friendly City bureaucrat, who immediately recognizes the ladder as Bob’s and takes it back.

Through all of this nothingness, the chorus keeps singing variations on “can we fix it? Yes we can!” But, when we get to the break (15 minutes of merchandising), absolutely nothing has been fixed or built. Melanie leaned over at a “can we fix it?” and said, “well, I am not sure. He hasn’t really done much of anything yet.”

Of course everything miraculously turns out OK, even though Bob starts doing painting and finishing work before the majority of the structural work is done (never mind that the post he was painting was already painted from the get go). Amália seemed to like it all, but she was much more interested in the fact that one of the heavy trucks was painted cobalt than she was in anything else. “Blue!” she declared. Yes, Amália, that is the remarkable thing about a stage full of singing, dancing, grimacing, talking trucks: one of them is painted blue. I wish I could see the world through her eyes more often. I probably wouldn’t be interested in depriving a blue-collar guy of his livelihood one day after the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker.