The Strange Animated World of 'Yo Gabba Gabba'

A couple nights ago I dropped by my new favorite Los Angeles cinema, the historic and tragic Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax, now completely reimagined by the oh so excellent curatorial group Cinefamily. As part of a series on animation for grown-ups, Cinefamily hosted a special screening and presentation on the origins of Nick Jr.’s strangely brilliant pre-school kids program, Yo Gabba Gabba.

Gabba is the brainchild of a couple skate-punk musicians (Christian Jacobs of the Aquabats and Scott Schultz of Majestic) who as new fathers found themselves quite disappointed with the limited creativity of children’s programming on television. That disappointment spawned wonder and fortunately, they found a dude as charismatic and as Easy Reader cool as DJ Lance Rock (another musician, Lance Robertson) to host the show. Gabba has become something of a phenomenon, gripping audiences from all age brackets, not just its two-year-old target market, and constantly pushing the envelope of how creative and musically inspired a kids show for the pre-linguistic can be. Now moving into its third season, Gabba is just getting more and more bizarrely fascinating.

What stands out immediately in Gabba ­– at least for the post-pubescent audience – is its retro-futuristic aesthetic. There are bright fluorescent colors, psychedelic costumes reminiscent of Magical Mystery Tour and googly-eyed robot creatures giving a nod to Japanese pop. Gabba’s excellent sound library boasts drum machine electro tunes with bubbly bass lines, instilling the imaginaire of the dance floor into the most impressionable minds. One of Gabba’s cutest skits is a reoccuring interlude with tiny human beings jumping spasmodically, prepping their voice-overs: My name is Jenny. I Like to dance! Absolutely adorable. In fact, you could probably write a thesis on the notion of the cute as illustrated in Gabba.

All of that is not even to mention that guest musicians like Biz Markie, MGMT, The Roots and The Flaming Lips have rocked Gabba shows, innocently pure and dreamy. Even Jack Black has got down in Lance Rock’s tight neon orange get-up. Oh, it’s all just bringing back Sesame Street, Electric Company, video game bit noises, and the boundlessly awesome world of anime — and everything it ever influenced.

The technical collage of styles and mediums is also quite impressive. Weaved together as an assemblage of live action, layered stop-motion, animated sequences, and a cardboard-cut theatrical environment, Gabba is a testament to video experimentation as much as it is to intergenerational entertainment. It’s also quite crafty that host Lance Rock figuratively brings the toys to life (right out of his fisher pricey boom box) on a still panoramic world that then generates a twirling tunnel vision for our imagination. Although, I must admit, you might feel nearly as psychotic as a three-year-old after immersing yourself in the Gabba world for about an hour. How’s that for mind expansive psychedelia?

Oh, Chromeo in full vocoder glory and full Gabba stylings.