"Remote Control" Bob the Builder

What can possibly be wrong with a colorful little construction character like Bob? He’s cutesy, colorful, friendly. Besides, anybody with friends like Muck, Scoop, and Lofty has to be a nice guy, right?

In fact, Bob has become such a hit that there’s a whole line of products that has stamped his image indelibly in young minds.  Such a character can be used for great good or great harm. In this case, a simple character and his simple settings are used to push the millions-of-years line, still one of the biggest stumbling blocks to the gospel for people all over the world. Again, they’re starting with young children. “Bob the Builder” is specifically designed to appeal to children between the ages of two and five.

“Bob the Builder” has a major potential to influence our children’s world view. Unfortunately, many times it is not a view their parents would approve of. People might laugh at me for going to this “safe stuff,” but . . . well, just consider for yourself. You know, they actually produced a show entitled “Scoops the Stegosaurus”:

  
Bob: “Hold it, Scoop! There’s something down there! It’s too big to be a cow’s bone, but it just might be . . . a dinosaur’s bone!”

Lofty: “A, a, a, a, dinosaur!”

Bob: “It’s all right, Lofty, the dinosaurs lived millions of years ago.”

  Friends, these messages are there, over and over and over again.