Team Geotrax

Team Geotrax, a fisher price production, follows the adventures of train operators and their trains in geotown. I’m not sure if the shows are on television, but you can find it on just about any toddler’s DVD collection. I don’t want to get into the details, but I’ve seen several discs and have come to rather a disturbing conclusion.

Geotrax is a racist show that promotes ethnic stereotypes. Here’s just a look at some of their characters:

Googles & Bunsen: they are the “smartest team”. These guys synchronized all of geotown with some special science they invented when they weren’t reciting the quadratic equation in ten different languages. He wears a lab coat and has glasses. They are white.

Bull & Bruno: they are the “toughest team”. Anything that needs to be carried or delivered, they can do it. If it means lifting thirty pallets of heavy wood, you can bet on Bruno and Bull to finish it singlehandedly. Of couse, as Brutes, they have to get some things wrong. For instance, in one show, there was a horse that was blocking them. They then went back a few feet and went on another track. However, beknownst to everyone but them, the track went around in circles. Bull and Bruno nonetheless kept going around and around, seemingly unaware that they were going in circles as they progressively became dizzier. They are heavily muscled, burly, and use copious amounts of some sticky wet substance to keep Bruno’s Sylvester Stallone haircut in the movie, Lords of Flatbush, in place.

Aero & Eric: they are the “fastest team”. They can run down the rails faster than anyone because they are the only trains that have their technology, although clearly he had nothing to do with it’s creation. In fact, we learn that Goggles & Bunsen created Aero the train. Unlike the other characters, who all seem like at least young men, Aero & Eric are without question boys, and pretty ones no less. His slightly sunbleached hair is effortlessly put together like that guy in High School Musical. He wears what essentially is a very form fitting white and blue one-piece leather motorcycle uniform. They are daring and adventerous. They are white and most likely from southern California.

Sheffeld & Genkins: they are the “most refined team”. They don’t do anything before tea. Sheffeld can make toast and then have it shoot it onto Genkins plate. Genkins wears white cardigans and has a strong English accent. They are white.

Woohoo & Ope: they are the “stupidest team”. Ope has a strong southern accent, looks perhaps inbred, walks like a fool, and is missing a few teeth. In one of the first episodes, they collect wood for the new geotown station by removing the wooden parts of their railroad tracks, causing three train derailments. And then at the end of the show when the station finally opens, they drop the big cake before anyone can eat it. They are white and probably smoke meth at nights between swigs of nighttrain.

Loopy & Loco: they are the “stunt flying team”. They are amazing flyers but they have an issue with keeping on their assignments. They have so much fun that they forget what their assignments were and often jeopardize the the geotrax mission. It’s when they get on the geotrax mission, and focus only on that and not themselves, are they able to succeed and gain acceptance. They are Latin American.

Stanley & Steamer:  they are the “hardest working team.”  My investigation reveals that Stanley’s family was the original capitalist owners of geotrax.  During the episode, “Stanley and Steamer Save The Day,” Stanley remarks that of the machines has “been in the family for years.”  He is an older white character.  He exudes confidence and stability and has that all-American, northeastern feel.  Stanley looks a lot like Nelson Rockefeller when he was younger.  Stanley and Steamer never gets angry and are always emotionally even keeled.  When Woohoo and Ope removed the tracks because they thought they were helping out collecting wood, Stanley calmly said, “It’s okay to make mistakes, as long as you learn from them.”  What a team.

Brutus and Victor: they are the “biggest bullies”. With strong Russian accents and blue and blue and gold imperial wear, they cause havoc to the geotrax team by unplugging the map that geotrax needs to coordinate their movements, puts a huge boulder blocking an important route for geotrax, and even steals cargo. But everytime, his plans, which seemed very creative and evil, fail with the utmost of predictability. Victor, who has a striking resemblance to Joseph Stalin, is white.

There are no women in the show.

There are no African-Americans that have their own trains. I have only seen one African-American on the show. He works with a heavy set white guy. They are maintenance workers who use one of those human powered platforms to move across the tracks. Apparently they don’t have what it tajes to operate real trains. Nor do they have the ability to speak. Everything he says rhymes.

Please write letters to fisher price and let them know that their show has to change.