If you're sick and tired of watching shows for preschoolers but want the kids to settle down while you enjoy your 8 AM coffee, put this on. Kids LOVE cute things. Honestly, I think it's good for their development to become familiar with baby animals and the like. Since there are so many different breeds of cats and dogs that are featured, it's basically an adorable teaching tool to help them differentiate the different kinds. My baby sister is 5 and she can name a dozen dog breeds from sight alone from watching this show all the time.

The premise of watching three groups of puppies or kittens (or, sometimes, other species) learning about the world in the weeks between birth and adoption turns out to be an entertaining and amusing show. It proves, if nothing else, that animals are human after all.It's always rather interesting to see how, for example, two siblings in a litter will form a friendship that excludes the other members of that litter. The ingenuity that some of these animals have is also fascinating and amusing, such as when a puppy or kitten tries to find a place to sleep away from the rest of the "family," which is invariably too big to allow him or her room.Then there's the tension that exists when the real humans have a pet of a different species; will they hit it off? Sometimes a dog will take on to a litter of kittens, for example, while another one will be skittish...or maybe the kittens are afraid of the dog.And you can be sure that if the infant is in distress the mother will always be there to rescue them.Not only can the show be unintentionally funny, it always has a happy ending; not only do we see the animals going to their new homes, narrator Henry Strozier always tells us what they're doing now. And speaking of Strozier, he seems to be thoroughly enjoying telling these tales. (His voice reminds me of newscaster/narrator Jack Perkins, who I thought it was when I first saw this show.) The only thing I don't understand is why Animal Planet gives this show a TV-PG content rating. I've never seen anything I would not permit a child to watch. I try to catch one or two of these on Saturdays, and if you need a little emotional pick me up, you should too.

"Too Cute!" is the sort of reality TV show that I can tolerate--something I cannot say about most reality television programs. While I will readily admit that the show has very little in the way of plot and narration that, at times, can be grating, the show is very tough not to like. Even if you are a curmudgeon, you cannot resist "Too Cute!". Why? Because this incredibly simple show simply shows three litters of puppies* as they grow during the course of each episode. Back and forth the action goes, following up the three litters until they are adopted. Simple....but also simply impossible to resist. I do not actively look for this show, but when nothing else is on and I have nothing else to do, it's good, mindless fun.*In some of the later episodes, you also see things like baby cats, guinea pigs and the like. These are still very cute and well worth seeing.