![\"Gwanghwamun](\"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/KB-Tayo-2.jpg\")
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\u201cTayo the Little Bus<\/em> is a steaming pile of garbage,\u201d a friend of mine recently posted to Facebook. If you don\u2019t like that show in America, I told him, try not to move to Korea, the land where Tayo comes from. I only understood his reference because I did move to Korea \u2014 and moreover to Seoul, where Tayo imagery abounds \u2014 but my friend, the father of a two-year-old, has had the phenomenon inflicted much more directly upon him. Like any production geared toward toddlers, I imagine its inherent repetitiveness, combined with the average little kid\u2019s immunity to watching the exact same thing over and over again, soon pushes any grown-up of sound mind halfway to the asylum.<\/p>\n
On its face, the concept of a computer-animated cartoon about a bus and his friends, mostly also buses, makes sense, especially one aimed at very young boys going through their phase (or, as the case may be, lifetime) of obsession with all things mechanical and in motion; the Thomas the Tank Engine<\/em> and Cars<\/em> franchises have certainly done well for themselves by tapping into that same vein. But my friend\u2019s central objection turned out to have less to do with the show\u2019s concept that with its English-language dubbing, specifically the teeth-achingly enthusiastic performance of the lady who plays Tayo himself.<\/p>\n
Frankly, it surprises me that Tayo the Little Bus<\/em> (\uaf2c\ub9c8\ubc84\uc2a4 \ud0c0\uc694) exists in English at all. Cars tend to dominate American landscapes as well as lives, and trains, however deeply passenger rail sinks into the realm of low-budget antiquarianism, have held their place in the American imagination. But the very mention of buses, for most of my countrymen, seems only to conjure up images of uncleanliness, inconvenience, and poverty. Speed<\/em><\/a>, the pinnacle of Los Angeles action cinema, struggled to get made due to its script \u201cabout a bus.\u201d The situation has improved in recent years thanks to the revival of downtowns across the country (Los Angeles\u2019 own being the most dramatic), but only by degrees.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n