Be honest
Children are perceptive. Pretending everything is normal and insisting there is only one Blippi when your child can tell there are now two will only serve to confuse and frustrate them.
Remind them this isn’t their fault
When your child begins to realize that the Blippi they have come to know and love has been replaced by a weird, half-assed facsimile of Original Blippi, they may start blaming themselves:
- “Did I do something to offend Original Blippi?”
- “Did I watch too much of the Original Blippi?”
- “Did I not watch enough?”
- “Did my consumption of Blippi properties contribute to creating a venture so profitable that Original Blippi was unable to walk away and thus, when he was eventually driven to madness by the weird dances and strange vocal inflections, the Blippi machine was too prosperous to be stopped, and he had to be replaced by a look-a-like à la the Paul McCartney rumors of the late 1960s?”
These are all perfectly normal questions for your child to ask. Your role as the parent is to assure your child they are not to blame for this Second Blippi. The company that owns Blippi’s intellectual property would have decided to create a new one regardless of your child’s actions.
Keep the conversation moving
Your child will experience many emotions while they process the introduction of a new Blippi into their life. It’s healthy for them to wonder about the series of events and auditions that brought this new person into their lives. What isn’t healthy is for them to fixate on the fact that no actor ever moved to LA to be the new Blippi. Thinking about the chain of misfortune that led a bright, young actor to abandon their aspirations of appearing in dramatic films and instead audition to be Blippi can be destructive for your child. Don’t let them dwell on the depressing image of several grown men in a room with low ceilings, strapped in suspenders and bathed in fluorescent light, trying to mimic the bizarre, limb-flailing way in which Blippi traverses from Point A to Point B in front of another group of adults.
Focus on what is known
While it seems plausible the new Blippi had his fingerprints burned off and new fingerprints matching those of Original Blippi were agonizingly carved into his smoothed-out digits, we don’t know conclusively that that’s what happened, so it is best to avoid the topic with your child. Focus on things we know for sure, like how Second Blippi has weirder mustache stubble than Original Blippi.
Make sure they are aware there is likely an underground
facility of large tankards full of liquid oxygen where new
Blippi embryos are being grown by the hundreds
It is tempting to address the one new Blippi your child has seen and end the conversation. But that will only lead to confusion down the road as more and more Blippi (the plural of “Blippi” is “Blippi,” like “fish”) emerge. Instead, lay the groundwork now. You don’t need to make it sound scary (though tanks with growing orange and blue suspendered embryos must be horrifying). But do emotionally prepare your child for the fact that the number of Blippi in the world will only grow and never shrink.
Make sure your child is comfortable knowing that,
in their lifetime, there will be at minimum three Senator Blippi
Painting an idyllic version of the world where none of our government representatives take goofy dance breaks, or punctuate every sentence with a weird, fake half-laugh is tempting. But long term, it is best to be upfront about the reality in which we exist. Your child will eventually live in a world where at least three of the people making laws are former or current Blippi (it is unclear if they’re ever allowed to escape being Blippi).
Remind them that we don’t know what happens when they die
It is impossible to know what happens to us after we die. So it’s theoretically possible their soul could be reincarnated in a Blippi. But if that’s a concern for your child, start an episode of the show and have them look deep into Blippi’s eyes. Now ask them if they believe there is truly a soul behind them.