Viva Piñata

I have a tendency to check out any unfamiliar animated shows that sidle my way, so I stuck "Viva Piñata" into the TiVo queue.

It was disturbing.

I heard about the upcoming game at E3, apparently it's sort of a colorful farm sim in which you raise living piñatas. This is the tie-in cartoon. I assumed -- and I don't know why I assumed this -- that the piñata thing was essentially a visual theme, in the same sense that Sonic the Hedgehog doesn't actually eat grubs and carrion. I was wrong.

These are living, talking piñatas that are rented out to children's parties to be bashed into tiny bits, then re-assembled to continue their Promethean existence. Furthermore, they are filled with candy. Frequently, in the show, they lose an arm or a leg or something and their sweet, paper-wrapped eviscera spill out of them. When this happens, the other piñatas rush up and eat the fresh piñata guts.

It was extremely disturbing.

Lore Sjöberg