Anti-swine-flu superheroes
Swine-flu panic may have ebbed a bit, but it's not too late to get your kids acquainted with the "Scrub Club," a team of superheroes -- admittedly with fairly non-exotic powers -- who have been sent to Earth by a non-profit group to encourage kids to wash their hands more effectively.
NSF International, which surely hopes you will not confuse them in any way with the National Science Foundation (there's no connection), says there is considerable evidence that super-heroic intervention is needed: According to one survey, 42 percent of teachers say it's harder to get young kids to use soap during hand-washing than it is to get them to do homework.
Sounds like a job for the Scrub Club: I.e., Hot Shot and Chill, characters who "combine to make the warm water essential for proper hand washing"; Squeaks, who "turns into various forms of soap"; and Taki, a clock that counts down the 20 seconds that a thorough clean requires. And let's not forget Scruff, who tells kids to check under their nails, Tank, who turns himself into a sink, suitable for rinsing (what kid doesn't like a Transformer!); and P.T., who metamorphoses into paper towels. (P.T.'s black-sheep brother T.P., alas, is nowhere to be found.)
In short Webisodes and games at scrubclub.com, the clean team takes on such villains as Influenza Enzo -- you may remember him from such educational shorts as "Stop Fluin' Around" -- and the somewhat undercreatively named E. Coli. A nosy parental stand-in, Ship-Shape, watches through a telescope to make sure the hand-washing mission is completed according to standards set by the CDC.
A worthy cause -- but I'll do some field research and report back on whether these characters hold any of the allure of Spiderman, "Black Spiderman," and Electro, currently reigning at our local playground.
