barking up the wrong tree

Despite What the White House Says, Paw Patrol Has Not Been Canceled

Photo: Nickelodeon

It’s been a ruff week already, and if the idea of your Paw Patrol–obsessed child losing the only thing getting you all through quarantine has you howling, don’t worry. Despite what the White House inexplicably alleges, the animated series about a team of emergency-responder dogs, which airs on Nickelodeon in the U.S., lives on to help the residents of Adventure Bay through yet another calamity.

“We saw that Paw Patrol, a cartoon show about cops, was canceled. The show Cops was canceled. Live PD was canceled. Lego halted sales of their Lego City Police Station. It’s really unfortunate,†White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters Friday while complaining about “cancel culture and cancel culture specifically as it pertains to cops.†It’s not exactly clear why McEnany lied about the status of Paw Patrol, but either way, the show’s official Twitter account issued a correction after the fact, tweeting, “No need to worry. PAW Patrol is not canceled.â€

Of course, there might be some caregivers who would be just fine if it was. In his Vulture review of the series this December, writer (and reluctant parental viewer) Brian Platzer found the show to be “monstrous†and “a moral and aesthetic catastrophe.†Writes Platzer, “It’s one of the few children’s programs that neither tries to entertain parents nor encourages kids to become better people.â€

Live PD, meanwhile, was, in fact, canceled in June, the same week as Paramount axed Cops, after A&E admitted the reality show filmed police killing a suspect, a man named Javier Ambler, in Texas last year. In a statement to CNN on Friday, Lego clarifies, “We did not halt sales of any LEGO sets, and any reports otherwise are false,†though the company reportedly did put the marketing of police Lego sets on hold during last month’s Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality.

Despite What the White House Says, Paw Patrol Isn’t Canceled