A screenshot of John Dillermand Source: YouTube

Watch: Mr. Dillermand (aka 'Mr. Penis Man') is Denmark's New Children's TV Star

READ TIME: 2 MIN.

A new Danish children's television show is already controversial due to its protagonist's very long penis and the trouble it gets him into.

"The Danish equivalent of the BBC, DR, has a new animated series aimed at four- to eight-year-olds about John Dillermand, the man with the world's longest penis who overcomes hardships and challenges with his record-breaking genitals," reports The Guardian.

The show is aimed at children between the ages of four to eight and concerns how Mr. Penis Man overcomes "the obvious challenges that come with an incredibly long schlong," writes the Daily Beast.

His "extraordinary penis" (as the Guardian calls it) allow him "to perform rescue operations, etch murals, hoist a flag and even steal ice-cream from children."

The show's 13 episodes have been viewed more than 140,000 times since it started streaming on January 2. And it has its critics. "Is this really the message we want to send to children while we are in the middle of a huge #MeToo wave?" wrote the Danish author Anne Lise Marstrand-J�rgensen.

The Guardian reports that Christian Groes, an associate professor and gender researcher at Roskilde University, feels the show can only set equality back. "It's perpetuating the standard idea of a patriarchal society and normalising 'locker room culture' ... that's been used to excuse a lot of bad behaviour from men. It's meant to be funny – so it's seen as harmless. But it's not. And we're teaching this to our kids."

But the show has its supporters. Erla Heinesen H�jsted, a clinical psychologist who works with families and children, said she believed the show's opponents may be overthinking things. "John Dillermand talks to children and shares their way of thinking – and kids do find genitals funny," she said.

"The show depicts a man who is impulsive and not always in control, who makes mistakes – like kids do, but crucially, Dillermand always makes it right. He takes responsibility for his actions. When a woman in the show tells him that he should keep his penis in his pants, for instance, he listens. Which is nice. He is accountable."

The Danish network DR posted on Facebook this week that it is important to tell stories about bodies. "In the series, we recognize young children's growing curiosity about their bodies and genitals, as well as embarrassment and pleasure in the body."

H�jsted added that she feels the timing of the show is poor, "this is categorically not a show about sex," she said. "To pretend it is projects adult ideas on it."


Twitter, of course, was ripe with comments:






Read These Next