NICKELODEON, watch your back!
PBS rolls out eight new preschool shows this fall, including a block of Saturday morning programming intended to rival the commerical networks.
The new shows are all based on books and the titles are Top of the Pops among three-footers: Maurice Sendak’s “Seven Little Monsters,” Don Freeman’s “Corduroy” and Norman Bidwell’s “Clifford The Big Red Dog.”
The Saturday morning block, hawked as PBS Kids Bookworm Bunch, debuts Sept. 30 and also includes William Joyce’s “George Shrinks”, Andrea Beck’s “Elliot Moose,” Rosemary Wells’ “Timothy Goes to School” and Micahel Paraskevas’ “Marvin the Tap-Dancing Horse.”
Four-year-old Trevor and I road-tested “Clifford” and “Caillou,” the two shows destined for weekdays on Ch. 13 starting Sept. 4.
The earth didn’t shake, but the more I get into this kids’ TV thing, the more I realize that dinky can be beautiful.
“Clifford” is about a dog so big that his house is the size of a barn, he uses a truck tire as a chew toy and is too large to come entirely clean in a car wash.
The oddest thing is that Clifford is so big, his human family moves to a distant island – Birdwell – to accommodate him. That, to me, is a fairy tale. And a sign of parents bending over too far backward to please their little darlings. Which I would read as a negative lesson to pliant yuppie parents who are already struggling to give their kids the sun and the moon.
But, then again, it’s only a story. (Note to Trevor: We’re not moving to the Alps so you can have a Saint Bernard.)
Each half-hour “Clifford” is split into two thematically-linked segments with a message about sharing, or mutual respect, or the advantages of being different.
“Caillou” is more cute and, from the five-and-a-half footer perspective, ickier.
“Caillou” is the name of an allegedly “charming and lovable” four-year-old. The kid’s charming and lovable in a way your own kid seems to you – but may not seem to your childless neighbor.
I’m unsure where this latter-day Charlie Brown got his unpronouncable French name, but this little baldy resembles real children in that he’s prone to fits of whining and toy tossing.
In one show, he refuses to go with Mommy to preschool, so his kindly, flex-time father caves to the tantrum and takes Caillou around the neighborhood, introducing him to all the working people in the ‘hood short of the undercover cop.
Daddy and son finally arrive at nursery school where we discover that a caregiver is a worker, too, a worker who loves her job (and presumably her substandard wages). My kids are neither fragile nor shrinking violets and we like our fairy tales Grimm.
The truth is this: Contemporary kids television has pulled ahead of PBS and they’re playing catch-up with a copy of the old rules.
These new shows don’t deter me from supporting the idea of public money going to PBS (better tax money than my own!).
Still, as Nick plunders our kids’ piggy banks for “Blues Clues” paraphernalia, what I can’t figure out is why public broadcasting programs aimed at children can’t subsidize the entire public television universe.