I divide children’s television shows into four categories:
1) Shows I have a philosophical objection to the kids watching.
2) Shows I have no philosophical objection to, but can’t stand to have on because they make me feel as if sharing my house with children has made my whole life unrecognizably lame and sad.
3) Shows I feel indifferent about: they’re fine for the kids to watch, and I don’t mind having them on.
4) Shows I really like: I’m glad when the kids like them, and I might start shushing so I don’t miss the dialogue.
Most of the shows in the fourth category are the ones I liked in my own childhood.
Current episodes of Sesame Street are fine (although they seem to be almost entirely Elmo’s World and Journey to Ernie), but I prefer seeing the very same episodes I watched as a child. Grover and that guy in the restaurant! Kermit and the on-the-scene reporting! The typewriter, typing on itself! Oscar being genuinely rude and mean! Adults openly mocking Big Bird for saying Mr. Snuffleupagus was real!
I own Volume 1, which covers 1969-1974, and Volume 2, which covers 1974-1979. I like Volume 2 a little better (Volume 1 has a “starting up a new show and fumbling around for footing” feeling; also, more of the Volume 2 segments are familiar to me), but they’re both awesome. Even more awesome: NO ELMO and NO BABY BEAR. I’m hoping for a Volume 3.
I grew up in a “PBS only” kind of household, but Paul grew up normal with Saturday morning cartoons so he has a soft spot for Schoolhouse Rock. These little educational songs evidently played between cartoons, NOT THAT I’D KNOW. Watching these DVDs with the kids, I’ve finally understood a few grammar and government rules that had previously escaped me; plus, now I can sing you the preamble to the Constitution. Beat THAT, PBS. This anniversary collection contains every single Schoolhouse Rock song—in case you have some catching up to do from YOUR deprived childhood.
The Electric Company! Watching it now is bizarre: all these way-groovy actors doing kid-level variety-show stuff and reciting the alphabet and so forth. MORGAN FREEMAN, for pete’s sake! We sing “Silent E” around here all the time (”Who can turn a CUB into a CUBE? Who can turn a TUB into a TUBE?”) (okay, I won’t leave you in suspense: it’s Silent E). There’s also volume 2.
On one hand, I wish there were bigger sets of Mr. Rogers available—something more like the big sets they’ve come out with for Sesame Street and Electric Company. On the other hand, we still get reruns on PBS and can watch it that way. Also, this is one show my kids don’t like quite as much as I do. I’m sitting there weeping into a hankie, saying, “Mr. Rogers was so ni-i-i-i-i-ice! *sob* *honk*” and they’re wandering off unless it’s The Land of Make-Believe or Picture-Picture. Those were the only parts I liked when I was a child, too; it’s only now that I want to listen to Mr. Rogers talking about how special and important and loved we all are. (*honk*)
Great choices!
And I’m so glad you plugged Mr. Rogers. He really WAS that nice in real life. *sniff*
Nowheymama | August 26th, 2008 at 11:52 am
When I was in 5th grade, we had to learn the preamble and recite it in class. I can still sing that damn song,
“We the people,
in order to form a more perfect union,
establish justice
ensure domestic tranquility.”
Cori | August 26th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Do you remember Zoom and 321 Contact (Gawd! Don’t sing the song or I’ll get it stuck in my head and have to go to youtube to get it out!)??
My 10 yr old Autistic son LOVES the old school pbs stuff so much I had to drop it all into a youtube mommy approved slot for him to play over and over. His fave is the EC’s word sounding out bits (”c” .. “ool” … “cool!”)
PS: All time favorite SS bit: two little kittens in a doll house. And, yes, I *can* sing the whole thing.
Deanna | August 26th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Deanna- LOVED Zoom and 321 Contact (with The Bloodhound Gang—my favorite!). Wish they’d put those on DVD. Zoom is still on, and it’s still good but I want the OLD ones.
That doll house song makes me cry every time—and it’s on BOTH volumes of Sesame Street.
swistle | August 26th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Swistle — how old were your kids when you started to let them watch tv? And why? And how did it go? Are you freakish about it ruining their development or what not? Do you place time limits? I want to do it, esp. with these high quality shows, but it always makes me feel guilty, like I’m doing something wrong. (Mine are much younger than yours.) Okay. Well then. Maybe this is a question for your other blog? Thanks!
Liza | August 26th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Liza- With my oldest, I waited to let him watch TV—but of course the younger ones had TV on (not for them, but still: on) way earlier, because older siblings were watching it. I have a lot of anxiety topics in this parenting thing, but TV doesn’t bother me. I do start getting squirrelly about it when I feel like they’re watching Too Much, but that doesn’t usually happen—in fact, it’s more common for me to be like, “Um, do you want to watch some TV?” ( <–itching for some time away from children) and for them to be like, “Nah.”
Oh, you asked why I let them watch. It’s a combination of the “it doesn’t happen to be an anxiety topic for me” thing, plus that my parents didn’t let me watch much as a child and I felt it messed with my social development: kids bond over TV shows just like adults do, and I felt left out. This makes me sound all “kids must watch TV!” but I’m not that way, either—just, I like the TV that’s available for kids now, and I like to let mine watch it.
swistle | August 26th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
To this day, my dad, at the ripe old age of 63 will still turn on Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood from time to time. It’s so soothing!
Di | August 26th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
My all-time favorite segment from vintage Sesame Street is “Put Down the Duckie.” Hooray, I see it’s on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVtWXtSKJ9I
Susan | August 26th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
I just started watching some SS Old Skool V1, and saw the bit with the two boys who are playing in the sandbox, and they cut back and forth between the boys pretending they are trucks and shots of actual trucks. I hadn’t seen that since I watched it on the original show as a kid, and seeing it again was SURREAL. I could remember what I thought about it when I was 7, but with an adult’s perspective. So weird, but so cool.
Also: I heard on “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me” that Mr. Rogers’s car got stolen once, and after it was reported on the news in Pittsburgh (where he lived), it was returned to him with a note that said, “If we had known it was yours, we wouldn’t have taken it.”
Dr. Maureen | August 26th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
You crack me up everytime you do a post that involves a list of some sort and you categorizing items. Crack.me.up. This is craziness…but I totally understand and get it and often catch myself nodding until I realize how crazy it all is. You must tell me your zodiac sign. I’m dying to know. And you are RIGHT about seasame street and Elmo’s World.
Leticia | August 27th, 2008 at 12:04 am
Square One TV. That is all.
Kitty | August 27th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
I have a confession to make — I don’t have children, but I think I may buy these for… myself.
And what about Reading Rainbow? Not so much late 70’s as early 80’s, but still awesome.
JennyM | August 28th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
(And Square One! Mathnet!)
JennyM | August 28th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
We have the Sesame Street Old School and the School House Rock. LOVE ‘EM. And then I took my daughter to see School House Rock Live here at the community college. She got such a huge thrill out of it! We haven’t watched these in a while…I gotta get those out again!
Carrie | August 28th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
I was so disappointed when I started watching Sesame Street again with my toddler and found out Snuffy is now visible to everyone! I felt so betrayed….
Anna | August 29th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
We also have School House Rock and I love it SO MUCH. I remember it from my childhood and am so glad my son is now enjoying the classics like Conjunction Junction and 3 is a Magic Number. Loving it all over again.
Maggie | August 29th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Don’t forget the original Muppet Show episodes or Fraggle Rock. There is nothing quite so innocent and at the same time starnge and amusing as Jim Henson shows before he passed away. I loved these as a kid and I still love the random guest stars like Harry Belafonte.
Christine | September 5th, 2008 at 4:50 am