*Sigh* It's That Time of the Decade Again...

[Convincing John]

I tried watching a couple episodes, and I not only did I find them boring, but one episode they went to Montana or Wyoming, and they had a 2 minute shot of Horse crap (actual crap out of an actual horse's backside).

What? LOL! They showed that? Good grief! On that same note (and getting back on track to the pledge topic), hard working folks pay their taxes, PBS gets a little bit of it. What we want to see is that money go to help great shows with likable characters and excellent quality. Mr. Rogers, Reading Rainbow, Arthur and of course our beloved Sesame Street. Elmo aside, to think that folks like "good ol' Bob, Big Bird" etc. are teaching kids the same stuff they taught me is a wonderful thing.

But what happens with our tax dough for PBS? Keeping your comment about Postcards From Buster in mind, PBS gets funds from viewers. Then later it says: "Here everyone! Look! Boobah! Teletubbies! And everyone's favorite...BARNEY!"

Funds for PBS go in...and this comes back to the viewers...

Your earlier comment about Boobah cracked me up. I think either it and/or Teletubbies was actually parodied on Arthur (I cannot praise Arthur enough)! The episode "That's a Baby Show!" was absolutely hilarious and worth watching (I'd suggest taping it, too). I won't spoil what happens in it, but it's great!

Like you, I saw a ton of these weird, sparkly "Grimace"-like creatures flopped in clearance bins at Target. Wondering what these things were, I tried watching a minute or so of "Boobah" on PBS and couldn't stomach any more than that. Is this what PBS was spending funding on? Seeing these glittering monstrosities emerge from Kamino-like chairs, flying and emitting noises like leaky whoopie cushions made me think "What are preschoolers going to get out of this?" What's really sickening is I've seen mothers gurgle and coo over how this drivel and Teletubbies is so good for their little ones.

Jim taught me early on (well Frank in this case) what was drivel and to cheer on anyone to do the obvious thing and get rid of it! I refer of course to the opening number in the James Coburn episode. Let's take a poll: MCers out there, just how many of you would like to see this scene played out on PBS:

Sappy music set to "This Old Man" begins as Barney and the teenagers...er, kids begin to sway in unison:

"I love you. You love m--"

There is a tremendous crash as the door to the playroom is ripped off its hinges. Animal bursts in yelling "KILL! KILL!" As Animal tackles Barney, we hear cloth tearing and Barney whimpering. Bits of purple shreds fly everywhere just before the PLEASE STAND BY sign comes on.

Announcer: "We are experiencing technical difficulties. Please stay tuned for a special episode of the Teletubbies called "Tinky-Winky's New Friend."

The screen now shows Gorgon Heap belching up a purple triangle and remarking "He was delicious!"

Now that's what I'd like to see my PBS funding do!

I have only seen snippets of Curious George here and there, but what I've seen isn't bad. I wondered though...why doesn't George have his tail?

In my area, Mr. Rogers is shown each weekday, and Reading Rainbow (old school episodes included) are shown, too. The new theme is there, but that's all that's changed. The airtimes aren't too bad either.

Let's see, the last pledge drive in my area was...maybe a couple months ago. Somethin' like that. I did read somewhere that someone asked PBS "What will happen to Sesame Street with all the funding cuts?" and the answer was something like "Sesame Street would be one of the last things to go if PBS went completely under."

So, Sesame's safe for now. I say if the show ends for good, I'd rather have it be a mutual decision between the writers, actors, Muppeteers, etc. and have some huge special to commemorate the show's final episode rather than some corporate guy simply pulling the plug.

Convincing John

 

[Drtooth]

I have only seen snippets of Curious George here and there, but what I've seen isn't bad. I wondered though...why doesn't George have his tail?

Uh... cuz he never had one? I checked it out. Even in the books, he was more of a Chimp than a monkey.

As for the rest of that. Well, both the small ammount of tax money (what is it, like a buck per person?) and the pledges, they always have to get the newer, hipper, hyped-upper shows out the door and fund them first. But luckily in the case of Boobah, no one liked it, it was a horrible failure, and we never have to see those ugly seizure inducing padded bed sheets ever again.

Unfortunately, Tubbies and Barney are still on. And here's the scary bit now... Barney is so old, he's this close to being retro. I've seen adult sized t-shirts.... It ain't pretty. But then again, i just can't understand how you can blatantly rip off Big Bird, take away everything that made hime wonderful, and bury it under public domain songs about how red and blue make purple.

But not everything new is bad. I mean, once again, Word Girl is such a smart show that you can watch it at any age and not feel guilty. Word World is pretty creative for what it is (the character designs astound me), and Curious George is one of the best pieces of Korean made for TV limited animation I've seen in some time. Really, more studios should go to Toon City. They do a great job.

 

[Convincing John]

So Curious George never had a tail, huh? Okay, just wondered. It's been ages since I'd seen the books and (I thought) Nickelodeon had some animated Curious George shorts where he swung by his tail during the theme. I might be wrong though. Like I said it's been forever since I've seen the old Curious George stuff.

But yeah, him and Arthur are some of the best newer PBS shows around. (I haven't seen Word Girl yet).

No, by all means everything new isn't bad. The Arthur books have been around, but the episodes (newer and older) are wonderful and I have yet to see one I didn't like. It makes me shudder that Barney is almost retro now. That dino should've been extinct, buried and forgotten LONG ago. Adult sized Barney t-shirts? Do the people who wear them want to get beat up?

"BAD BIG BIRD RIP-OFF! BAD BIG BIRD RIP-OFF! KILL! KILL!"

A good retro SS t-shirt my sister has features Snuffy with the words "Imaginary Friend" under him. I believe the word imaginary had quotation marks around it, a nod to the old school years.

Jim and co. had so much material for kids on SS that doesn't talk down to them. Even at preschool age, Big Bird, Kermit or whoever could explain something without talking down to kids. Tubbies however...blecch.

I just wish instead of new stuff that flopped and deflated (like Boobah), PBS funding could go to their high quality stuff. Yeah, it could go to new, fresh stuff, but make sure to have some talented people behind it. PBS needs more "Boobah"-type shows like I need a toothache.

Convincing John

 

[Drtooth]

It makes me shudder that Barney is almost retro now. That dino should've been extinct, buried and forgotten LONG ago. Adult sized Barney t-shirts? Do the people who wear them want to get beat up?

HEY! Watch what you say. Someone could easily say the same for people over the age of 6 that wear Big Bird and Oscar shirts.

But I hate the fact that he was a staying figure. That idiotic movie should have been his end. I can remember when stores were trying to get rid of Barney movie merchandise for years and years after that abomination.

And I wanna ask something... does the Lyon's group or Hit take the money they get out of Baloney and kids merchandise and have it go back into their projects? Ny-III don't think so.

To me, Barney has been a low quality program, and the driving force between the terrible kiddy programs in the 1990's (leading to the creation of Nick Jr, among other things).

But here's something I wondered. Didn't the last time this happen, all the money went to the adult programming anyway?

 

[Convincing John]

HEY! Watch what you say. Someone could easily say the same for people over the age of 6 that wear Big Bird and Oscar shirts.

True, I get what you mean completely. There are (unfortunately) many people that would forget that Big Bird and Oscar are more than just characters on a kid's show. Big Bird (and mr. Spinney) are official Living Legends and Alex Trebek himself said he's a fan of Oscar the Grouch during an episode of Jeopardy.

As the SS characters and the Muppets mature even more, there will come a time when even more adults can say they love 'em and no one will think anything of it. Kind of like Mickey Mouse is now. Mickey's been around since the 1920's! A couple, even an older couple can say "we're goin' to Disney World for a week" or "We watched 'Snow White' this weekend just for old times sake. Remember when it was first in theaters?" Most people would just nod and accept it. Wizard of Oz, Warner Bros. productions, classic comic book characters, same thing. They're such huge cultural icons that anyone at any age can enjoy them.

That same principle (of course) applies to just about all Henson projects. Jim knew it and we know it. We're ahead of our time appreciating Jim's work, and hopefully the rest of the world will catch up with us and realize it soon. Stuff like "The Wisdom of Big Bird" helps, but we need more out there.

However, Barney t-shirts (I'm sure) would annoy many more average Joes-on-the-street than Big Bird and Oscar. As the Dead Hensons put it "Barney's just purple haze"...

Yeah, I wondered why Barney didn't flop completely due to that movie that bored kids and annoyed parents. Why is it still going?

And I'm not sure about the distribution of the PBS funds between programs. That's a good question. They went to adult programming last time? You mean like the news programs, British sitcoms, Red Green, Lawrence Welk, classical music performances, stuff like that, right?

Convincing John

 

[wwfpooh]

Barney just a needs a good anvil dropped on his cranium, because after that horrendous film & the original Barney's arrest, the dinosaur's show should've been extinct, in all honesty.

 

[Drtooth]

Getting back to the main point, I still think that SS is safe for now. Even if PBS's tax revenues are shot, SW isn't going to go down without a fight. The shows may be 5 minutes shorter, and we'll have several more ads in various levels of being disguised as sponsers (McD's selling to the SS audience nothing. Franco American actually DID ads for Spagetti-o's, even saying the "as much calcium as a glass of milk" line IN THE SPONSER CREDITS!"), but the show will be safe, more or less. I mean, PBS only orders 26 episodes a season.

But what really irks me is the sponsers. I understand they want bang for their buck and want to have brief commercials, but quite a few of them on different shows were commercials poorly disguised.

My personal favorites are:

The Rhodes 60 second Cinnimon rolls ad that pretends to be educational by asking kids how many seconds are in a minute. All the while showing a CGI cinnimon roll mascot, and kids waking up and rushing downstairs for breakfast.

Lipton's noodle soup invites you to use your noodle. Which one of these soup bowls is different? Shhhh. it looks like a game, but it's really a commercial.

And the We're not even trying to hide the fact this is a commercial. Amazon.com now sells groceries. It's sponsering the Curious George show. But mostly it sells groceries.

 

[wwfpooh]

And the We're not even trying to hide the fact this is a commercial. Amazon.com now sells groceries. It's sponsering the Curious George show. But mostly it sells groceries.

That one was funny! I mean, it was so bad, that it was funny trying to see sponsors pass themselves as educational backups to the shows they support! ^_^

 

[Drtooth]

It's that time of the decade AGAIN! And it looks like it's going to happen this time.

YAY for small government that refuses to let big corporations follow any rules and exploit the heck out of us, but still manages to sneak into people's personal lives to tell us who can and can't marry, who can and can't adopt kids, and keeps that Patriot Act going strong!

And HEY! With the money they save, we can give even bigger tax cuts to companies so they can just pump the money back into their profits and not create a single American job which is what they're supposed to do.

After all, it's what a slim organized minority of the people want... or what they're told to want.

And I'm sure Sesame Street can survive on a regular channel... as long as it's a 1990's nature show and they air it at 3 in the morning on Saturday. The one FCC regulation that everyone can agree on.

 

[D'Snowth]

And it looks like it's going to happen this time.

I doubt that. Each time it comes up it looks like it's going to happen this time, but then it turns out otherwise.

So, I mean, what's the program this time? More of the fatcats sitting on their shiney hineys saying, "Eh, let's ax PBS, we have no use for it", while others are saying, "Kill PBS? Over my dead Volvo!"