What do you think of Lily?

[corn poffi]

That's only half the point. It's not just to educate those who don't live in poverty. It's to make those kids in need feel that they're not the only ones. For some kids, using puppets works. For others, packing food for a shelter is a better way of awareness. As a kid, packing stuff into a box probably wouldn't have done it for me. It would have just been another chore that my parents made me do. We always did service work, and it wasn't until I was old enough (elemntary school) to actually see how other people lived that I actually found myself caring what I was doing.

As a small child, my only real exposure to different races/cultures was through Sesame Street (small town, there were only two non-white kids in my entire school district), so maybe a puppet would have worked for me. Maybe not. It wouldn't have hurt. If kids don't get it, they don't get it.

[diggitydot]

It's to make those kids in need feel that they're not the only ones.

That was my take on it, too. There's a lot to be said for knowing there are more people out there who are experiencing similar circumstances.

[GrayMatterWife]

Interesting note: Sesame Street did a parody of Fox news calling it POX news a few years back that even PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler said it was wrong to mock FOX News in the skit.

Yep. What a shock.

I don't know about the whole age-thing. It is hard. We started talking about people "needing" things like food and clothing at church way back in preschool Sunday School. It was pretty upsetting to DS, I remember. It never occurred to him that people may not have enough of the basics, because that was just not his scope of experience. When we got home, he brought out a bunch of his clothes and said he wanted to give it to the Church for the poor. The impulse was good, of course, but I was concerned that he was acting out of guilt, not charity. But he was only 3-1/2. I couldn't expect him to handle the lesson like an older kid might.

[GrayMatterWife]

Are we really stooping to using Sesame Street to promote individual political agendas? I choose to think not, just a quirk of the full moon. I don't want to get into a debate, just couldn't let this pass without a comment.

We (on this forum) aren't. My comment was that my baseline assumption with anything on PBS is that PBS may be using their show to promote their political agenda. You know how liberals feel about everything on FoxNews? That's how conservatives feel about everything on PBS. We assume that whatever is being presented is being framed in their liberal political agenda. In part, with our tax dollars.

I am not saying that Sesame Street is evil or anything like that. It's a bunch of puppets teaching the numbers and letters in a non-cartoon context with real children involved. Hardly nefarious. I am not suggesting that it is some grand conspiracy of the Left. I was simply responding to the OP's original question: what do you think of this? My thought was--OK if they can present it without injecting their political view as to whose fault poverty is.

[diggitydot]

Sesame Street did a parody of Fox news calling it POX news a few years back...

They do tons of parodies on most media presences. They even had Dr. Phil interacting with his muppet doppleganger, Dr. Feel, at one point. My kids are old enough tha I haven't watched a SS episode in years, but I remember them honoring lots of different people with muppet incarnations.

[GrayMatterWife]

They do tons of parodies on most media presences. They even had Dr. Phil interacting with his muppet doppleganger, Dr. Feel, at one point. My kids are old enough tha I haven't watched a SS episode in years, but I remember them honoring lots of different people with muppet incarnations.

But it wasn't in good humor. Their own omnibudsman found it to be inappropriate. The assumption at PBS is that conservatives are stupid or evil and deserve to be insulted. I just think that they should keep that crap off children's TV--ANY political agenda, from either side. For whatever it's worth, I don't let my kids watch the inane politically conservative cartoon DVDs that my ILs buy for them. I don't need my children's values indoctrinated by the TV. At my kids' ages, what is on the TV....MUST be true. They aren't yet able to think critically about the opinions they are being fed. There is a reason they are not allowed to watch "Sean Hannity" or "Hardball"--they do not understand that they have to filter and think. They hear some commentator say something nasty about a political figure, and they assume it's true.

[diggitydot]

From that ombudsman's own blog:

http://www.pbs.org/ombudsman/2009/11...esponds_1.html

In last week's Ombudsman's Column, I posted e-mails from some viewers who were upset with an episode of the venerable children's program Sesame Street that had aired on Oct. 29 and dealt with one of the program's colorful creations, the Grouch News Network. It included a character who said the network wasn't grouchy enough and threatens to switch to "Pox News," adding "now there's a trashy news show." I added my comments, which also were critical. The episode was not a new one. It had aired a number of times before but this time drew noticeable viewer comment.

The column did not include comment from program officials and that was an omission on my part. I did e-mail a question to the producers a day before the column was posted, asking why Pox News was chosen, but did not get a response. I should have waited a bit longer. In any event, Sesame Street clearly deserves a say in this and here it is:

A Tempest in a Trash Can?

"On behalf of Sesame Workshop and the producers of 'Sesame Street,' I wanted to clear up a misunderstanding about our Grouch News Network segment that re-ran on October 29. I realize this may have drawn more attention because of the recent dust-up between Fox News and the White House, but I assure you that no political comment or comment about Fox News, subtle or overt, was intended!

"First, the show was first aired in Season 38, which premiered in August 2007. That means it was written in the fall of 2006 — long before the Fox-Obama controversy, even before Obama was President. The whole segment was a parody of CNN (called GNN) or the 'Grouch News Network.' Children who watch Sesame Street (and adults who remember what it felt like to be a kid watching Sesame Street) know that Oscar the Grouch is a contrarian. He lives in a trash can and loves everything 'yucky,' and 'disgustin.' For a Grouch, 'Trashy' is high praise! Not only would child-viewers be unlikely to connect 'Pox News' to Fox News, in the context of this scene, they would understand the characters to be saying that 'Pox News' is better than 'GNN.'

"As for your comment that producers would have to be 'anesthetized' not to assume that many parents would hear this as a shot at Fox News, it misses the point. The writers expected that adult viewers would make the connection to Fox News as well as the connection to CNN. This was equal-opportunity parody — Oscar always tries to offend everybody! In the full story, Oscar keeps trying to find angry, frustrated and grimy stories, but each time he finds someone feeling bad, they soon look on the bright side and cheer up. The curriculum for that episode was recognizing emotions.

"Writing on two levels, addressing young children with age-appropriate curriculum and adults with humor, is a trademark of Sesame Street that has kept the show popular for 40 years. Jim Henson, Jon Stone, Frank Oz and others set a witty and silly tone for Sesame Street that our current writers work to maintain despite the demands of political correctness. Your readers might also be interested in why we have that grumpy, grouchy, contrarian Oscar on the show. His curriculum purpose is to teach differing perspectives — an important life skill where children learn that it takes all kinds of people to make a world. Watching Oscar shows kids that you can listen to someone with a very different world view, and even be friends with them, without losing your own perspective.

[GrayMatterWife]

Sesame Street (and PBS) should ask themselves why it is that people assume that they had a malignant intent in their parody of FoxNews--because PBS has a long history of being antagonistic toward conservatives and biased to the left. If they feel that the criticisms were unjustified, a tad bit of self-reflection and an honest assessment of their own less-than-subtle agenda as a broadcasting network might be in order. Many conservatives simply do not trust PBS and assume the worst, after many years of watching it be the reality. And that's sort of sad. It wasn't this way 20 years ago.

[corn poffi]

Some people find malignant intent in anything. SS had to pull a character years ago because it was considered a negative representation of African American children. People complained Oscar was too grouchy so they made him nicer. Now "cookies are a sometimes food" (pretty sure it was not conservative parents who were the ones who complained to get those changes made).