Zapping Back at Children's TV

By Richard Zoglin

Ever since the days of Clarabell the clown and his ever ready seltzer bottle, parents have complained about the quality of children's TV programming. But seldom have they had so much to complain about. A typical afternoon of kidvid these days can be a mind-numbing march of cartoon superheroes like He-Man, BraveStarr and the Defenders of the Earth. Many shows, from The Transformers to Pound Puppies, are based on hot-selling toys and seem intended to shuffle kids straight from the TV set into the toy store. Worst of all in the critics' view, under the deregulatory aegis of the Reagan Administration, the Federal Communications Commission has seemed little inclined to do anything about the situation.

Now the laissez-faire era of children's TV may be coming to an end. One watershed: in June a federal appeals court ordered the FCC to reconsider a 1984 ruling that freed broadcasters from any limits on the amount of commercial time permitted on children's programming. In response, the FCC last month launched a broad inquiry into children's TV. The probe will examine not only whether limits on advertising time ought to be reimposed but also whether restrictions should be placed on the more than 25 shows currently airing that feature toys as their main characters. The inquiry seems to reflect a growing consensus that the FCC's free-market approach has not been enough to protect children from undue commercial influence.

Critics of children's TV programming are flexing muscles in a number of arenas. In September, just three days before its new children's schedule was | set to debut, CBS abruptly withdrew The Garbage Pail Kids, a cartoon show based on the gross-out series of bubble-gum cards by that name. The network denies that it caved in to pressure, but the cancellation came after a barrage of complaints from parents and CBS affiliates.

Legislators too are getting into the act. In the House of Representatives a measure has been introduced that would reimpose formal commercial-time strictures on kids' shows. A Senate bill would require the networks to run at least seven hours a week of educational programming for children. The tone of some lawmakers has grown combative. Says Democratic Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts: "What was once called a vast wasteland is now more accurately dubbed a vast waste dump."

Children's TV, of course, is not an unredeemed junk pile. PBS and cable offer much quality fare. Most of the networks' Saturday-morning shows are gently inoffensive (The Smurfs, Jim Henson's Muppet Babies) and occasionally adventurous (Pee-wee's Playhouse). Some of the wit and imagination of pre-TV animation have even resurfaced this season in CBS's Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, from Filmmaker Ralph Bakshi.

More dismal is the picture on independent stations, which typically offer a horde of look-alike syndicated cartoons in the before- and after-school hours on weekdays. Though the networks continue to adhere to pre-1984 limits of twelve ad minutes an hour on weekdays, 9 1/2 minutes on weekends, a recent study of eight big-city independent stations revealed that all but one were exceeding the old limit during weekday children's programming.

The most controversial area, however, is toy-inspired shows, which are criticized by children's TV activists as little more than program-length commercials. "Where is it written that Mattel should control the decision making in programming for children's TV?" says Peggy Charren, president of Action for Children's Television, the watchdog group based in Cambridge, Mass. "People who want to produce children's programs with something to say instead of something to sell are zapped out of the system."

The activists are especially upset about a new wave of "interactive" shows, like Mattel's Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. The show, a live-action space adventure, enables children to play along at certain points by shooting at villains on-screen with a special Power Jet weapon (cost: $30 to $40). An electronic signal responds to each "hit" and tots up the . player's score. Charren argues that by encouraging children to buy an expensive toy to participate, such shows unfairly divide the young audience into "the haves and the have-nots."

The producers of children's shows reply that the programs are entertaining without the toys and that merchandising tie-ins are hardly new. Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Club was conceived in part to help promote Disneyland, and even critically acclaimed shows like Sesame Street have toy spin-offs. Nor, say industry spokesmen, does a hit show necessarily mean a stream of kids lining up at the toy counter. NBC's The Smurfs, for example, is one of Saturday morning's top-rated children's shows, but the like-named toys have not been big sellers.

The popularity of toy-inspired shows, however, may be starting to fade because of oversaturation. "We're winding down these programs," says Stephen Schwartz, director of marketing for Hasbro, which has already canceled two toy-linked shows, Glo Friends and Potato Head. Ironically enough, the marketplace itself is proving to be a nemesis of TV's cartoon characters, just when federal regulators are beginning to think that it is once again time to lay down the law.

With reporting by Jerome Cramer/Washington and Lawrence Malkin/Boston