If Not the Jetsons, What?

By Richard Zoglin

In the world of children's TV, the bad guys and good guys are easy to tell apart. The bad guys, everybody knows, are local TV stations that try to pass off cartoon shows like G.I. Joe and The Jetsons as "educational." The good guys are kindly kids' show hosts like Shari Lewis, who brought her puppet Lamb Chop to Washington last week to help plead for better children's programming. "We need the best you grownups have to offer," the sock puppet testified before a House subcommittee. "If you give it to us, we will give the good stuff back."

A little background while glucose levels return to normal.

After years of neglect, children's TV is once again getting close scrutiny from the Federal Government. Under a provision of the Children's Television Act of 1990, stations are required to air at least some programming that serves the "educational and informational needs" of children. The trick, of course, is figuring out what constitutes educational fare. A number of stations tried to satisfy the rules by putting a fresh coat of public-service paint on rusty old entertainment shows. Among the programs thrust under the education rubric, according to a study by the Washington-based Center for Media Education, were Super Mario Brothers (cited for demonstrating the importance of "self-confidence"), The Jetsons (for teaching kids what life might be like in the 21st century) and Leave It to Beaver (for promoting the values of "communication and trust").

Such creative bookkeeping didn't sit well with the Federal Communications Commission, which announced that it was delaying the license renewal of seven stations because of their record on children's programming. The agency also narrowed its definition of educational fare to exclude entertainment shows that simply have positive social themes. The House hearings last week ratchetted up the pressure another notch. Representative Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, produced the requisite sound bite: "Children's TV on commercial broadcast television today remains the video equivalent of a Twinkie."

Producers and stations are now grappling with the problem of how to get some more spinach into the diet -- and, just as important, how to get kids to eat it. A batch of informational shows on the syndication market are drawing renewed attention. They include Beakman's World, a lighthearted science program featuring a frizzy-haired Mr. Wizard, currently seen on 225 stations; Scratch, a magazine-style show aimed at teens, airing on 110 stations; and Real News for Kids, a Turner Broadcasting production carried on 210. NBC has a new Saturday-morning entry in the field: Name Your Adventure, in which kids are given a chance to live out fantasies. The Children's Television Workshop, which gave birth to Big Bird for PBS, is developing an animated show for ABC next fall based on David Macaulay's book The Way Things Work.

But such shows are struggling to find an audience. Many of the syndicated offerings are being run in little-watched time periods, often before 7 a.m. "The demand isn't there yet to produce programming of this nature," says Barry Thurston, president of Columbia Pictures Television Distribution, which syndicates Beakman's World. "This is not an area where a producer is going to make a lot of money." The government can legislate more air time for educational TV, argues John Miller, executive vice president of NBC Entertainment, but "whether kids will watch those shows is another question."

The kidvid crackdown has its troublesome aspects. For one thing, the rules apply only to broadcasting stations -- not to cable channels, which can continue to lure young viewers with all the cartoons they want. The creation of a new category of educational fare, moreover, may simply ghettoize such programming and turn kids off. The very notion of educational TV often seems to reflect narrow, schoolmarmish notions. Live-action shows are almost automatically preferred over cartoons, and some sweetly innocent shows, like Barney and Friends, seem to win approval largely because they shelter kids from the rude real world -- a strange notion of education indeed.

But this is a children's story, and the good guys get the last word. Peggy Charren, the veteran kidvid activist, notes that educational shows rarely get high ratings because they must be geared toward specific age groups; that is why government monitoring must supplement the marketplace. "It's a bloody shame," she says, "that in a country as rich and achieving as this one, you had to drag the broadcasters kicking and screaming to serve children." Now, perhaps, the kicking may subside and the serving will start.

With reporting by Elizabeth L. Bland/New York and Patrick E. Cole/Los Angeles