I suppose it was our own fault to be limited by the whims of PBS...
Due to longstanding policy set down by the missus, we do not get cable. At times, I’ve advocated for cable TV, but in the end I’m too cheap myself.
When it comes to children’s programming, all we have is PBS Kids at our disposal. The Saturday cartoons of our youth no longer exist. There are a fewSaturday cartoons, but usually it doesn’t occur to anyone to turn it on.
PBS has been fine for the most part. From Caillou to Sesame Street to Clifford the Big Red Dog, the programming has been fun for our kids and mostly harmless. They’re all a little annoying to adults, but one can deal with it. (Except for Barney the Satanic Dinosaur.)
One day came a new program: SUPER WHY. Within minutes of the first episode I began to loath it and it became my daughter’s favorite thing in the whole world.
“SUPER WHY is an interactive reading adventure!
We begin each 24-minute reading adventure in Storybrook Village, a magical 3-D world hidden behind the bookshelves in a children's library. The Storybrook Village is the home of your child's favorite fairytale characters. Immediately, you'll meet the four best friends who anchor each episode: Red, from Little Red Riding Hood; Pig from The Three Little Pigs, Princess from The Princess and The Pea, and Whyatt, the curious younger brother of Jack from Jack and The Beanstalk who discovers he has the power to fly inside books to find answers to his questions. Each of these characters is re-imagined as an everyday kid, not unlike your child's own friends: Red rides roller blades; Pig drives a trike; Princess loves tea parties and dress-up; and Whyatt is the group's natural leader.
We begin each 24-minute reading adventure in Storybrook Village, a magical 3-D world hidden behind the bookshelves in a children's library. The Storybrook Village is the home of your child's favorite fairytale characters. Immediately, you'll meet the four best friends who anchor each episode: Red, from Little Red Riding Hood; Pig from The Three Little Pigs, Princess from The Princess and The Pea, and Whyatt, the curious younger brother of Jack from Jack and The Beanstalk who discovers he has the power to fly inside books to find answers to his questions. Each of these characters is re-imagined as an everyday kid, not unlike your child's own friends: Red rides roller blades; Pig drives a trike; Princess loves tea parties and dress-up; and Whyatt is the group's natural leader.
Even the description makes one want to vomit.
These programs that feature a group of kids always have white alpha male as the leader.
Each episode starts with a preschool relatable problem.
The solution is to look for the answer in a fairy tale book, in which they physically enter the story. Oh, and they all have inconsequential and uninteresting special powers.
The Super Readers can solve any obstacle with their literacy powers!
They solve the problem of the story’s characters and therefore one of the Super Readers’ problems by changing the text and meaning of these old fairytales.
Hip Hip Hurray! The Super Readers save the day!
Victorious, they leave the story book and do a Hip Hip Hurray dance. It's the lamest dance ever shown on a screen.
I don’t have a problem with adapting literature for new purposes. But this show does it in a way that completely eviscerates the original point, the original lesson of the story.
For example, the episode that taught my daughter to lie.
In this episode, the boy who cried wolf has problem that no one believes that he sees the wolf even though he is telling the truth. This mirrors Whyatt’s problem that his parents don’t believe him when he said that his baby sister said her first word to Whyatt.
In the story, the boy does see the wolf but the wolf hides each time the townspeople come. The problem is solved when the frustrated townspeople confront the boy with their disbelief and frustration and the boy tells them with all sincerity that he is really telling the truth, “Trust me!” he pleads. Everybody then says, that they DO believe him. The Super Readers change the text so that the nice wolf appears and explains his absence because he was shy. The wolf gets to meet all the townspeople.
Whyatt solves his problem back at home by insisting that his mom and dad “trust” him that he’s telling the truth. His parents say OK, and immediately his sister repeats her word for everybody.
At the time, I shook my head in annoyance of their perversion of the story.
The next day I asked my four year old to go to the bathroom and wash her hands before dinner. She insisted she already did. I knew better. I insisted again. She righteously proclaimed, “I already did, daddy! TRUST ME.”
What powerful words! “TRUST ME!” We immediately had a calm but stern discussion on the difference between telling the truth and just saying you’re telling the truth. The discussion had to be repeated a few times over the following weeks.
Of course that was the lesson she would take! The damn show taught her that adults will listen to you and believe you if you just say “Trust Me” in a particular way. They did this at the expense of the other side of the lesson, that of credibility and the importance of truth telling.
Even preschoolers can be taught that credibility is something that can be lost and earned and that telling the truth is important. The original story of the boy who cried wolf is a bloody, but otherwise age-appropriate lesson for young kids. This show messed that up and merely taught my preschooler that talking in a sincere manner is all that is needed.* It taught my daughter to lie.
Plus, their animation stinks.
* Is it possible that Glenn Beck watched this episode and took it to heart?
Comments
-R-
Looks like the lame shows haven't gotten any better since my boys were little. Thankfully they hated that purple blob Barney as much as I did. I'm not sure I could've stomached 30 minutes of that.
Great post. The bad influences are everywhere though. How about just getting rid of cable? That's what I did:)
I occassionally watch Word Girl all by myself though ;-)
I suggest a letter -writing campiang. After all, these fairy tales with the moral-to-the-story haven't lasted for 100+ years for no reason!
Robin, The Electric Company is back! Thank goodness. And my daughter loves it. http://pbskids.org/electriccompany/
Sandra, the one nice thing is that these bad lessons could be untaught fairly easily. But now kid #1 is getting to an age when peers at school and other outside influences hold increasing sway and parental influence is dissipating.
Kids don't need help to learn to lie. They do benefit from pointers on how to do it successfully.
Oh, I've known some "Leaders of Industry" who wrote the script for this episode.
"Trust me, when I tell you, nothing will happen..." Teehehee!! Okay!!
;)
This show sounds so wrong!
R
Great post!
Just wait a few years, it does get better. And in the meantime, get DVD's of The Muppet Show for them LOL
Where's Gene London when you need him? (Only Philly-based people would know that program. His kid's show was one-of-a-kind - strange, emotional, very real and accessible, beautiful. I'll never forget it. Once when he was telling a story, he started crying!)
He sang this ditty before launching into a story:
Let's Pretend is a story time
And I'll tell a tale to you.
I'll tell you a story of make believe
And all your dreams will come true.
And when the story's over
And when we reach the end.
We'll live happily ever after, Where?
In the land of Let's Pretend.
In the quest to make everything PC and "non offensive" classic stories with very specific morals all end with everyone loving each other. In the original story the strong message of do not lie or you destroy your credibility is reinforced by the wolf eating the boy. As harsh as the original story is, it is closer to the truth. Instead of the child being taught that trust is gained by consistent trustworthiness and can be lost with a few careless words; they are taught just saying the magic words makes them trustworthy.
One of the biggest draw backs of TV is it teaches life is nothing more than quick fixes and happy endings. Maybe that is the biggest lie it teaches children. Children's programing is the worst offender of consistently showing unbelievable outcomes by just using magic to solve the problem.
Although every so often we'll be flipping around and they'll scream at me if I try to flip past "The Princess Bride".
Rated. I thought PBS stood for Pretty Boring Stuff. I guess it's now Preschoolers Being Suckered. Although I must say I like their concerts. Well, most of them.
I'm sorry to sound smug, but what did you expect? You can't control what your kid will learn by simply placing her in front of a television. Particulary with shows like "Super Why" which are apparently designed to get kids to think for themselves. One of the concepts they may "discover" is moral ambiguity. Better to watch this show with your kid (I know, and restrain your gag reflex) or turn it off once Sesame Street is over.
Bill S, I'm looking forward to my kids being old enough to watch A Princess Bride. Hopefully soon! My 6 year old recently watched the Blues Brothers (I forgot there was so much swearing and shooting) and I certainly preferred that to a lot of kid's programming. (She loved the Blues Brothers.)
The writers of this show are morons. I miss old pbs, when the writers and creators all had degrees in childhood development.
they did not all live happily ever after - and that was the fucking point
oh, and don't get me started on DORA! AND HER COUSIN, DIEGO! THE ONES WHO CAN'T SPEAK, BUT CAN ONLY SHOUT EVERYTHING! CAN YOU SAY, "SHOUT!" LOUDER! Apparently merely chanting someone's name for encouragement can facilitate all kinds of amazing feats.
Although I'll say I have learned a lot from watching Diego - who knew so many animals spoke Spanish? Especially the penguins, I guess, because they're from the South Pole.
am I deluding myself that Sesame Street was actually trying to teach me something?
Just give us the actual fairy tales, and let them work their own magic on young minds.
GAH.
(Sadly, "Reading Rainbow" was canceled this year due to lack of funding.)
Now if they would only make new episodes of the Upside Down Show...
I constantly shake my head at children’s programming that I see these days and I wonder how much head-shaking our parents did when we were kids.
I can see your problem. The change in the story as you present it is clearly problematic, and one must question the reasoning behind it, which seems completely pointless. It distorts the original value, seemingly adds no new value, and creates ambiguity instead of clarity.
Having said that, the lesson your daughter apparently took from this was a lesson she was bound to learn eventually, anyway, and you have had the opportunity to address it well ahead of the curve. In a sense, even though it was unintended, the show presented you with an open door for meaningful discussion with your daughter about a particularly devious form of deception.
The interesting discrepancy in all this is that the story did not present a child who was lying and still asking people to “trust” him. So, in a sense, the lesson that you daughter took from it was something that she put together on her own after the fact. In my experience, kids do not need to be taught to lie; they cleverly figure that out for themselves quite easily.
It wasn’t ALL bad in its result. Of course, the ongoing issue is that you’ll need to pay closer attention to what she sees on shows such as this one. My guess is, though, that she won’t learn anything from this show that she won’t learn elsewhere soon enough, which is not a defense of the show, at all, just what I see as a realistic observation. Parenting is no easy task, to be sure.
;~)
Still this is why I prefer either pure entertainment (like scooby-doo) or academic (Cyber Chase) programming rather than morality based programming.
To me that represents stepping over the line. Yeah, more than likely I agree with their little morality play but whether I do or not, those are the kinds of things that should be taught by parents.
I feel that unless kid's programming that claims to be educational isn't just a really bland person staring at the screen and saying over and over "Turn me off and go play" its hypocritical.