Why Adults Hate Kids TV


April 13, 2002


BOB GARFIELD: Children's television has long been a big, fat target. Consider Eddie Murphy's sendup of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood on Saturday Night Live and more recently the Simpsons' cigar-chomping Krusty the Clown character, and his cohort Sideshow Bob, now serving time in Springfield Penitentiary for assorted crimes too despicable to list here. Currently on Fox TV's Greg the Bunny, furry puppets behave in shocking ways, and the big screen satire Death to Smoochy offers a sinister look behind the scenes of kiddie shows full of drug-abusing has-beens, thugs, degenerates and psychopaths. Smoochy got Aaron Gell to wondering exactly why adults so loathe what their children love.

AARON GELL: As the parent of a four year old, Sophie, who is like most of her peers a fanatical viewer of children's television, I'll admit to feeling a twinge of perverse pleasure at the sight of the dead Barney-stand in on Death to Smoochy's subway advertising. Of course I didn't dare admit that to my daughter. [SING-SONG] Turn off the radio, honey. In the film, Robin Williams plays a dissolute children's show host who loses his time slot to Smoochy the Rhino.

ROBIN WILLIAMS AS SHOW HOST: [CREEPY VOICE] But it's the Rhino, Angie. The devil sent him from hell to destroy me. [WHISPERING] Smoochy is the Face of Evil.

AARON GELL: In addition to some really scathing reviews, the film has brought protests and the threat of a lawsuit from the makers of a Canadian kiddie show called Ricky's Room which also happens to star a costumed rhinoceros. So exactly how accurate is Death to Smoochy? I asked an expert.

MAN: I can draw a parallel from almost all those scenes down to what it's like to really [LAUGHS] be on a kid's TV show. So some of it was, was right on the money.

AARON GELL: Don't recognize the voice? Maybe you'd like--

CHILDREN: [CALLING OUT EXCITEDLY] A clue! A clue!!

AARON GELL: My inside source is none other than Steve Burns who since 1996 has been one of the most popular children's entertainers on the planet as the adorably boyish star of Nickelodeon's highly-rated series Blues Clues. On April 29th in the kid-vid equivalent of Johnny Carson's historic farewell, Burns will head off to college -- or so the world's children will be told. Actually he's recorded a CD and hopes to reinvent himself as an indie-rock singer/ songwriter.

CHILD: I have a question. [SOUND OF AIR BUBBLES IN WATER] If you're going away to college, who's going to live here with us?

STEVE BURNS AS NICKELODEON STAR: That is a good question. [GENTLE BARKING]

AARON GELL: The answer is Donovan Patton, a young actor who will be introduced during a 3-part special that's been carefully designed to offer children the most painless transition possible. Given this concern for young viewers, perhaps it's no surprise that Steve Burns does not number himself among the fans of Death to Smoochy.

STEVE BURNS: The movie was kind of one big joke, and they just kept playing that joke over and over again, so you see the kid's show host who as soon as the camera goes off [TALKING IN CREEPY VOICE] he talks like this -- all of a sudden he's got a different voice, you know, and--and then you see the mandatory creepy strung-out, retired kid's show host who is on heroin.

AARON GELL: Clearly there's something about the tireless good cheer of kid's TV that we just don't trust.

BARNEY THE DINOSAUR: [SINGING] I HAVE A BREAD, AND IT'S CALLED PUMPERNICKEL, YUM YUM PUMPERNICKEL, PUMPERNICKEL BREAD. HEY!

AARON GELL: Children's superstar Barney has come in for particular venom. The internet abounds with Barney-hating sites, and beating up on the purple dinosaur has become a sort of national pastime, something the San Diego Chicken, the Padres' mascot, proved when he made the pummeling of a Barney-lookalike a centerpiece of his ball game routine. Blues Clues Steve Burns.

STEVE BURNS: I understand it. I more than understand it, and can appreciate how something that is that repetitive and something that is that sing-song and overly saccharine is annoying to an adult sensibility, but think the reaction is completely out of proportion for the sin!

AARON GELL: So what's it all about? Why all this adult hostility towards shows that are plainly meant for toddlers.

DOROTHY SINGER: The message on the Barney Show is like a hundred percent kindness, sweetness and social caring, and I think that for some parents and adults this is almost too much to handle; it may make them feel guilty that they're not offering that much love and attention as Barney is willing to give.

AARON GELL: Dorothy Singer is a developmental psychologist. In her role as co-director of Yale University's Family Television Research Center, she's watched every single episode of Barney.

DOROTHY SINGER: Many people have this notion that young children need to be exposed to some of the cruel realities of the world or they're going to suffer later on when they enter school, and I don't agree with that at all.

AARON GELL: Blues Clues' Steve Burns.

STEVE BURNS: The truth is, is that life is hard and sometimes it's sad and it can be pretty disappointing. Now we wouldn't ever want to convey that to our children via a television show, obviously. But there are people who seem to be very angry when a children's television show aggressively presents this kind of high fructose, saccharine view of a utopian world that adults cynically can't accept any more.

AARON GELL: The new sit-com, Greg the Bunny features a menagerie of puppets including an alcoholic ape who are every bit as troubled as their human counterparts.

GREG THE BUNNY: Hi, Mr. Bender. My name is Greg the-- Oh, my God!! Professor Ape!!! [LAUGHS]

PROFESSOR APE/WARREN de MONTAGUE: Yes, actually the name's Warren de Montague. 'Kay? Real guy standing here. Not TV-time.

GREG THE BUNNY: Sorry, it's just that - I mean I, I love you! [LAUGHS] I've seen everything you've ever done!! Godspell. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat--

PROFESSOR APE/WARREN de MONTAGUE: Yes, well you know if it was lame and about Jesus [AHEMS] -- I was there.

AARON GELL: Greg the Bunny co-creator and star Dan Milano.

DAN MILANO: The only other thing you, you'd have that was comparable to it would be a religious icon of some kind -- something that the masses generally put on a pedestal and see as something good and decent and pure, and the biggest punk impulse is to just tear that down.

AARON GELL: No doubt my daughter Sophie has a few years to go before giving in to that particular impulse. But she will, and it is precisely because of that inevitability that I'm grateful to children's television for providing so many ripe targets. Better she tear down Barney than tear down dad. For On the Media I'm Aaron Gell.