Changes for PBS's Corporate Sponsors

Today this article in the New York Times literally fell in my lap (when I picked up the business section). It's an interesting piece by Brian Stelter about how PBS is changing its corporate underwriting policies in response to both the Internet (though that front is somewhat tacit in the article) and the recession. The change--a shortening in underwriting times--applies to kids' shows and adult fare like Nova and American Experience, but it represents something of a move toward the commercialization (due to quick turnover) of non-commercial TV. As for me, my clearest memory of Reading Rainbow as a kid is the Kellogg logo leading into the butterfly before the opening credits. That's the kind of corporate social responsibility I hope many firms still have--to commit to quality programming long term--despite the changing business model.

The article mentions the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood. Their site, which is also on my blogroll at the right, is available here. 

Dom DeLuise

For those who have not heard, actor and children's book author Dom DeLuise died on Monday at age 75. Here he is years ago with the Muppets on their show--he also had a cameo in The Muppet Movie. He's best remembered for his broad comic work with directors like Mel Brooks, but I wanted to honor him here for his voice work on kids' TV shows like The Magic School Bus and Dexter's Lab and for films like Disney's Oliver and Company and, particularly, the cartoons of Don Bluth, with whom he worked over and over again. Here's his New York Times obituary, but I thought I'd just include a segment from the film in which I first heard him, Bluth's 1986 An American Tail, for which he played Tiger the cat. 

Kids' Characters Push Healthy Food

Back around Halloween I wrote some thoughts about the relationship between junk food and children's media. Today the Washington Post ran a story by Caitlin McDevitt about how kids' licensed characters are now being enlisted to promote healthy food. Cynics may point out that the companies like Disney are merely being market savvy as obesity and junk food gain ever more prominence and disapproval in public discourse, but I suppose any progress--toward improving the American diet--is good progress. Of course, branding potatoes may be just a half measure, a surface solution that doesn't approach the core problem of U.S. food production, but that's a post for a different blog.

New Kids' Station for Australia

KidScreen announced today that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation will be launching an all-children's network, ABC3, before the end of the year. That's very exciting news for the folks down under; I hope it results in more Australian productions that eventually find their way to Canada, the U.S., and U.K. Here's the story, which features an interview with Tim Brooke-Hunt. Pretty exciting, especially given the contractions of the economy.

Jack Cardiff and Ken Annakin

We lost two filmmakers last week, both British, both 94, and both who were mainly recognized for their work for adults but who contributed profoundly to children' cinema. 

Jack Cardiff, who I saw at a special ceremony in his honor in London in late 2003, was a cinematographer for Powell & Pressburger, Hitchcock (including my favorite of his films, Under Capricorn), and a host of other directors. He directed a slew of films himself, and I'm mentioning him here because of his work on The Red Shoes, including that great culminating dance sequence I've mentioned before as a wonderful introduction to children to ballet/dance on film.

Ken Annakin was a name I know less of, but his work was more often geared toward kids. He directed Disney's 1960 Swiss Family Robinson, which I vividly recall watching on 16mm, more than once, at an elementary school assembly. The other main piece was his Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952), although The Call of the Wild and others were profitably seen by youngsters. 

Here's a portion near the opening of Swiss Family Robinson (it's a bit like Old Yeller in the ocean; in a Disney film you've always got to save the dog). See what memories come rushing back. It's a great family film, quite worthy of seeing today. (Here the right side's been severely clipped off; see the full frame here.)

An Update on the Donnell Library

Last July 22 I wrote about the then-imminent closure of the Donnell branch of the New York Public Library, on west 53rd Street across from the Museum of Modern Art. I was saddened because the Donnell was one of my favorite branches where I'd spent quite a bit of time using the Internet way back in the day, checking out movies and books in Spanish, and especially hanging out in the children's room, including seeing a puppet show around this time last year on National Puppetry Day. The best part of the children's room was the original Winnie-the-Pooh dolls from the A. A. Milne estate. 

The library was scheduled to close for the development of a marquis hotel, a change that I still suppose was meant to capitalize on the wake of the MOMA's recent major renovation. All the branch's holdings were to be moved to other locations--and the children's material, including Pooh, has indeed gone back to its original location at the 42nd Street building, where it was housed in Anne Carroll Moore's day. Still, there are quite a few New Yorkers who were upset at the loss of the building itself and the centrality of having all those collections together.

Well, the Times today ran an update. It seems that the library closed on schedule (I walked over to look at it during the KidScreen summit half a block away) and then along came the recession. Long story short the hotel's pulled out and midtown is left without both a hotel and a library. So the people who were upset before are livid now. Here's the story, by Sewell Chan. It seems Donnell has become just another victim as municipal governments strive to figure out how to keep libraries open across the country. I wrote a brief post about that just over a month ago. 

Earth Day - Part Two

Happy Earth Day with Ferngully

Happy Earth Day, everybody! When I think about all the eco-conscious media available nowadays things seem to have come quite a ways from when I was a kid, when there was basically nothing on film or television (ah, but the Lorax, that ever-present Lorax...). So today I'd like to pay tribute to the first children's film I remember seeing with an environmental conscience, Ferngully: The Last Rainforest. It was directed by Bill Kroyer and came out in 1992, in the wake of Disney's resurgence with films like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. I was fourteen and enthralled by animation, so I saw this about five times in theaters and read everything I could about it in the papers; today it obviously isn't the best film of the era (that was obvious even then) but it has a nostalgic factor for me, it's a good example from the time of an alternative to Disney and Don Bluth, and the plot and moral are even more trenchant today than at the time (with the debate raging over spotted owls I seem to recall a lot of skepticism about the film's ideology; how to make a kids' film today about, say, cap and trade?). I therefore still recommend to any family with kids between five and thirteen. Here's the trailer, which may just make you feel like it's 1992 all over again, and YouTube has a series of ten-minute clips from it available as well, starting with this one.

For kids who want to go a bit deeper I can still recommend The Magic School Bus and other science programs, and in literature I always return to that Lorax, one of the only two Dr. Seuss books we actually own (and bought used, I suppose to save paper!). (The other is Scrambled Eggs Super, about poaching resources from wildlife for personal gain, so...)

I read this with Loretta about two weeks ago and found her understanding more and more of the application and relevance of it, which was an oddly yet profoundly touching little moment for me.

Finally, the Christian Science Monitor published a story today by Judy Lowe about kids' environmental consciousness in this post-Al Gore age. It's interesting to see some data about what kids and teens know about the environment and do to preserve it; thinking back to my own Boy Scout Environmental Science merit badge days, I think kids today are looking pretty good. 

Yo Gabba Gabba's Mormon Roots

I mentioned Mormon cinema in my last post; it is my other main interest besides children's media. How appropriate then that yesterday Mormon Times ran a profile of the LDS creators of Yo Gabba Gabba, Mormonism's best contribution to children's television to date. For those who are truly interested in children's television the article doesn't give much new information about the show, but it does at least mention the fact that Scott Schultz and Christian Jacobs' faith influenced their creation of it, as my faith has also influenced my own decision to work in kids' TV. I also think it's cool that in California's post-Proposition 8 atmosphere Yo Gabba Gabba is still the arbiter of coolness and hasn't been shunned in any way by guest stars because of its creators' faith. What that may indicate is that child rearing brings together folks of all belief systems: it is one of the few things we all have in common all across the globe. Here then is the article, written by Sharon Haddock.

A couple years ago I wrote a history of Mormon children's media from the 1910s to the present. I wrote it before Yo Gabba Gabba was on the radar but I still think it's an interesting history, with myriad film, TV, and radio productions over the decades. It's not yet available online but I'd email it to anyone interested; the print version was published in Irreantum: A Review of Mormon Literature and Film 9:1 (2007); you can order that specific issue here or find out more about the journal in general (I was the film editor for a couple years, and the literary stuff is top-notch) at the Association for Mormon Letters website. 

Pixar and Girls

It has long been the subject of serious scrutiny that the Pixar films all feature male protagonists. There are some great female characters, to be sure (Boo in Monsters Inc., Helen and Violet in The Incredibles, and EVE in WALL-E, off the top of my head), but where oh where, folks have long asked, is the film actually about a girl?

So if it's long been debated I only bring it up now because of a posting written by film.com blogger Erin Nolan last month. She does a good job broaching the subject and expressing her dissatisfaction; she also links to another post of another writer who goes through the canon film by film to look at how Pixar has presented women thus far. 

Now, for a few months now I've been excited by the prospects of Pixar's thirteenth film, the 2011 Christmas release The Bear and the Bow. It's an action-adventure fairy tale story (let's hope it's not overly Shrek-y, for those of us who don't like Shrek) set in Scotland, and it features a heroine named Merida who wants to prove her worth in the world as something other than a princess; it actually appears archery, a presumably male-dominated sport, is her thing. Both of the bloggers I just sited express their displeasure at the fact that if Pixar is going to have a female protagonist they insist on making her a princess and setting her in a mythical land. I can see and respect the rationale for that. The bright side--or at least one among several possible bright sides--is that the film is also going to be Pixar's first directed by a woman, Brenda Chapman, who gave us Dreamwork's Prince of Egypt. I hope this doesn't come off as sexist myself, but I feel that having a woman behind the camera is one of the most important ways to ensure that the women in front of the lens are well represented. (Taking a step back from gender studies to Mormon cinema, a subject I know much more intimately and personally, this certainly has been the case: it could be argued that no film directed by a non-Mormon has ever yet accurately depicted the Mormon experience.) By way of support or contrast, I was obsessed with the publicity material for Disney's Beauty and the Beast when it was first released, and I remember vividly many, many articles lauding how liberated and feminist Belle was, comparing her with the heroines of past princess features; every single one of these articles sited the difference in screenwriter Linda Wolverton and her conscious effort to update and liberate the Disney princess. It's ironic that Belle is now grouped with the others as part of the problem, not the solution. At any rate, here's a portion of the press release announcing The Bear and the Bow, and here's the Wikipedia page for Brenda Chapman. (Caveat: that page describes her as the third woman to ever direct an animated feature, something I have a hard time believing; just flipping through Giannalberto Bendazzi's Cartoons: One hundred years of cinema animation reveals a whole bunch more.) 

Finally, I also thought it good to go straight to the horse's mouth, so to speak. I didn't scour the web for statements by Brad Bird or John Lasseter or Edwin Catmull or other Pixar bigwigs about the studio's stance on women, but I did remember reading an interview with Joss Whedon in Mother Jones a few months back that addresses the subject. Whedon, best known for creating the television version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoffs, has said that advancing women's roles is his greatest purpose in filmmaking. I suppose it's slightly less known that he also wrote Toy Story, arguably Pixar's most male-dominated film. It's interesting, therefore, to read the few comments he has on that process here (and his perfect knowledge of the irony of it) in the context of all of his other, much more overtly feminist, work. 

Here's crossing our fingers for Brenda Chapman and, frankly, everybody else! 

Lauren Child and Ruby Redfort

Charlie and Lola is my favourite and my best. Imagine my chagrin when I wrote Tiger Aspect Productions in London last year and was informed that they are no longer producing new episodes of Charlie and Lola. I look forward to seeing their new effort, an African-themed animated show, but am nothing less than despondent about losing Charlie and Lola so quickly; I still maintain that it is hands down the best show on television (Sesame Street, being an icon, is out of competition). But that’s all right; there’s still creator/author Lauren Child, right? Well, her newest venture takes her beyond the C&L realm, and actually back to her roots before she created that property.

I learned from the March 20 KidScreen newsletter that Child has signed with HarperCollins Children’s Books to create a six-book series called Ruby Redfort. Here’s the story, by Emily Claire Afan, in full (original context here):

“In the lead-up to the Bologna Children's Book Fair next month [already past now], HarperCollins Children's Books has acquired the worldwide rights to Lauren Child's six-book series Ruby Redfort.

“An author and illustrator whose first books I Want a Pet and Clarice Bean, That's Me were published a decade ago, Child also created the Charlie & Lola picture book series that spawned the award-winning animated series currently airing on the BBC.

“Ruby Redfort is actually a spin-off of Child's Clarice Bean, That's Me, starring an undercover agent and mystery solver who is Clarice's favorite literary character.

“Fall 2010 will see the series kick off with the first book's global launch, and HC is prepping a major launch campaign around the property with a high-profile PR and media marketing campaign.”


So the concept here is that Child will be writing the books that her literary heroine Clarice Bean has been reading for so long. Now, if any Tiger Aspect folks happen to be reading, for about a year now I’ve been longing to do the same thing cinematically and make a Bat Cat series. I am ready to start the bible at a moment’s notice… Write me!!!!

In the meantime, I don’t know what the new venture means for the fate of the literary Charlie and Lola, but let’s hope it doesn’t signal the end, just a diversion. Lauren Child’s website is a delight (though be aware that it’s flash-based and will fill your whole monitor), but it doesn’t provide any information on this new venture. For that the best article I found was this one, from March 20, which also informs us Child will get a million quid for her efforts. That’s not J.K. Rowling territory, but, my heavens, it’s certainly not bad for a picture book author! That’s US$1,416,499.

In addition, here’s an interview with Child from 2003, before Charlie and Lola took off and hence from the time she was working with Ruby Redfort’s source material. And here’s another quick little post on the announcement from the blog Children’s Books for Grown-Ups. The author Natasha Worswick says she wrote a paper in her master’s program on Child’s illustrations—that I would very much like to read. And there’s also a Telegraph article on the deal. Finally, a small little slideshow of some of Child’s artwork.

In any case, let’s hope Child doesn’t forget us Charlie and Lola fans—it’s how I got my daughter to eat moon squirters—and here’s wishing her the best of luck with Ruby!

Beyonce on Wubbzy

Nickelodeon announced the other day that Beyonce Knowles will be guest starring in a series of Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! episodes. She will be playing the lead singer in a girl band, and the eps will air Monday April 27 through Thursday April 30, with an hour-long special--Wubb Idol--topping it off on Friday May 1. 

Here's Nick's press release, which has the most information.

There are lots of short notices on the web, but here's a typical one from USA Today.

Bolder Media, the makers of Wubbzy, released this video as well, a quasi-trailer: