We're Gonna Turn It On, We're Gonna Bring You the Power

We rented the Electric Company on DVD this week, and I watched it with Angela Jr. (<---not her real name) this morning.  I laughed as hard as the kid and missed the 70s probably a little more than she did.  Remember when TV didn't assume kids were watching alone?

I don't want to knock all of today's kids' programming.  For one thing, this guy, right here, is the jam:

Of course, they're not making new episodes of Oswald (SNIFF!) anymore, but neither that nor the fact that my own kid is bored silly by the show now that we've seen each episode four hundred times stops me from watching it while I flat-iron my hair and put on deodorant in the morning before work.

Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! is pretty damned amusing, too.  The random music videos ("That's Kooky" in particular) are hilarious, and the creators of the show seem to be aware that parents might be watching too, and direct a lot of jokes our way.

(This is to say nothing of my unbridled love for Drake & Josh, which really could take up an entire post of its own.  But that's more of a big-kid show, and so I'll spare you.)

But in general, so many kids' shows lately seem to be made by people who not only don't realize that sometimes grownups watch with our spawn, but also don't seem to think much of their primary audience, either.  I'm absolutely positive I'd upset someone if I starting naming names, but I think a good number of shows in the Noggin and Nick Jr. lineups seriously talk down to kids.  (Okay, fine, Franklin, I'm talking to you.  There, I said it.)

Not so the early Sesame Street episodes, which portrayed kids interacting with adults as a regular part of their lives (my BFF pointed out that kids used to go into Gordon's and other adults' apartments as a matter of course), or the Electric Company, which made grownup stuff kid friendly (Easy Reader's radio show) without being Just For Kids.  It seems lately like the goal of a lot of programming is to bore parents out of the room so kids will be left unattended for the cereal commercials.  (And yes, even PBS has advertisers now.)  Anderson Cooper (squee!) aside, you don't see a lot of awesome grownups on Sesame Street anymore.  Mr. Hooper is gone and kids don't go to the corner store alone anymore.  Elmo rules the day - all of the days! - on that street.

And the Electric Company... sigh.  Morgan Freeman is too old for disco dance routines about reading, and Bill Cosby has moved on from being actively and usefully involved with helping kids love learning and on to tsk tsking from the sideline and making less sense with every tsk.  Maybe someone will get inspired and bring back family programming that helps kids learn what sound "ow" makes while mamas giggle in the background at the sad clown jokes.  In the meantime, my kid is getting a body work education from Pimp My Ride while mama cringes in the background at the title of the show.

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