Captain Reality and the Truthbots
Captain Reality travels the planet in his ship The Decoddler with his gang of non-bush-beat-arounding Truthbots and tells kids that we’re not all great or special and in fact some of us are horribly flawed.
Dora’s Parents
Dora’s mother and father finally appear and prevent their daughter from wandering the jungle alone, shouting at people in Spanish.
The Show That Has No Merchandise
Bop, giggle, wiggle and play in the wonderful world of Zabaloo! There’s Percy the Squid, Magic Muffin, Izelda the Talking Star and many more great characters – none of whom you’ll find in stores. And they don’t have live shows with $65 tickets and $15 snow cones. And they don’t endorse cereal or vitamins.
Baby Brainy
Filmed in a garage. An adorable dime-store puppet makes kids smarter by telling parents to turn off the damn TV and get their kids out of the house.
Brian Sack
I started Banterist in 2003 after this conversation with my cat. It led to all sorts of good things.
The Show That Has No Merchandise = Cyberchase. It comes on PBS, and it’s my kids’ favorite show. I was actually wanting to buy them something, or to have a Cyberchase birthday party for them, but no dice. When AMS gets a little older, you will love the show. It’s edumacational.
You mean, I can have any old muffin I want, magic or otherwise? How will I ever choose?
Um I am not saying that Sesame Street Live is without merchandise, but they certainly are education oriented, written for adults and children and priced for a family of four $12-$25 a ticket because they would rather have an audience than a profit. Also from top to bottom they care about children. Also the merchandise supports the show not the show supporting the Merchandise sales.
JS Leach – I put it to you that Sesame Street Live is a guaranteed sell out performance, and that at $12-$25 per ticket that they could make a ton of money. I’m not sure whether that would be a metric ton or imperial tonne, but still, it’s enough for them to fill a pool with and go swimming in it like Scrooge McDuck…
Giving a more reasonable price just makes them appear that they are more interested in people than profits, thus improving their appeal, and making them more money.
I would totally pay to see Dora’s parents, though the Truthbots would probably be more beneficial to society.
J S Leach — Umm — When was the last time you went to the toy store and didn’t see an Elmo doll? or a some character from Sesame Street. There are virtually thousands of items that you can buy that have either the logo or one of the characters on them. And Have you seen the rip off called Sesame Street Theme Park???? I believe Brian even has a whole entry about it — http://www.banterist.com/archivefiles/000503.html
If you’re going to suggest a show on PBS that doesn’t increase the consumerism that America is so addicted to… at least pick something like Mr.Rogers.. or 3-2-1 Contact. (I know its not on any more.. but I miss it).
If Baby Brainy had an episode that taught kids how to hack the DRM encryption on Baby Genius DVDs, that’d teach those capitalist bastards.
Can we just take a moment to appreciate the irony of the fact that the add in the bar directly to the left of this post right now is target advertising sesame street elmo wash cloths and towels and sesame street pillow cases…
two words… pancake mountain.