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Sunday, April 24, 2005

The Almighty Dollar

For no particular reason, I've been thinking about the past just a little bit more lately. I was somewhat inspired to create a lengthy post, and was further inspired this morning by a Sunday comic I just read. The comic commented on the evolution of newspapers. Newspapers used to have in depth reporting. They wanted to make a difference. Now it's about how much money they can make and nothing more. Some still have local reporters on the beat, but now it's about the stories that jump out and make themselves known more often than not. The days of investigative journalism seem to be gone. I know our local paper seems to be turning into some sort of entertainment rag. There are only a handful of local reporters and most of the stories are AP stories. Needless to say, I don't read it much.

But you know what? That's not even the primary topic of my post. The original inspiration came after poking around online and reading about old shows like Big Blue Marble, 3-2-1 Contact, and others.

I grew up in the 70's. Back then, like newspapers, television felt a responsibility towards children and our society. TV has always been about advertising and revenue, but once upon a time it was also about GENUINE kids programming. I still have memories of the 15 minute educational shows on PBS that schools would record and play for classes like Vegetable Soup, Inside/Out and others. If you search online for these sorts of things you will find many people roughly my age who have fond memories of these and often ask the universal question, where are those shows now? I suppose with luck they are buried in a vault somewhere. At worst, they're gone forever.
Have kids really changed so much that we can't create shows similar to what we grew up with? Mr. Wizard? Captain Kangaroo? Electric Company? These, in hindsight, were all brilliant!
So if you are old enough to remember any of these shows, ask yourself what happened. Why aren't kids exposed to the same positive influences they once were? I know one of the answers.

We stopped trying.

Somehow, the "experts" had all the answers. Even worse, the tv execs had their own answers. Kill the captain and go with news! Hell, you can't even really find Saturday morning cartoons anymore! With the advent of cable and cartoons on every day of the week, the ritual of waking up early Saturday to watch cartoons is gone. Too bad.

I'm just glad I was a kid in the 70's. All you younger folks don't know what you missed.

Now pardon me while I curl up with my Schoolhouse Rock tapes..

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