input, outcome, and generational edutainment
Many of the shows our kids are growing up with are very earnest and somewhat empirical: the giant, Blue's Clues, and its children Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego, Go are all about problem-solving and marching through a plot from beginning to end. The giant we grew up with, Sesame Street, and its children (The Electric Company, Zoom) were essentially satirical parodies of adult entertainment tropes. What kind of long-term effect does that have? Certainly Gen-X's mordant pop-blender humor is shaped by what we watched; what will our children be?
So, we say things like, "What would the 'Friends' be like if they hadn't all watched Sesame Street?" — our children will ask what their favorite show's characters would be like if they hadn't watched Dora and Diego and Steve.
And keep in mind that the other stuff we watched was Warner Brothers cartoons originally made for theaters with mixed audiences — no wonder we're so finely tuned to satire and parody. Those cartoons are almost invisible to the mass kid audience now.
A guess would be to say that they'll develop a culture of rebellion, just as their grandparents did in the 60s — that other generation that was fed a relentlessly earnest entertainment diet.
Of course, both they and their grandparents had plenty of other stuff too: from the pulpy comics to Spongebob. But still the Coke and Pepsi of their entertainment must exert some influence, right? Maybe they'll become plodding empiricists! We can only hope.
So, we say things like, "What would the 'Friends' be like if they hadn't all watched Sesame Street?" — our children will ask what their favorite show's characters would be like if they hadn't watched Dora and Diego and Steve.
And keep in mind that the other stuff we watched was Warner Brothers cartoons originally made for theaters with mixed audiences — no wonder we're so finely tuned to satire and parody. Those cartoons are almost invisible to the mass kid audience now.
A guess would be to say that they'll develop a culture of rebellion, just as their grandparents did in the 60s — that other generation that was fed a relentlessly earnest entertainment diet.
Of course, both they and their grandparents had plenty of other stuff too: from the pulpy comics to Spongebob. But still the Coke and Pepsi of their entertainment must exert some influence, right? Maybe they'll become plodding empiricists! We can only hope.
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