hook, line, and sinker

Tina Fey and Elmo talk like pirates

On our summer schedule we take in a little Sesame Street most mornings as a way to extend our sleeping a few minutes. Not surprisingly, the Prince is totally engaged. I know, I know, some of the experts frown upon television until the kid is two. But in limited use, TV is great. And the "experts" are usually MD types, and rarely are informed by media studies scholarship of any kind (a simple search on TV and toddlers on the American Academy of Pediatrics website, for example, urges you to try a search on "media violence" too. wtf? I'm sorry, what's the connection?)

Prior to PC's arrival I had heard from other parents about the success of shows like Sesame Street in appealing to parents and kids at the same time. This interested me as a person who studies rhetoric--how does a show manage to interest such different audiences? From what I can tell, PC pretty much just needs Bright Shiny Things to become interested. Which means either we adults only need Bright Shiny Things, and have been fooling ourselves thinking we were more sophisticated than that, or that PC is so unbelievably advanced that he already understands the adult references embedded in every Sesame Street. Though I'd like to believe the latter interpretation (I mean, this kid is Perfect in Every Way) it's actually a lot simpler.

Sesame Street succeeds because it does some of the same things parents of toddlers are supposed to do--introduces a lot of vocabulary and excellent music, for example. And for the adults--it brings us our favorite parent/entertainers. Just in the last week, we've seen Jon Stewart, Tina Fey, Diana Krall, and Alec Baldwin. Aside from the fact that I wish Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin were making more episodes of one of our absolute favorite TV shows, 30 Rock, these episodes have been outstanding. Tina Fey dresses up as a pirate and leads the kids through an imaginative play. Jon Stewart (from the set of the Daily Show) preaches on the importance of practice to becoming good at something. Diana Krall sings a fabulous and simple ditty called "Everybody's Song" and has a total blast doing it.

Yikes, I just wrote positively about Alec Baldwin and parenting in the same paragraph. Not so sure about that. But keep the awesome Sesame Street coming. There are good reasons this show has been around for almost forty years.