Mixed Media

Off the Page celebrates the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street

The broadcasting industry has always been aware of its educational potential and is often idealistic about its service to children.  In the 1946 book "Here Is Television" author Thomas Hutchinson states, "Educational or informative programs on television open vistas that virtually stagger the imagination... No longer will low paid educators teach the three R's to small boys and girls in isolated rural districts.  Instead every country school in the world will have a large screen television receiver, in each classroom." 

Hutchinson believed that "there is nothing in the world that cannot be taught by television," but as the visual medium took over the nation's living rooms it seemed that the real potential of TV to instruct both children and adults remained undeveloped while children, as is their nature, were absorbing all manner of new knowledge from programs and commercials.

There were some good kidshows during those early days of television.  "The Small Fry Club" on the short-lived DuMont Network featured an avuncular Big Brother Bob Emery with a human cast of animal characters who taught about nature, music, health and shared daily delights (it was the first TV program to be aired five days a week). It even draw an appreciative adult audience -- orchestra conductor Arturo Toscanini was one of its big fans. Over on NBC-TV, Howdy Doody premiered in 1947 with Buffalo Bob Smith and a cast of marionettes.  There was also a crazy clown named Clarabelle, played by actor Bob Keeshan, who left to create Captain Kangaroo.  Many of these programs had well-designed educational content -- Captain Kangaroo and Ding Dong School with Dr. Frances Horwich ("Miss Frances") on NBC were highly regarded by educators and parents.  But it took a whole new system of broadcasting, Public Television, to bring the nation's pre-schoolers a TV show that would systematically prepare them for further education, teaching letters, numbers and relationships while they were having  a wonderful time.

"Sesame Street" premiered on PBS on November 10, 1969 and is the longest-running children's program on American television.*  At age forty it is now being watched by some of the grandchildren of those who learned their ABCs and 1-2-3s from "Sesame Street". WSKG is joining in the Sesame 40 festival with art contests, an open house birthday party at our studios and a special OFF THE PAGE broadcast with Michael Davis, author of the new book "Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street."

Sesame Street began as a flash of brilliance that struck like a bolt from the gods.  [Producer Joan Ganz] Cooney was its mother of invention, while Lloyd N. Morrisett, a well-connected vice president at the Carnegie Corporation, was its financial godfather.  Sesame's moment of conception occurred at a dinner party at Cooney's apartment, when Morrissett and his wife were discussing how their three-year-old daughter, Sarah, had become transfixed by television.  She would sit in front of a test pattern at 6:30 a.m., waiting for the cartoons to appear at 7:00.  It was the same thing millions of kids were doing all across the country that confounded Cooney.

-- from "Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street"

Several veterans of Captain Kangaroo were in the "street gang" and Davis traces the lineage of the program as well as the institutional development of Children's Television Workshop (now called Sesame Workshop) and the planning and research that ensued.  "Sesame Street" was deliberately designed to be meaningful and recognizable to inner-city children, its content easily blended with Head Start and similar efforts for minority and underprivileged youngsters.  But Davis's book is primarily a story of people working together for a TV show that could teach and entertain and be accessible at many levels.  They are as rich a cast of characters as any novel and their fates are triumphant and tragic.  "Street Gang" opens with the scene at the funeral of brilliant puppeteer Jim Henson, as untimely a death as any.  His Muppets were and are the heart of "Sesame Street".  There was also the loss of actor Will Lee, who played Mr. Hooper, the candy store owner.  His passing was noted (and his life celebrated) in a tearful "Sesame Street" episode that broached the meaning of death in terms that small children could comprehend.  "Street Gang" prints the entire script of that moving scene.

Michael Davis is a former editor of TV Guide magazine and worked as a teacher in the Head Start program in Tompkins County and was a reporter for the Ithaca Journal.  He will be joined on OFF THE PAGE by Lonna McKeon Pierce, a professional storyteller, teacher/librarian at the MacArthur School in Binghamton and the mother of five children (now grown, but all who learned their ABCs watching channel 46).  We'll also be directly in touch with Sesame Street speaking with two of the stars who were there on day 1: Bob McGrath and Big Bird.

To join in the conversation about "Sesame Street" with host Bill Jaker and his guests, call during the live 1:00 PM broadcast to 888/359-9754 or post a message here to OffThePage@WSKG.ORG.

The Mighty Queens... on Off thePage

by Bill Jaker

Reading a biography, autobiography or personal memoir allows us to add someone else's life to our own.  We can follow them through the pages and share their struggles and pleasures, victories and defeats. Through autobiography we can get to know someone well, even strike up an intimate relationship with a great person, a Helen Keller, Ulysses Grant or Charlie Chaplin. 

Sometimes their cautionary tales will be so good that we learn to avoid similar mistakes. In her new memoir, "The Mighty Queens of Freeville," Amy Dickinson recounts the stresses and analyzes the forces that took her through marriage, divorce and raising a daughter as a single mother -- all experiences common in our society.  

During her marriage she lived in London, and later moved to Washington, DC with daughter Emily.  She also worked her way through several jobs (including, at one point, receptionist and then a commentator at NPR) and went through periods of unemployment. But Amy emerges steady and victorious.  Today she writes a nationally-syndicated advice column.  She's now a regular on NPR's news quiz "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" (heard on WSKG Radio Saturdays at 11 AM) and on "Talk of the Nation" (WSQX 91.5 FM, weekdays from 2 to 4 PM).  But it's clear that she might not have landed with her feet on the ground if that ground hadn't been in the village of Freeville, NY, about fifteen minutes up the road from Ithaca.

Amy's family has lived and farmed in upstate New York since the 1790s.  The family history has lately not been easy.  "In my family," she writes, "the women tend to do the heavy lifting while the men -- well, the men are nice and fine and they love us for a time.  Then at some point, it seems that they tire of their indeterminate role in our lives, so they wage a campaign of passive resistance, and then they leave."  Her father suddenly left the family, and then in another act of abandonment sold off their herd of Holsteins.  But the women pull together.

The women of my family taught me what family is about.  They helped me pick up the pieces when my life fell apart, and we reassembled them together into something new.  They celebrated my slow recovery, witnessed my daughter's growth and development, and championed my choices.  The women in my life showed Emily and me in large and small ways that they would love us, no matter what.  They abide. 
                                                                  --from The Mighty Queens of Freeville

The wisdom and support Amy feels from the women in her family shows through in her daily column "Ask Amy" , which replaced the late and legendary Ann Landers, now appears in over 200 newspapers nationwide through the Chicago Tribune syndicate (in this area in the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, the Ithaca Journal and the Elmira Star-Gazette).

Amy Dickinson joined Bill Jaker on OFF THE PAGE to talk about coming home again, drawing on the strength of family and sharing that with the nation. Click here to listen to the program online.

Funding opportunity for local artists

SOS, a project of the New York Foundation for the Arts, working in collaboration with arts councils and cultural organizations across New York State, is designed to help individual artists of all disciplines take advantage of unique opportunities that will significantly benefit their work or career development. Participating counties in our region include: Broome, Chemung, Schuyler, Stueben, Tioga and Tompkins.

Artists working in all disciplines (including literature, media arts, visual arts, music, and theater) may request support ranging from $100 to $600 for specific, forthcoming opportunities. These do not include works-in-progress.

The ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes will work with artists individually to help them learn to write the best possible grant application. The ARTS provides technical assistance guiding artists through the funding program and offers suggestions for other funding.

 Applications must be received by 5:00 pm on May 28, 2009 for opportunities in July-October 2009. This is NOT a postmark deadline.

Who can apply?

• Artists 18 years of age or older.

• Artist must be a full-time resident for the past year from date of application deadline in one of the participating counties. All recipients must show proof of residency status before receiving award money.

Who cannot apply?

• Any past SOS recipient who has outstanding final reports or retains unused award money.

• A graduate or undergraduate student enrolled in any degree program at the time of application, including highschool students.

• A recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship award in the previous year.

Applications should be submitted to:
The ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes
32 West Market Street
Corning, NY 14830

You can download copies of this application and find more information about SOS here.

Inside WSKG's Off the Page

Whenever anyone asks about an appearance on OFF THE PAGE one of my first questions is, “Do you [or the author you’re representing] have a phone number starting with 607?”  I’m not necessarily looking for contact information at that point but it’s the quickest way to determine who is a “regional author”.  WSKG Radio’s primary coverage area fairly duplicates the 607 area code, albeit with some spillover into 315, 845, 585 and – not limiting ourselves to New York State – Pennsylvania’s five-seventy.

Occasionally I’ll go beyond the Southern Tier and adjacent lands if a book or author is of special regional interest, but otherwise I’m simply looking for well-written fiction and non-fiction, poetry and history and anything else created by a writer from our region.  Sometimes the most important activity going on in a community is happening in solitude and in one person’s mind.  We’ve discovered an abundance of good writing here in these hills.

One question I regularly receive is, “Do you read the entire book for an OFF THE PAGE interview?”  I certainly do, usually with a speedy re-read just before the broadcast.  There are some people who think you can get the idea of both style and substance by reading only the first and last chapters, but that seems to me like simply eating the crackers without the cheese in the middle.

A book can be itself an object of beauty, but there’s an old saying about not judging a book by its cover and it is literally true.  Some of the best books I’ve seen lately were cheaply printed and bound, perhaps by the author himself.  That should not detract from interest in the writing within. 

An increasing number of authors choose to self-publish, often because they simply don’t want to take the time to hassle with agents and publishers.  Especially at the beginning of a writing career DIY publishing is a sure way to get into print.  But it may be more difficult to get into the bookstores, or even on-line sellers, especially if someone has written an especially personal book or one that deals with their own community.  That should make such a book all the more relevant to the WSKG audience, for it means that on OFF THE PAGE you’re regularly learning about a first edition right from the person who wrote it, and possibly published it. 

These days even well-established publishing houses are turning to print-on-demand and the invention of the e-book has made it possible for anyone to get their words into distribution.  OFF THE PAGE will continue to concentrate on the content and quality of books by authors in our part of the country, how their mind and spirit was conveyed to us, with less concern about the system that made it happen.

- Bill Jaker is the host of WSKG Public Radio's OFF THE PAGE.