Buster got busted last year by the righties fundies for showing a child
with (gasp!) two mommies.
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Censured PBS Bunny Returns, Briefly
By DENNIS GAFFNEY
What happens to a childrens public television show after it has been
attacked by the secretary of education, pilloried by conservatives, then
abandoned by its underwriters? In the case of Postcards From Buster, it
manages to return, belatedly but unbowed, for a second season.
We were proud of Postcards From Buster, and we are proud of Postcards
From Buster, said Brigid Sullivan, vice president for childrens
programming at WGBH, the Boston PBS station that produces the show. Its
a childrens show dealing with diversity by showing real kids in
real-life situations. Thats not being done by anyone else.
In Postcards From Buster documentary footage of children from different
cultures is combined with animation of Buster and his friends. This
season includes only 10 episodes, which began in November and will run
through February, a far cry from the 40 produced for the shows first
season.
Children first came to know Buster Baxter, the animated bunny who is the
shows star, as the best friend of Arthur, the animated aardvark who is
the title character of another PBS series. But most adults probably
first heard of Buster in January 2005, midway into the shows first
season, when word got out that an episode about maple sugaring, called
Sugartime!, would feature children in a Vermont family with two moms.
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings attacked the episode in a letter
to Pat Mitchell, the former PBS president, dated Jan. 25, 2005. Many
parents would not want their young children exposed to the life-styles
portrayed in this episode, she wrote. The same day PBS removed
Sugartime! from its lineup. In the days that followed, the American
Family Association, a major Christian conservative organization,
orchestrated a campaign of more than 150,000 e-mail messages and letters
to Ms. Spellings supporting her position, said Ed Vitagliano, a
spokesman for the association.
WGBH responded by independently offering Sugartime! to each PBS station.
It said that 57 of 349 stations broadcast the episode in March 2005,
making it available to more than half of PBS viewers. But the Sugartime!
controversy made finding funds for a second season difficult.
All the traditional funding sources backed away, said Jeanne Jordan, the
series producer for the second season of Postcards. The Education
Departments Ready-to-Learn program, which had largely financed the first
season of Postcards with $5 million through PBS, rewrote its grant to
eliminate the call for cultural diversity, and PBS did not pursue that
grant for Season 2. Neither the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
which is controlled by Congress and provided funds for Season 1, nor the
traditional corporate sponsors of PBS childrens programming would
underwrite the show.
The producers, musicians, editors and writers of Buster were let go from
the show for almost a year; under normal circumstances the second season
would have begun in fall 2005. That fall PBS decided to provide most of
the money needed for a season of 10 shows.
Were very committed to Buster, said Stephanie Aaronson, a PBS
spokeswoman. Buster is a popular character. Kids love him. We feel
theres not enough programs for the early elementary-age set, and we like
the mix of animation and live action.
With PBS on board other underwriters, among them the Arthur Vining Davis
Foundations and the Annenberg Foundation, pitched in. WGBH also found
about a half-dozen nontraditional donors, like the Gill Foundation and
the Small Change Foundation, which support gay and lesbian causes.
Perhaps surprisingly, this season continues to deal with hot-button
issues. In an episode being shown today, Buster visits Fort Leonard
Wood, an Army post in Missouri, to meet the family of a father who is
stationed in Iraq. On Jan. 29 Buster will learn about the Mexican
border, traveling with children to Tijuana from San Diego to meet their
pen pals. And in the last show of the season, scheduled for Feb. 19,
Buster revisits some children from the first season, whose homes in
Louisiana were damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
Pierre Valette, one of the executive producers of Postcards, said that
the show managed to approach even intensely political topics, like the
war in Iraq and the aftereffects of Katrina, in an apolitical manner.
Buster does this, he said, by looking at the world through a childs eyes.
In the episode from Fort Leonard Wood, for example, Buster must be shown
where Iraq is on a globe, and he worries about being asked to do
push-ups.
A main purpose of the episode, Ms. Jordan, the producer, said, is to
reveal what life on a military base is like, especially for a family
that has a member serving in a war. Erin Munoz, a 10-year-old featured
in the show, never expresses her opinions about the war. Neither does
her mother, Cheri Munoz, or the other adults who were filmed.
In one sequence the cameras catch a phone call from Erins dad, Steve,
who at the time had been in Iraq for only a week. Were happy to talk to
him, Mrs. Munoz tells Buster afterward, but then were sad cause we
remember we miss him.
Mrs. Munoz, who watched the episode in a preview screened at the Army
base, said she believed it was important for others to see what her
family was experiencing. If youre a military family, it will give you an
opportunity to discuss how you may feel, especially if someone is
deployed, she said. If youre not a military family, you can see how you
might feel to be in this situation.
Next season producers are planning to do three specials, sending Buster
to Africa, the Middle East and China. Ms. Sullivan of WGBH said the hope
was that his travels abroad would attract international supporters, who
werent interested in providing funds for the first two seasons, which
focused on American children.
The strategy is to aim high, Ms. Sullivan said. And if you do the right
thing, the money will come. And eventually the controversy fades.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/18/arts/television/18bust.html?ex=13240980
00&en=7d15a4d25c0f14b1&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
or
http://tinyurl.com/ygtd45
--
John Hachmann aa #1782
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
-Voltaire
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