February 15, 2020
A cultural history of how children's TV, once criticized for banal programming, changed dramatically in the 1960s. In 1961, the chairman of the FCC asked, "Is there no room on television to teach, to inform, to uplift, to stretch, to enlarge the capacities of our children?" It was a question that Joan Ganz Cooney and Fred Rogers answered with a resounding yes. Each found jobs in newly established educational-TV stations, and, with determination and imagination, developed groundbreaking children's shows: Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, which made its national debut in February 1968; and Sesame Street, which debuted in November 1969, attracting an audience of some 2 million households. Drawing on news articles, oral histories, and the archives of the Children's Television Workshop, Fred Rogers Center, and Jim Henson Company, longtime Vanity Fair contributor Kamp offers a brisk, lively account of the challenges faced by Cooney and Rogers in realizing their shows, the criticism that they incited, and the many programs that emulated their success, such as The Electric Company, Free to Be...You and Me, and ZOOM. Although different in tone--"slow pace versus fast, small cast versus large, low production values versus high"--both Mister Rogers and Sesame Street were shaped by findings in developmental psychology and pedagogy. Rogers saw himself as "the child's adult friend" who "would introduce experiences of all kinds" and help children to articulate their feelings. Cooney and her Sesame Street team aimed to engage young children--especially those living in the inner city--in learning, with a multicultural, interracial cast. Getting Jim Henson on board "was a coup," Kamp acknowledges. "The Muppets conferred upon the nascent show a visual and spiritual identity that would set it apart from other children's programming: "furrier, featherier, weirder, cleverer." Writing about the evolution of Sesame Street, the author reports some surprising blowback from feminists who objected to its portrayal of women and from viewers who complained "of both racism and reverse racism." But nothing stopped the show's impact on children's culture. Questlove provides the foreword. An appreciative and informative chapter of TV history.
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Starred review from February 17, 2020
In this diligent and lively chronicle, Kamp (The United States of Arugula) honors the creators of Sesame Street and the Children’s Television Workshop. This “smallish, bourgeois, bohemian circle” bucked the lowbrow, profit-driven conventions of children’s programming with a single educational mission: using entertainment to create a level playing field for inner-city kids lacking access to preschool education. The first part details the show’s three-year incubation and its early success. “Tunics and ponchos flapping,” Kamp writes, the integrated cast arrived in November 1969 with colorful sets, a “jazzy house-band sound,” and Jim Henson’s Muppets—its setting “a mélange of faded brownstones, gray litter-strewn sidewalks... felt real and inviting.” Kamp is a meticulous and entertaining writer, as when, in the second part of the book, he describes subsequent series, including The Electric Company, Zoom, Schoolhouse Rock, and, most notably, Free to Be... You and Me—a song-filled “revolutionary children’s primer on feminism, and gender politics.” But Reagan-era FCC deregulation undid more than a decade of children’s educational TV, Kamp argues, allowing for more commercially driven shows like The Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This passionate, highly engaging media history will thrill pop culture buffs and those who remember these shows from their childhood.
March 1, 2020
By the early 1960s, television had transformed American home life, with most people watching an average of six hours of TV a day--much of it lowbrow entertainment, with a potentially worrisome influence on children. However, some believed television could, in the right hands, educate America's youth. Kamp (The United States of Arugula) examines the landmark PBS series Sesame Street, which, like Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, benefited from a skilled creative team and a political environment supportive of public broadcasting. Debuting in 1969, Sesame Street focused on reaching inner-city youth, with a set that resembled an urban neighborhood and a diverse cast of people and Muppets. Both a dedicated researcher and a proud member of the Sesame Street generation, Kamp celebrates the show's breakthroughs while also addressing its varied critical reception; over the years it's been criticized for being both too progressive and not progressive enough. The author illustrates how this groundbreaking show changed the landscape of children's television, inspiring the likes of Schoolhouse Rock! and The Electric Company--though, thanks to Reagan-era "reforms," support for children's programming has decreased (Sesame Street itself is now an HBO property, with first-run episodes appearing on its streaming service). VERDICT Researchers and nostalgic Sesame Street fans alike will appreciate this thorough, compelling overview of a pivotal period of TV history. [See Prepub Alert, 11/11/19.]--Terry Bosky, Madison, WI
Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
April 1, 2020
When Sesame Street premiered in 1969, Vanity Fair contributing editor Kamp (The United States of Arugula, 2016) was three. Though a member of the generation shaped by the cutting-edge children's television series, he was in fact not its target demographic. As Kamp explains in his carefully researched and straightforward history of the era's radical efforts to use television to teach children, Sesame Street's creators pitched their program to underprivileged children of color. This motivated production choices like the set design and interracial casting and distribution strategies like organizing viewing centers in public community spaces, where those without TVs at home could watch. Sesame Street is not the only show Kamp profiles?others include its predecessor Mister Rogers and successors like The Electric Company?but it is his focal point because of its educational mission, multicultural agenda, and longevity. Producer Joan Ganz Cooney emerges as the star, outshining even Jim Hensen, whose iconic puppets, we learn in one of the book's most amusing anecdotes, were promoting products like Muncho chips before they were trumpeting letters and numbers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)