U.S.D.O.E. v. Buster the Bunny
After a WGBH tour a year ago I have eagerly been following the progress of Postcards from Buster, a spinoff of the popular Arthur franchise which sends bunny Buster around the United States to visit kids in a range of communities. He meets gospel singers, Mormons, rock climbers, Eskimos, cowgirls, all kinds of people. If any show is likely to make American kids more familiar with their diverse neighbors, this is it.

So it was much to my chagrin to learn that PBS yanked the entire run of the show (it's worth watching the largish video clip there) due to a U.S. Department of Education complaint (and threat to withhold future funding). Why? The show's run included an episode featuring a family in Vermont headed by a lesbian couple. Thank god for WGBH, which continued to broadcast the show anyway and distributed it to every interested station (including WNET in New York, where I caught an episode earlier this week). This is really outrageous, and anyone who agrees should write to margaret.spellings@ed.gov, the woman at USDOE who complained. Be aware that this skirmish renews the threat to Sesame Street and other shows which perenially comes up during eras of Republican congressional dominance. (Thanks to my CCTE colleagues for picking this one up.) Posted by Gus at February 24, 2005 10:36 PM | TrackBack