If you are like me and grew up on Schoolhouse Rock than you can’t help but sing The Preamble of the Constitution.  I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t be able to recite any of it if I didn’t watch Saturday morning TV.  Sure, there was Bugs and Woody for some mindless entertainment (side note: I can argue that I learned a lot from Bugs) but there was plenty of entertaining academic options to make parents comfortable that their kids were glued to the television.

Yes, times have changed.  The highly desirable demographic, known to us as preschoolers, is now spoiled for choice. Nickelodeon and Disney have gone head to head with academic based shows.  Nickelodeon has always come out on top with hits like “Dora The Explorer.”  Based on market research, Disney has decided to scrap Playhouse Disney and offer Disney Jr.—a block of preschool programs that focus on social and emotional growth rather than academics.  Apparently, some mothers feel that there is plenty of academics offered to children early on and that they would rather see their children become emotionally prepared for what lies ahead.

Preschoolers are expected to know their ABCs and 123s before they ever even set foot in a classroom.  Then why are mothers saying they would rather their children watch programs that favor social values over academics? According to Nancy Kanter, Senior Vice President of Playhouse Disney Worldwide, “Moms are saying they want their kids to be emotionally strong to really understand how to live in the world. There’s a huge place for storytelling to help do that.” Sounds like a tall order to me.  Isn’t it easier, more practical and more beneficial to teach kids the basics and leave the emotional preparation to the parents?  Is there some kind of universal emotional preparatory curriculum that all parents can agree upon?  Not a chance. While we can all agree that lessons in honesty, integrity and courage are important, there is a subjective nature to all of these attributes.  I don’t think that anyone can argue the product of 3 times 3, but what about dealing with bullies? There is more than one answer to that problem.  I doubt Disney Jr. will invest in programs that teach kids how to stand up for another child or fight back. 

Carolina Lightcap, Head of Disney Channels Worldwide, claims, “they (parents) don’t honestly think kids are going to learn how to read from watching a TV show”.  If that were the case, then how are these shows going to teach them how to take turns?  One of Disney’s new shows, “Jake and the Neverland Pirates”, makes a point to teach what Disney considers to be an important social lesson: at the end of each episode Jake still invites Hook to play with him even thought Hook is a bad guy.  How is this a good thing?  It reminds me of the residents of Berkeley wanting to invite the Gitmo detainees to be their neighbors. I think it’s foolish and naive to teach a child that mean people won’t be mean if you are nice to them. 

I would feel more comfortable knowing my child is watching educational shows that can’t be left up to interpretation; it just makes me feel better about my child watching television.  Sounds like history is repeating itself. I doubt I’ll be a fan of the kinder, gentler Disney. I have found that Sesame Street, The Electric Company and Schoolhouse Rock are just as relevant today as they were in the 70s.

Teaching kids how to read and multiply never goes out of style.

It’s a truism among fans of classic movies that 1939 was the Hollywood cinema’s greatest year. But if it has become something of a cliche to say so, it’s only because it’s so undeniably true.

It’s really rather amazing to consider how many classic or transcendentally classic films were released during that annus mirabilis. Among the most highly praised then and in the ensuring years were the following:

• Gone with the Wind
• The Wizard of Oz
• Stagecoach
• Beau Geste
• Goodbye, Mr. Chips
• Gunga Din
• The Women
• Wuthering Heights
• The Roaring Twenties
• Love Affair

Those would be enough for a great year in itself, but there was so much more–such as Ninotchka, Only Angels Have Wings, Drums Along the Mohawk, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Allegheny Uprising, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Stanley and Livingston, The Man in the Iron Mask, Dark Victory, Of Mice and Men,Young Mr. Lincoln, The Rains Came, Midnight, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, Union Pacific, Babes in Arms, The Little Princess, Another Thin Man, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, The Hardys Ride High, Golden Boy, Dodge City, Gulliver’s Travels, The Light That Failed, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Old Maid, Son of Frankenstein, Destry Rides Again, and many, many others of like quality.

And from overseas: The Rules of the Game, The Four Feathers, The Stars Look Down, The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums, and others.

And perhaps even more impressive is the high quality of even the year’s lower-budget films, such as Code of the Secret Service and Secret Service of the Air, both starring Ronald Reagan. What all the Hollywood films mentioned here shared was the industry’s ability at the time to alternate scenes of grandeur and intimacy with consummate skill and confidence.

The Hollywood movie factories had been perfected by the mid-1930s, and the studios were amazingly adept at turning out greatly entertaining movies that reflected and reinforced the values of their audience. Although the stars and other filmmaking principals were paid amazing sums of money then as they are now, the industry did not then reflect the elitism now rampant in Hollywood.

The studio moguls, who were largely self-made and from humble origins, enthusiastically accepted the nation’s founding values and made sure that their product reflected those notions.They did so both for patriotic reasons and because they knew that was the best way for them to make money.

Thus while MGM head Louis B. Mayer was a staunch Republican and the Warner Bros. were supporters of FDR, all shared a strong patriotic love for their nation and shared their audience’s values.

Also important was the more conservative social values that arose during the Depression 1930s after the social excesses of the Roaring Twenties. Audiences preferred movies to reflect values such as personal responsibility, long-term thinking, the value of hard work, personal sacrifice for the good of others, modesty, and the like. Hollywood was voluntarily under the authority of the Production Code, which set moral standards for the industry and protected the studios from a race to the moral bottom and an unbridled pursuit of sensationalism.

The Production Code was clearly not a straitjacket on creativity, given the impressive films made while it was in place during the 1930s through the 1950s. Contrary to the claims of many critics (and the Wikipedia entry cited here), the Production Code Administration was willing and in fact eager to work with producers to ensure that films could be as creative as possible without undermining the nation’s morals.

Refraining from undermining people’s morals may seem rather a quaint notion to many people today, but it indicates a sense of honor, decency, and humility that is sorely lacking among all to many purveyors of cultural products today.

Of course, there’s no sense in hoping for a return of the Production Code, but a greater sense of responsibility on filmmakers’ part would certainly be welcome. It would benefit the movies both morally and esthetically.