MetaFilter posts tagged with pbs and TV

Get your Saturday morning on

Rhaomi — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 09:27:21 -0800

Saturday morning cartoons were once a staple of American television, but by the year 2000 they had all but disappeared. Of course, the Internet never forgets. Case in point: Cartoon Network Video -- a free, searchable, ad-supported service that provides hundreds of full-length episodes of classic shows like Dexter's Laboratory, Cow and Chicken, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Johnny Bravo, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, and The Powerpuff Girls, as well as current offerings and scads of shorter material. Too recent for you? Then give Kids WB Video a whirl -- it does the same thing with the same interface, but for older programs like Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, The Smurfs, Scooby-Doo, Thundercats, and the original Space Ghost. If you're in the mood to learn (and don't mind some live-action), PBS Kids Video has educational fare such as Arthur, Wishbone, and Zoom. And don't forget about Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, The Magic Schoolbus and Schoolhouse Rock! Now if only we had some Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs...

You can still turn this back into a happy little Meta

kathrineg — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 10:32:16 -0800

Bob Ross Streaming live. "We can have anything we want in our world!"

At last, the present is getting Soul!

myopicman — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:45:40 -0800

Soul! New York City PBS affiliate WNET have digitized 9 episodes of Soul!, a early 1970's live music program, providing a groovy video interface with chapters to break down each hour long episode. I ran across this whilst looking for Rahsaan Roland Kirk and his multiple saxophone performances and wow, I never would've thought I'd find something like his appearance on October 4, 1972.

Their names are WHAT and WHY and WHEN/and HOW and WHERE and WHO.

JHarris — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 12:37:40 -0800

Read all about it! Discover all the news! Read all about it! Track down all the clues!
With interesting people there's a mystery to be solved! An adventure is unfolding, so why not get involved? Come on and READ ALL ABOUT IT.
Young Chris is left an old coach house by his missing uncle. As he and his two friends fuddle with the lock, a strange figure watches. The kids do not yet know the building is the entrance to a mystery that spans time and space! Aided by Otto the IBM Selectric robot typewriter and Theta the spooky as hell talking viewscreen, they will find that the concerns of an alien tyrant reach into the government of their own town. (24 of 40 15-minute episodes, including the entire first season, of this early-80s TV Ontario-produced "educational" show are on YouTube.) Far from being mindless entertainment, Read All About It taught reading and critical thinking skills. But neither was it dry viewing; the story was weird and interesting, sometimes frightening, sci-fi in the tradition of Dr. Who. It was produced by TV Ontario public television and spread to various public TV outlets. It was written by Chris Endersby. I like to think of this show as a vaccine against stupid kids TV like Goosebumps. /notelitist My own memories of the show was that it was genuinely mysterious, filled with creepy atmosphere and unanswered questions. They do not make them like this any more. For various reasons, however, it looks like the show will never get released on DVD.

Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood not included in weekday program services this fall

k8t — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 23:55:08 -0800

After 40 years of national broadcasts, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood will be removed from PBS' weekday program service this fall. The current situation is that PBS beams the show to member stations as part of its children's programming block Monday through Friday. Most (63%) stations air it. Starting in the fall, PBS stations won't receive the show daily but rather one episode per week will be sent. This summer, PBS stations that still want to play the the show during the week will have an opportunity to receive a season's worth of episodes to stockpile. But receiving and scheduling those episodes requires effort. As such, contacting one's local PBS station requesting for the summer stockpile is one step. Here's a link to the station finder. One can also contact national PBS. Mrs. Rogers herself is encouraging people to do this. News article I don't mean this to be activistfilter, but past posts about Mr. Rogers seem to imply that others will care about this.

Mubetubafubiltuber

not_on_display — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 13:52:33 -0800

Write ZOOM, Z-double-oh-M, Box three-five-oh, Boston, Mass, OH-two-ONE-three-FOURRRR! C'mon and Zooma Zooma Zooma ZOOM! ZOOM was produced for PBS by WGBH in Boston, and originally aired from 1972 through 1978. It literally was television for kids, by kids -- the show's various segments were culled from thousands of ideas submitted by viewers (by mail to the address above). Sometimes these kids were featured in the clips themselves. From a 1972 Time Magazine article: "Virtually all the material is by children and is selected by the seven-member cast (ages nine through 13). The kids sing, dance. play games, talk in 'Ubbi-Dubbi'--a catchy code language reminiscent of past generations' pig Latin-show home movies and give laconic instructions in all manner of skills. The first show featured a filmed demonstration of how to build a raft from tree limbs, leaves and an old tarpaulin. A 4-minute karate exhibition aimed at defeating bicycle thieves was on the second. The third will include a thoroughly befuddling lesson in the game of "cat's cradle," with a perplexed young instructress tangling her string and admitting, 'I got it wrong.'" Ubbi-Dubbi? Well, let Wikipedia break it down for you. Wait, that was no fun... better yet, pbs.org has a Flash-based Ubbi-Dubbi Translator. I had it translate its own instructions into Ubbi-Dubbi: "Uball yubou hubave tubo dubo ubis subay UBUB bubefubore ubevuberuby vubowubel subound. Uband thubis Ububbubi Dububbubi mubachubine hubas bubeen prubogrubammubed wubith thube ubabubilubituby tubo rubecubognubize whubich vubowubels ubare suboundubed, uband whubich ubare subilubent!" You can hear Ubbi-Dubbi spubokuben fubulubentluby by nubatubives at the beginning of thubis clubip of the ZOOMers' production of the Mad Tea Party scene from Alice in Wonderland. Wikipedia also comes close to de-funnifying Fannee Doolee: "Fannee Doolee is a fictitious girl acted in the playhouse by the ZOOMers on ZOOM. During the play, Fannee Doolee does not face the audience and she does not speak; instead, Fannee Doolee's unheard dialog is exposed when the person she was seen talking to turns to talk with others. The play is a comedy and the repeating gag is that Fannee Doolee likes and dislikes things that are similar and the people around her are perplexed by this inconsistency. For example, she likes stools but not chairs; she likes coffee but not drinks; she likes rolls but not bread; she likes cheese but not dairy. (I bet she loves LOLLing but hates MetaFilter.) Here's a clip of the cool Fannee Doolee song'n'dance. Here are some segments: - Roll out the ZOOMBarrel: a game called "Cracker Whistle" - this clip made me laugh when I was young, and again now. Play "Cracker Whistle" responsibly. It's fun. - ...doo-wah-zoom-doo, Do A ZOOMDo! These girls show (not tell) you how to make Stained Glass Cookies! - Bernadette shows us how she does that thing with her arms. Bernadette has her own ZOOMstalgia web page, too. This guy gets all mushy, shooting an eight-minute Youtube about how Bernadette answered his email. - ZOOM's Play of the Week: A melodrama about two lost fishermen. Written by someone just like you were back before the web sucked all the imagination out of you. - A nice piece of music: "I am a City Child I live on the tip-top floor Of an old apartment building With a very creaky door" And, as a bonus, here's the first episode of ZOOM, before the rugby shirts were de rigeur: Part 1 - Intro to the Merrymac, Intro to Ubbi-Dubbi, the ZOOM Play of the Week (an absurdist classic) Part 2 - ZOOMovie (Rated R, "Ristricted"), ZOOM Guest (Roy West, wordlessly showing you how to build a cool raft), The Ubbi-Dubbi Weather Report Part 3 - ZOOMgame (A Merrymac), ZOOMrap (a really nice piece that has the kids talkin' about their experiences with doctors and hospitals), a song ("The Cat Came Back") Part 4 - The address rap (Joe's and Nancy's lines are the best), and Closing Credits. Rugby shirts, jeans, and bare feet. The second season won a daytime Emmy. C'mon and ZOOM! (ZOOM was revived by PBS in 1999, but we'll save that for an FPP in 2035.)

"Livin' out some ad man's dream in Idiot Joy Show Land"

Burhanistan — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 14:22:41 -0800

Watch Frontline's "The Persuaders" . Then read up on "neuromarketing". Previously

NerdTV out

mathowie — Wed, 07 Sep 2005 08:49:06 -0800

The first episode of NerdTV is out but the site is so inundated with users that the official torrent is the only way to get a copy at the moment. It's an online-only series featuring hour long episodes filled with interviews done by Robert Cringely.

Ready To Learn?

eatyourlunch — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 08:49:05 -0800

House Appropriations panel eliminates ALL public funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS Ready To Learn. From this morning's Cynopsis:Kids e-newsletter: "In our nation's capital yesterday, a House Appropriations subcommittee voted to approve a new bill that will see budgets sliced for both public TV and radio. Specifically in the line of fire in the kid TV universe is the elimination of the full $23m in funding for Public TV's Ready to Learn initiative. Ready to Learn provides some funds for PBS series including, Sesame Street, Between the Lions, Arthur, Reading Rainbow, Clifford the Big Red Dog and could have Buster sending smoke signals instead of postcards. [...] Though the President proposed a small budget reduction for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting this past winter, yesterday's subcommittee vote would also eliminate all government monetary funds intended for the CPB over the course of the next two years, beginning with a $100m decrease in funding to $300m for next year." Perhaps this will free up some money for No Child Left Behind?

Wal-mart: Sith Lord of unbridaled capitalism

spock — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 09:31:24 -0800

That "liberal bastion" PBS and that "wacky" Christian Right AGREEING on something? Does the "Sith Lord of unbridaled capitalism" really deserve to be hated? Does it bear watching? A new movie will take a look: (Registration -free link). Why are growing numbers "ready to join the ranks of all right-thinking people the world over in declaring Wal-Mart an outpost of hell on earth"??? The full 60 minute Frontline program video is available online.

Blistering attack on PBS

twsf — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 11:37:30 -0800

"Other channels do what PBS [does], with the added bonus of doing it better." On the 50th anniversary of San Francisco's KQED, the SF Chronicle's TV critic Tim Goodman levels a blistering attack on the station and on PBS, calling it "one of the worst-run, thoroughly backward media entities in the country."

Ghosts of Rwanda

specialk420 — Thu, 01 Apr 2004 21:20:53 -0800

Ghosts of Rwanda
10 years later, FRONTLINE delivers one of the most powerful episodes in their excellent series of reports. Also covered in The Economist last week, and a couple years ago in The Atlantic in a sublime article: "Bystanders to Genocide". When you first heard about the tragedy did you wish you could have done something, if you had only known more?

A sad day in the neighborhood.

jscalzi — Thu, 27 Feb 2003 02:17:51 -0800

Mr. Rogers Dead. Fred Rogers of "Mister Roger's Neighborhood" died of stomach cancer at age 74. To be honest, his was never my personal favorite PBS kid's show growing up (I preferred off-brand shows like "Zoom" and "3-2-1 Contact"). But my appreciation for him when I was an adult was pretty high. Anyway, it's a sad day in the neighborhood.

homunculus — Tue, 02 Apr 2002 10:08:15 -0800

The Shape of Life is a new PBS series produced by the Sea Studios Foundation. It tells the evolutionary tale of the rise of the animal kingdom and premieres tonight with Origins, the attempt to identify the first animal that gave rise to all other animals. The website also helps answer the eternal question, can snails smell?

rschram — Thu, 28 Mar 2002 15:52:31 -0800

Rukeyser Out at Wall Street Week In Advance of 'Young' Format
The long-time host ever in search of 'value in today's markets' quit rather than accept a diminished role in a revamp of the show's format. Guest hosts will replace him next season until a permanent host is found.
PBS is quietly removing references to elves from the W$W website. The new show will be a co-production with Fortune Magazine. (Ick.) Guess its Paul Kangas for me!

jimw — Sat, 23 Feb 2002 16:43:11 -0800

Ready for a one-hour science fiction television show about space exploration not set in the Star Trek universe? How about a half-hour show about the developing relationship between a blind girl and a sci-fi fan? Well, Richard Whettestone thinks you are, and he's got the scripts -- now he just needs PBS to pick up the shows!

owillis — Mon, 18 Feb 2002 09:26:19 -0800

PBS's Televangelist: "Moyers's difficulty conversing with people on the right seems to have impaired his ability to report their opinions fairly, particularly on issues of race. "The right gets away with blaming liberals for their efforts to help the poor, but what the right is really objecting to is the fact that the poor are primarily black," he told Alterman. "The man who sits in the White House today [George H.W. Bush] opposed the Civil Rights Act. So did Ronald Reagan. This crowd is really fighting a retroactive civil rights war to prevent the people they dislike because of their color from achieving success in American life."" (via medianews)

SandeepKrishnamurthy — Fri, 04 Jan 2002 09:21:53 -0800

Taxi Dreams Did anyone watch the PBS show- "Taxi Dreams"? The PBS site is very informative. I enjoyed the video clips in the gallery . The facts and figures section was decent. Overall, I thought it was a great way to study the immigrant experience and the American dream.

bjgeiger — Tue, 21 Aug 2001 19:30:52 -0800

Accordion Dreams is a great new PBS show that I just got to see a preview of on my local Texas station. Try to catch it when it comes out nationally on August 30.

tiaka — Mon, 07 May 2001 09:38:17 -0800

Is TV dumbed down so much these days that even educational or documentary material needs to appeal on a broader audience? It seems that TLC and Discovery are going overboard in their need to draw viewers, though, then their motto 'a place for learning minds' becomes just another example of false advertising. If you were to tune in at prime time, chances are the stuff that's on would be about a)aliens, b)Christianity, or c)aliens and Christianity. Tune in for TLC you'll always get 'worst drivers 3: road rage' or 'plastic surgery gone BAD'. Their good productions, such as the Great Books Series have been shut down over 2 years ago, and these days the most interesting stuff that's on is shown in reruns over at the discovery civilization or science channel. BBC and PBS creates interesting programs, but not all that often.

Sometimes people complain at how Survivor and the rest of the reality show stuff is dragging down TV to the very bottom, but is it really effecting everything?

joeclark — Sun, 14 Jan 2001 17:52:24 -0800

Live audio description of Bush inauguration If you get PBS and if your PBS station broadcasts in stereo, you will likely be able to hear only the second-ever attempt at audio description of a live event - the inauguration of Bush. (The other live-described event was Clinton's inauguration.) This of course is audio description, ostensibly for blind viewers. Set your TV or VCR to SAP and compare the approaches of the standard announcers, who call the event assuming the viewer can see, and the describers, who don't. (No sexy Web page for this event.)

paddbear — Tue, 30 May 2000 16:20:21 -0800

Ursula K. LeGuin's "The Lathe of Heaven" is being offered to local PBS stations in the month of June. It hasn't been broadcast in about 20 years. VHS tape and DVD due out in September. Both KQED (San Francisco) and KRCB (Rohnert Park-Cotati, CA) aren't going to broadcast it. I guess Suze Orman needs the airtime...

Dean_Paxton — Fri, 31 Mar 2000 03:34:33 -0800

Code Rush Documentary Did anyone get to watch the Netscape documentary on PBS. In my area, it aired at 2am. I fell asleep trying to catch it...