Thanks, Dutch! I have a soft spot for their work (without knowing it was *their* work until now) and recently checked out an Electric Company dvd from the library so I could introduce my kids. Fantastic info. Cheers!
Perhaps even more revolutionary than the animation is the voice work by these children. Kids on today's shows speak like uneducated mini-adults. These children sound like they were caught unawares, to express the innocence and bizarre thoughts of our young.
Thanks for sharing.
Did they do "123-4-5-678910-11-12"?
OMG. How awesome. Wish we'd had the prescience (not to mention talent) to mic our girls when they were little and playing like this all day long ...
Incredible stuff. Thank you.
I'm pretty sure they didn't do "123-4-5-678910-11-12". They did True Blue Sue and For You and Danger and tons of other ones.
They also did some pretty cool improvised dialogue shorts with dizzy gillespie and one animated short with ella fitzgerald.
Wow, my experience watching "Cockaboody" was completely different (and probably too revealing of something about my own childhood). There is something haunting about this video for me, some darkness here. It’s hard to explain it. The children at play, so much of which is playing the part of grown-ups, sensing grown-up anxieties--"will you have babies georgie?" "When your parents die, you get married, right?" The large and looming stuff of the house, open holes, dark corners, exposed pipes, lots of empty space--all given to us from a child’s perspective of course, but something so unsupervised and a little neglected about it all. I watch this and feel myself young again, and unfortunately, not the youth of innocence and imagination, but the youth of knowing too much, perhaps, of anxious responsibility.
I can see that Sarah; it's so interesting.
Doesn't Emily get it right, when talking about grown-ups, and she says, "They laugh and laugh and laugh until they stop laughing and they cry. And then it starts all over again. Laughing crying, laughing crying, laughing crying."
Doesn't that pretty much sum it all up?
As the 18 month younger sister always trying to keep up, I loved the reality of the older sister insisting that it was simple, simple, and that she couldn't explain because it was so simple. I'm still waiting for my big sister to explain things to me.
We taped our son in bed at night talking to himself - pearls beyond measure.
Future-posting is cool, but I'm going to be confused the rest of the week now.
I don't think this video seems suspended in time. I often hear Petunia babbling to herself and it sounds like half of the Georgie-Emily conversation. Of course, my daughter routinely makes her hands talk to one another and her favorite toy is paper, so maybe she's an anachronism. She also really likes old Spiderman cartoons on YouTube. Maybe Juney would like those as well.
Thanks for putting these up here. My two-year-old and I enjoyed them so much.
I'm friends with a lot of preschoolers and have heard many a ten-minute conversation not involving any of those characters or TV shows you mentioned. I understand your desire to keep Juniper away from the TV, but I also think you can be a little harsh on kids who do watch television.
Wow, thanks for sharing. I can't wait until our two girls are big enough to play together like that.
BTW: "123-4-5-678910-11-12" is "Pinball Number Count", and knowing that, you can find all about it in the wikipedia.
Lovely.
I've been thinking about Sarah's comment and while I can sort of see where she is coming from, I think all children are very aware of the adult world, the good and bad of it. And as for neglect, I can't comment on her own experiences, but I found it wonderful how the young children were allowed to just play and explore without constant supervision. They could just be, without being constantly tested (say ducky, what does a ducky say?) or given "educational" toys to make them into little geniuses. They were simply allowed to follow their imaginations. How great is that?
m- I agree. But I think what sarah was saying is that she brought a lot of the emotions from her own childhood to her experience watching it; I think it's cool when art can offer completely different reflections to the completely different people looking in it.
Such a great reminder to me to shut up and let my kids do their thing. I tend to jump in the second I hear someone cry. Thanks so much for sharing.
lovely. the unstructured play is really wonderful. makes me wish i had had a sibling closer in age to play with. i love the yo la tengo connection, too.
Dutch, in regards to your [nearly] last comment about kids not being able to talk for 8 minutes without mentioning a branded character: What about a contest? People send in recordings of their kids talking, and whoever goes the longest without mentioning a branded character wins... something. Honor? Disgrace? Or, I don't know, a t-shirt? Think about it.
Seriously, thanks for putting these up. Interesting to watch and read the comments. My older son (4) loved them both.
Those were great...my little guy loved them, Moonbird really hit his 3 yr. old funny bone. Here is a Dr. Seuss one "Gerald McBoing Boing" that we love to watch : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u...h?
v=uNsyQDmEopw
We had an exhibition on the Hubleys right after I started working at MoMA - check out http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/.../
hub_essay.html
for a terrific accompanying essay.
Interesting to note that Faith is still working and that one of her most recent narrators is her grandson, Sam.
Faith and Emily came to introduce many of the programs and they were way more interested in the children in the audience than the adults....loved that.
To briefly respond to m’s comments (and thanks, dutch, for yours on my part as well)—Like m and the others, I do certainly value the unimpeded play of this narrative, and I agree that children are piercingly aware of the adult world (much more than many adults would ever realize). What struck me about this, though, was the way the voices and the illustration also reveal (perhaps unconsciously) something … else. I’m drawn to the brief moment the children interact with the adult—I notice immediately the way the occupied adult cringes (repeatedly) at the interruption of noise as they march down the hall, the way the children edge out of the room backward. The little girl in me was transported right back there, to a childhood in which I was more than aware of the adult world, where adults were less than aware of my consciousness of it. And, as a child, I remember that always felt a little unsafe, empty, a little dark like all the rooms in the illustrations in this house.
loved how the voices sound just like our pnut when she babbles and dutch, before i read what you wrote further on i thought "oh, we need to give her a sibling!" that was wonderful.
i am loving the discussion in the comments- sarah, you illustrate perfectly the anxiety of many kids growing up in the 70's and 80's (so many reasons, not least of which was the anti-child attitude pervasive in our culture at that time), and how now as parents we view our own kid's childhoods in this strange juxtaposition of surrounding them with brands and licensed characters from tv and movies (dutch, perhaps your onset of age has erased your memory of gi joe, starwars, heman, barbie, strawberry shortcake, my little pony etc etc etc?) like we had as kids vs. near-smothering with our AP philosphies. which i think points to what m was saying- perhaps we are searching for a balance between the unlimited creativity of imaginative unsupervised play and the nurturing interactive play/education we try and have with our kids so they don't feel so alone and anxious like we did, and maybe still do to a certain extent.
ps- dutch the branding and oversaturation of licensed characters certainly is more prevalent now then 20 years ago, but it was our generation who first experienced the marketing revolution which targeted kids through movies and tv- much more so than our parents. i'm just saying we experienced that phenomena more than we'd like to admit. also, our characters probably weren't any more 'intelligent' or thought-provoking than the current crowd on tv. all in all, we were targeted by marketers and companies to make our parents buy us all sorts of crap, too. now, the marketing is much more sophisticated (and we are, too) so we tend to think our kids are subjected to it so much much worse than we were.
the odd thing is we have such a love/hate relationship with media- it comforted us and kept us company as kids, and we trust it, consider it a part of the family. but we resent it at the same time, for what it reminds us of (being home alone after school, etc) and now as adults b/c we know how bad it is to be stuck in front of it all day. i often think our generations greatest challenge is finding internal balance among so many extremes.
Thanks for the post. I too knew their work but not there name. Didn't they do one about the fisherman and the clam? Where the clam teaches about the fisherman why he shouldn't rip out all the plants.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3...h?v=31EUKVag-
J8
I loved that one growing up and hadn't thought about it in years.
Thanks for sharing this. I think I do remember this video. Regardless, "pretend" and toddler meltdowns are two of my favorite things about children. Well, I've never had my own toddler--but I just lose it when a little one goes off like that, as if the world were ending over a toy or snack or whatnot...
First off, thanks for sharing, I totally enjoyed watching both videos. I love animation anyway, especially the non-Disney variety, which seems too clean/pretty for me.
I agree w/pnutsmom, that there's a balance issue going on with the larger issue of child development, or at least that resonates with me. I find myself both appalled at the commercialism all around us - character everything - and also fascinated by the complex concepts that get boiled down in a way children can understand in the little Dora/Blues Clues cartoons. Stuff like Sponge Bob - eh, not so much. But many of them are "learning tools" that my own daughter has learned concepts from where I wasn't able to boil it down simply for her. I am this whirling dervish of complexity and detail, and always find myself digging a hole I can't get out of when I try to explain things to Hootie. There's some good in all of that.
Should it be my child's electronic babysitter? Of course not. Can it be a part of a broader experience and education? I think so. Within reason.
I could go on and on but fundamentally, my point is that balance is critical to almost any experience.
Thanks for posting this Dutch. We had this Cockaboody video on VHS when I was young (and it is now lost or long gone). I was thinking about this recently and thought I'd never see it again. I'll have to play it for my son sometime. Please continue to let us know when you find great things.
I was at the MOMa exhibition my freshman year of college- had the pleasure of seeing Faith and "Georgie" introduce a screening of these 2, among others. They feel extra-special now that I have a little one- for the same reasons Dutch mentioned, the naturalness of their conversation (and randomness). It's great to be reminded of them, and have a place to find them!
The whole sibling thing is interesting - I am very close to my sibs who are 7, 11, and 13 years younger than me. I really enjoyed them as kids and now as young adults. But I always wondered what it would be like to have a close sib like they did. My two are only 16 months apart and while the boy is only 5 months, I can see a really bond between him and his sister. He laughs at her antics and she tries to feed him and buckle him into his carseat, the same way she tries to buckle up her dolls. The first day he came home from the hospital, she gave him a kiss and it's been mostly roses since. The whole sibling thing is very very cool.
I love The Electric Company (my husband & son do, too), and I'm planning a big sit-down-and-watch later this week to check out all these videos, because I'm betting husband & son & I will all adore them. Work, alas, won't allow me to sit here and watch movies all night... plus there's no sound on this computer.
thankyou. im so glad i found your blog. i love this animation and i will be able to pass this and many other things you blog about to my daughter.
I'm not bringing something quite so art-house to the table, but I also suggest the Will Vinton videos. "The Adventures of Mark Twain" is my personal favorite, but there is a scene about the Devil and humanity that might be a little heavy for a toddler. Vinton's version of "The Little Prince" might be right on-target, though. I remember watching his claymation when I was a kid and being totally blown away. I show it to kids now and they ask, "What kind of cartoon is this?" I'm not sure they're available on YouTube but I know the DVDs are only $9 or so.
Delurking to say I think your site rules. Thanks to this post I spent a good portion of last night watching old Barbapapa cartoons on youtube. Ridiculous fun. Thanks.
My little boy loved both of the videos. Thanks
Don't be so negative, Dutch. Even children brought up in this age of pervasive branding come with imagination strong enough to resist hijacking. You don't have to IMAGINE preschoolers playing for even hours without reference to specific televised characters, because preschoolers like that exist and are everywhere...even if their parents aren't sheltering them from television. I've got a few of them myself!
Sarah said so well what I was feeling as I watched the film. I actually forgot that I knew this animated short. Still not quite sure why I still feel that looming dark feeling as I did when I was little. But it is a sweet familiar feeling none the less.
I think I just had my first acid trip watching these.
what a gift to watch this! an animation snob myself, my kids often harass me about cartoons they were never allowed to watch because of the sheer butchery of artwork and story line. they're coping!
Forgive me if someone has already said this, or if Dutch already posted this...I haven't read all of the comments...
According to http://
www.broadcastingcable.com...y=Breaking+News and to http://www.pbs.org/readytolearn/...n/
programs.html , Sesame Workshop is preparing a new version of The Electric Company that will hit the airwaves in Fall 2008.
Wonder if it will be any good???
The weird thing? Georgia Hubley still wears her hair like that.
Love these- it's neat to recognize a childhood favorite you don't even remember losing.
I don't think you're too hard on tv. It's right to resist the level of involvement the tv has in kids' lives now. It's not true that we were raised like that; no generation before this had tv in their cars, preschools, stores, etc.
The AAP just released another report finding that even the "educational" stuff isn't good for the under two crowd, nor is it as beneficial as people tend to think for k-6. What surprised me most was that 90% of kids aged 4 months-2yrs watch a "significant" amount.
I promise I'm not a hippie off-grid activist wierdo mom, just maybe a little neurotic about what to do with the kid's brain.
hey dutch...just droppin' by to say happy father's day!
Thanks for the Cockaboody recommendation! It is my daughter's first request every morning. We must have watched it a thousand times this weekend. Is it wrong that I giggle when Georgie gets really angry and talks in her deep angry voice?
I'm speechless...awed. I just watched both clips. The pure innocense, the realness, the way they were allowed to play without parental interference was just so beautiful.
Thank you, Dutch.
Shirl
What I loved about the clip was the affection of the girls for each other. Especially, the older girl has such sensitivity and deference to the younger girl.
How sweet..and clever and creative and pure.
thanks!!
Commenting by HaloScan
