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A pretty in depth article about the prevalence of music and music videos for preschoolers. It includes information on Jack’s Big Music Show, Laurie Berkner, and They Might Be Giants

Noggin keeps music videos simple, with the artist performing on a brightly colored set with only a few props. That keeps kids from falling into the zombie-on-the-couch mode, said Jen Twomey, executive in charge of production and development for Nickelodeon Preschool Television. “When you’re watching an animated story, it’s a much more passive experience,” she said. “With the artist singing and dancing, it becomes a much more active experience for the kids too.”

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For those of you looking for Go Diego Go or Backyardigans apparel, the Brown Shoe Co. will have shoes and boots featuring the characters. The line will be available in July during back-to-school season.

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This year marks the 10th anniversary of the premier of Blue’s Clues. Nickelodeon is doing several things to celebrate:

• Primetime Movie: On September 10th at 7:00pm a Blue’s Clues movie titled Meet Blue’s Baby Brother will air. In the movie Blue’s brother Sprinkles. The movie will feature a melding of Joe & Blue with the puppets from Blue’s Room.
• New Season: Nick Jr. is also commencing production on a 10 episode season of Blue’s Room.

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This week Playhouse Disney is debuting a new interstitial called Feeling Good with JoJo. JoJo and Goliath will lead preschoolers through various stretches and poses in the music filled shorts. Many of the poses are designed to overcome preschool-age fears.

The interstitials will air weekdays at 8:55am this week, before moving to their regular timeslots at 7:55am and 10:25am.
JoJo’s Circus, television

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DIC Entertainment will begin providing CBS’s Secret Saturday Morning Slumber Party, replacing Nick Jr., which had been providing a two hour Saturday morning programming block to CBS.

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Via Blogging Baby it appears that Elmo will be appearing on Friday night’s episode of Emeril Live. Elmo will be Emeril’s sous chef. The show will air November 4th at 8:00pm on the Food Network, with a repeat showing later at midnight.

This is a big week for Elmo. Earlier in the month it was announced he wouldn’t be included in the Hot Dozen toy list put out by Toy Wishes magazine. However, Fisher-Price announced the roll-out of Know your Name Elmo. This new edition comes with a USB cable so that parents can program Elmo to know their children’s name.

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There’s good news for fans of Higglytown Heroes. This appeared in an October 12th article in SF Weekly about Wild Brain Inc. (the Higglytown production company):

A year and a half later, Higglytown Heroes premiered on the Disney Channel. Higglytown now draws an audience of tens of millions of preschoolers and their parents every day, and attracts big-name guest voices such as Sharon Stone, Susan Lucci, and Smokey Robinson. Disney recently picked up another 26 half-hour episodes, bringing the total to 52, and began production on a new pilot with Wild Brain. Higglytown is the rare show that entertains and teaches young children, without talking down to them or boring their parents to tears. Wild Brain may not be steeped in traditional kids’ television, but that’s part of Higglytown’s charm.”It doesn’t feel tired — it’s not the same old, ‘Let’s write the birthday party script,’” says Kanter, now a senior VP at the Disney Channel. “[The Wild Brain team members] are really fun, smart, interesting guys who have a definite, slightly offbeat sense of the world and what’s funny.”

The “Higs,” as they are known in our house, have been a part of our morning routine since the show premeiered. However, as happens with most of the preschool shows it has become stale. It isn’t so much the show itself, it’s that a limited number of episodes get shown so often that even the kids get bored. However, with 52 episodes, it will be possible to go a couple months without repeats. I don’t have any information yet on when the shows will debut.

Article Link: The Little Animation Company That COULD
More: Wild Brain Inc.

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My 2 year old daughter is a huge fan of Lazy Town, and she’s been calling herself Sportacus for the last two months. Now she can get the costume. Nickelodeon is selling costumes of Lazy Town characters Sportacus and Stephanie.

The costumes are supposed to be available at Nick.com but they don’t appear to be there. Amazon does have product pages with pictures set-up for both Sportacus and Stephanie , but neither are available. Putting aside the irony of a healthy Sportacus going on a quest for candy, the costume is pretty cute.

Fortunately for us, my little girl has already decided to be a horse this year.

Tags: lazy town | nickelodeon | halloween

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I’m not an expert in developmental psychology. I’m not an expert in television or education either. I am Bill Ferris, the father of a 4 year old son and two year old daughter. As such, I have a pretty good feel for what my kids enjoy, and what parents can tolerate when it comes to TV for preschoolers.

TV for Tots aims to provide information to parents about the TV shows your kids love. The site will provide information on the actual programs, specials, new shows, and programming changes. We’ll have information from Noggin, Nick Jr., Playhouse Disney, and PBS Kids. The site will also have information from the producers of the various shows as well.

Updates probably won’t be daily, but should occur several times per week - or at least as frequently as the news warrants it.

While I’ve been blogging about a very different subject for the last 4 years (The Detroit Tigers), this is my first foray into writing about this topic.

If you have any questions, I can be reached via email bill @ TVforTots.com

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