M.S. Mason, Former TV Critic of the C.S. Monitor
Oh Where, Oh Why Has My Dust-bunny Gone?
I’ve just learned that my favorite kid’s show, "Dusty," has been swept from next season’s PBS schedule. Apparently, one among the "powers that be" has decided for all the rest of us that the hugely popular animated program has suddenly gone all "unsuitable" for family consumption.
For those of you who have no reason to watch children’s TV, Dusty is an endearingly goofy purple dust ball made up of bits of everything and everyone in the whole world – a fact that makes him tenderly sympathetic, unfailingly kind, and highly perceptive. But unlike so many pedagogical heroes of PBS programming, Dusty is amusing enough to make jaded teen-age baby-sitters (the "Sponge Bob" set) and well informed grandparents (the "Masterpiece" set) alike, giggle along with their young charges.
Balancing on his one foot, Dusty and his sidekick Spuds the Bunny have hopped cheeringly into the homes of nearly everyone who cares for young children. Each week the fluffy world traveler examines a different particle of himself, then heads to wherever that tidbit hails from. He jumps aboard his magical "Dusty-Pan" with Spuds to visit children far and near. The witty buddies have joined young snake charmers in Marakesh and even younger Incan guides in the high Andes of Peru, and learnt the subtle art of hula on the big Island in Hawaii, all animated, of course.
Extraordinarily inclusive, the show emphasizes individual uniqueness as well as cultural diversity. "Dusty" is so carefully researched and so well written it has garnered widespread critical praise and dozens of awards, including the highly prestigious Peabody and last year’s Television Critics’ Association award for children’s programming. I point this out because it is notoriously difficult to get TV critics to even watch "kid-vids," given how much television there is to cover out there in the new infinite airspace – from daytime to primetime. And as if all this praise weren’t enough, the toys and souvenirs spun off from the show have made the always-gasping PBS loads of extra change.
Anything this harmless, entertaining, and enlightening would seem to be safe from the paranoid machinations of Bushie witch hunters. But no. Because of just one episode, not yet distributed, the show’s future funding (this season is already in the bag) is in jeopardy. Marianne Fitzgibbons, the secretary of education has it out for Dusty and all his global pals.
The episode in question, like many in the series, was taken from real life. "Dusty’s" producers held a national contest encouraging kids to send in a home-made video explaining why he or she would like to appear as an animated character on "Dusty."
Eleven year-old Lizzie Goldberg-Jones won. This bright-eyed charmer explains that she is not herself a particular fan of "Dusty," having graduated to the acerbic humor of "Sponge Bob," but that her six year-old brother is a huge fan. Lizzie hopes that if Petey appears with his family on the show, kids at school will stop teasing her brother about his family.
The episode made from Petey and Lizzie’s story features a happy, well-adjusted family – brother and sister and their two dads. The episode does not "promote" any "lifestyle" or push any "agenda." The children’s two dads moved to Massachusetts so they could marry and provide the children with the legal protections marriage affords them. And they are introduced in a straightforward manner with no obvious intention to turn their situation into a social issue.
It’s hard to believe in this day and age that a legally married couple and their kids should be subjected to such official contempt. And it’s even harder to understand how this dismissive decision could be made without thought to its detrimental effect on Lizzie and Petey and other children like them who live in "different" family settings. These are real children we are talking about here, not their animated counterparts. Where does Marianne Fitzgibbons get off thinking she represents majority opinion? And while I’m at it, where does she get off thinking she represents Christian opinion? The swollen egotism of that assertion, with its consequent high-handed act of censorship, has made many a Christian shiver in her boots – including this one. There’s a mighty difference between self-righteous Puritanism and the teachings of Christ Jesus.
Look it up.
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