Parents, get ready. Your kids, who grew up on "Sesame Street" and "Barney" will soon be talking about lions named Theo, Cleo, Lionel and Leona.
PBS's newest educational series, "Between the Lions," debuts Monday and will be seen weekdays at 2 p.m. on Ch. 7 and 4:30 p.m. on Ch. 11. Along with some of the most charismatic puppets since Kermit and Miss Piggy, the show will (hopefully) help teach kids to read.The show "picks up where 'Sesame Street' leaves off," said executive producer Judy Stoia. "In other words, 'Sesame Street' teaches numbers and letters, and 'Between the Lions' is aimed at the next age group -- 4- to 7-year-old children who are just learning to read."
Of course, to get their attention the show has to be entertaining. And "Between" is certainly that.
Theo and Cleo are a couple of married lions who run a library where books, words and story characters come to life. And their offspring, 4-year-old Leona and 7-year-old Lionel, are themselves learning to read.
They're joined by Click the Mouse, the library's cyborg communications expert; Cliff Hanger, a comic book hero whose adventures include literacy skills; Tiger Words, a sports figure who plays with vowels and consonants; Martha Reader and the Vowelles, a group that sings vowel sounds; and the kings of Gawain's World, whose jousting matches produce words.
It's fast-paced, bright and entertaining as well as educational. And, unlike shows intended for toddlers ("Teletubbies" and "Barney" come to mind), "Between the Lions" is something parents will be able to watch with their children.
"We definitely set out to create a program that adults would enjoy watching with their kids," Stoia said. "We want this to be a program that parents and other caregivers will watch with their kids."
But that's a bonus. The real hope remains that "Between the Lions" both teaches kids to read and makes them want to read.
"It got started because of an urgent need to address the crisis in literacy among America's children," Stoia said. "So this program really is designed to help kids learn to read."
MERCHANDISING MANIA: Some critics of children's TV in general and PBS in particular are quick to point to the merchandising that accompanies those shows as proof of their evil intent. As if stuffed purple dinosaurs or Elmos somehow invalidate the worth of "Barney" and "Sesame Street."
But longtime children's TV advocate Peggy Charren -- the founder of Action for Children's Television who has been awarded an Emmy, a Peabody Award and a Congressional Medal of Freedom -- doesn't necessarily see merchandising as the root of all evil.
"I think that merchandising is not the problem. It's how much merchandising and how you do it," Charren said. "And the idea that books and videos and games, for example, are going to be part of what comes out of ('Between the Lions') creates new platforms for learning. When there's a terrific product that comes out of television, everybody loves it and nobody starts writing nasty stories, parents don't have a fit. It's when the stuff is junk that everybody gets upset.
"I got a little upset when I saw a Teletubby across the whole of a Madison Avenue bus. I thought that was a little strong. But I think having dolls based on characters in a program that parents like their kids to watch is sort of nifty. I mean, that's what you really want to go out and buy."
She admits she's not crazy about every product tied to every children's show, but Charren said most of the excesses are tied to commercial television, not PBS.
"It's a question of taste, of sense, of healthy and safe and not doing it wrong, and then it's OK. We, in this country, have an innumerable number of cases when it's done wrong, and it's very disturbing," she said. "But most disturbing is if the program is on the air just because of the commercial connection."
The prime example these days is the wildly popular "Pokémon," which was created specifically to sell the toys and games that accompany the animated TV show. And, while Charren declined to comment directly on the phenomenon, she made her feelings quite clear.
"The reason I got such a terrific reputation over 30 years is I very rarely talk about what I think of programs that I can't stand," Charren said. "The fact is that a library has books in it I don't like, either."
She said the key is having a range of TV offerings for children.
"I think that as long as there's enough alternatives and as long as we spend enough time . . . educating parents about why they should help their kids find the delicious stuff in addition to the junk -- that if we really do that right, we don't have to worry about the junk. Certainly, censorship is worse than any kind of junk on television," Charren said. "A little of that probably doesn't hurt anybody. It's that they watch too much of that. We need . . . alternatives, and we need public broadcasting to provide more of them."