Episode 5

Haeny Yoon:

Welcome to Pop and Play, the podcast all about play in its many silly, serious, and powerful forms. I'm Haeny Yoon.

 

Nathan Holbert:

And I'm Nathan Holbert. And in this season we are talking all about young children's media. How do you make it? Why does it matter? What does participation look like? And all its challenges and limitations.

 

Haeny Yoon:

And today we're talking with Emily Reardon and Michael Preston from Sesame Street in the Joan Ganz Cooney Center.

 

Nathan Holbert:

I'm very excited about this conversation. Two brilliant, thoughtful designers and scholars. And Michael Preston, a friend of ours that we've had a chance to work with over the years. But before we dive into our guests, I think there's an important question I need to ask you.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yes. Shoot.

 

Nathan Holbert:

What is your favorite Sesame Street Muppet?

 

Haeny Yoon:

Very easy. I go with the Count. And the reason why I like the Count is I love the Count's fashion sense. Excellent cape, great eyebrows.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Love the cape.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, purple. I like purple as a color.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah, it's a good color.

 

Haeny Yoon:

And I spent a lot of time as a kid and as adult trying to perfect to the Count voice. One, ha, ha, ha.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Two, ha, ha, ha.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Anyway, just wanted to do that somewhere in life where other people actually hear and listen to me. So, there you go.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Perfect.

 

Haeny Yoon:

The Count rules. How about you?

 

Nathan Holbert:

I think it's a toss up for me between Grover and Cookie Monster.

 

Haeny Yoon:

[inaudible 00:01:33].

 

Nathan Holbert:

I know, I'm very basic. I'm very basic. When I was little, Cookie Monster was my favorite because I liked cookies, and Cookie was the silliest and craziest.

 

Haeny Yoon:

So you just did a literal translation.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Just essentially that's me. But I also just like how weird Grover is. I think he's just an oddball. He's sweet, he's kind, but he's just a weirdo, and I love that. Probably my favorite.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. Grover is very lovable.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Did you watch a lot of Sesame Street when you were growing up?

 

Haeny Yoon:

I did. I actually just watched a lot of TV. I like to say that TV raised me, basically. I watched basically everything when I was growing up. And partly it's because my mom worked at nights, she slept during the day. My dad went to work really early in the morning, came back right before dinner time, basically. And so, I had this wide swath of time where nobody was really monitoring my movements, and so I would watch Sesame Street and the cadre of things that came after that, like Electra Company and 3-2-1 Contact, and all of that. It was just a general stream of things that I watched and then it would move into game shows, soap operas. And basically [inaudible 00:02:46]-

 

Nathan Holbert:

The Price is Right.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yes. I definitely watched a lot of Sesame Street. How about you? Did you?

 

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah. When I was little I definitely remember watching it. And I have this memory in my head for some reason of my mom, who when I was really little, would stay home. Just for a year or two I remember. And her ironing or something, and me on the floor watching Sesame Street.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh, that's nice. Yeah. I didn't really watch it with other people. But you watched it with your mother?

 

Nathan Holbert:

I think so. This is interesting, because there's this famous area of research that emerged from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, which was the research arm of Sesame Street that talked about this idea called co-viewing. Which was that when you make children's media, you're not necessarily just making it for one child and a one screen, you're making it for people to watch and engage with the media together. It's not just passive, it's also the conversation that happens on the couch or in the room while you're watching. Obviously, this came out in a time where the way-

 

Haeny Yoon:

TV was the central place.

 

Nathan Holbert:

The way people consume media was very different than it was today. Yeah, I think I was watching it with my mom. I don't know.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, because I think back in the day television was basically the hub of family life. And it wasn't something that you all walk in your separate rooms and iPads and just watch your own thing. You watch it and come together around it. I think that co-viewing thing where parents and children are actually watching something together was a big thing that moved and mobilized children's media, or just media in general. I think about how they used to have all those primetime shows where it was something that adults and kids can come together and watch.

 

Nathan Holbert:

There still is that, right? There's definitely stuff that my kids and I all watch together, and my wife and I and all. But there's a larger range of kinds of ways we can engage and experience media.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah.

 

Nathan Holbert:

I think we need our experts though, really, to understand.

 

Haeny Yoon:

I think we do need our experts. Today, luckily, we have Emily and Michael here to talk about that. And I think to specifically talk about how we've moved... How digital tools and technology has shifted what media looks like for kids and for families. We have Emily Reardon with us, who is the Emmy award-winning user experience designer specializing in emergent technologies for playful learning at Sesame Workshop. She's also an adjunct professor at NYU's Graduate School of Education. More importantly though, she is a Virginia Wolf and she's fondue enthusiast.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Wow.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Never thought you would say those two things in one sentence, but now it's done.

 

Nathan Holbert:

We also have Michael Preston, who's senior vice president and executive director of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, who also works at the intersection of tech, media, and children's learning. He is an alum of this year's Teachers College. He leads innovation and educational technology that centers the well-being, agency, and learning of young people. And important to his work are issues of access, equity, and social responsibility in media and technology design. He has been a longtime friend and collaborator for our play initiatives throughout the city, so we're really excited to have him here. And Emily here as well.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Great. Let's get to it.

Welcome, everybody. We're very excited to have two special friends and guests, and also some Muppets on the table with us. Today we have Emily Reardon. Hi, Emily.

 

Emily Reardon:

Hi.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Tell us your favorite Muppet.

 

Emily Reardon:

I think it's Cookie Monster.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Nice. Solid choice.

 

Nathan Holbert:

That's an excellent choice. When I was put on the spot a bit ago about my favorite, I really struggled between Grover and Cookie Monster.

 

Emily Reardon:

He's exuberant and his grammatical patterns and his [inaudible 00:06:44] lines are all awesome.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah.

 

Emily Reardon:

It's just a winner, winner, winner.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. And I love that he's unapologetically [inaudible 00:06:51] and messy. It's great. Yes.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah, very straight forward.

 

Emily Reardon:

Friend to all.

 

Haeny Yoon:

[inaudible 00:06:55] A friend to all. And we also have Michael Preston with us.

 

Michael Preston:

Hi.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Hi. Tell us your favorite Muppet.

 

Michael Preston:

That's such a hard choice. It's like, which of your kids is your favorite? It's hard to say.

 

Haeny Yoon:

But you know you all have it.

 

Michael Preston:

Yeah, we just try not to talk about it. I am a Grover fan, having been born in a certain era, Grover is the man. But I had a Bert puppet as a kid. I still have, actually. Hand puppet, very plasticky head. Hard to move the mouth.

 

Emily Reardon:

Totally had the same one.

 

Michael Preston:

Very sweaty to have your hand in there, but he was my Bert.

 

Nathan Holbert:

I like that.

 

Michael Preston:

Yeah. I heard actually somebody say that there was some research with kids and they wanted to know whether The Muppets were kids or adults. And they said that there were two Muppets that were adults. Do you know which two?

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Oh, interesting.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Bert. Ernie and Bert.

 

Michael Preston:

No, it was Grover and Cookie.

 

Haeny Yoon:

What?

 

Emily Reardon:

Why?

 

Michael Preston:

Because they had jobs.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Well, we're super excited to have you both here to talk about children's media and your work in it. Before we get started in the hard questions, we like to start with a game, just get us into the spirit here. We've come up with a game where we are going to be guessing the Sesame Street song. I'm going to read some lyrics, and your task is... And you can discuss together. If you just know, you're welcome to shout it out. We're all winners here, so we're not going to be keeping track of points. But if you've got it, name the song and tell us who sings it. I will try to start a little on the easy side here. I have here a sneaker that's tattered and worn-

 

Emily Reardon:

I love trash.

 

Nathan Holbert:

... it's all full of holes and the laces are torn.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh, my God, Emily just got that right away.

 

Emily Reardon:

How would you not know that?

 

Michael Preston:

We do have a ringer here.

 

Nathan Holbert:

I had a feeling. Tried to start easy.

 

Emily Reardon:

It literally describes trash in the first word.

 

Nathan Holbert:

That's true. That's true. This might be too easy. We'll find out. Okay, next song. Yes, I travel under the sea, but I don't think I'd like to live there. I may stay for a day-

 

Emily Reardon:

I don't want to live on the moon.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh, my God.

 

Emily Reardon:

How are you [inaudible 00:09:10] this? [inaudible 00:09:11] giving me space.

 

Nathan Holbert:

I'm just a little slow. Good thing we don't have a buzzer, just be buzzing [inaudible 00:09:18].

 

Emily Reardon:

Not bad. We're probably expert level.

 

Nathan Holbert:

I would think so.

 

Emily Reardon:

Yeah, you made this too easy.

 

Nathan Holbert:

These are too easy. These are too easy. Okay, the next one. The mood exciting, the music loud. Me just a part of that happy crowd. My feet go crazy across the floor, but something made my sweetie not be there no more.

 

Emily Reardon:

Me left my cookie at the disco.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh, my [inaudible 00:09:41] God.

 

Michael Preston:

That's deep. I don't know that one.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Nailed it.

 

Michael Preston:

With the grammar, it was obvious who was singing.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. I was hoping, since you're a big Cookie Monster fan.

 

Emily Reardon:

I know. I know. I was giving it a little time because there's a couple other weird ones that he sings that are... I don't know. I needed the extra data to fork off.

 

Nathan Holbert:

That was too easy. Too easy.

 

Haeny Yoon:

It was too easy, because Emily here is a pro. Well, thank you for playing that with us, that was [inaudible 00:10:09]-

 

Emily Reardon:

... to start out playing a game.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, it was really, really fun. Okay, we're going to start. Part of what we're talking about, and we've been talking to kids and designers and writers and researchers just about media and play and children and their wellbeing. We thought, what two better people to come in and talk to us about that than you two, who have done a lot of things around children's media and wellbeing and play. We wanted to start off by just asking you to reach into the recesses of your own childhood and just talk about what you used to watch when you were a kid. And maybe that does include Sesame Street.

 

Emily Reardon:

I did watch Sesame growing up. And I actually been thinking about this one a lot. Because when you have kids you're like, well, what would they be missing? And the two that I really... A direction I really liked was Murder She Wrote and Golden Girls. Which now I realize is so independent women. Really. And then Inspector Gadget, also had Penny.

 

Haeny Yoon:

I love Inspector Gadget. I loved Penny.

 

Emily Reardon:

Agatha Christie, women writers. I was into mysteries.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Very mystery. Yeah.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. Oh, I love that. How about you Michael?

 

Michael Preston:

I watched the trifecta of Sesame, Electric Company, and Zoom. I remember that was core TV for me.

 

Nathan Holbert:

What's Zoom?

 

Michael Preston:

You don't know what Zoom is?

 

Emily Reardon:

I don't know what Zoom is.

 

Nathan Holbert:

I remember Electric Company.

 

Michael Preston:

Zoom was amazing. Zoom was like, GBH I think produced.

 

Emily Reardon:

Yep.

 

Michael Preston:

And it was a kid... It was almost like a step-wise, getting a little older through those shows. Sesame was for the little kids, Electric Company was next, and then Zoom was a little bit more broad. It had a cool science segment. It had a segment called the Bloodhound Gang, where Teenager detectives-

 

Emily Reardon:

No, that's 3-2-1 Contact.

 

Michael Preston:

Oh, did I say Zoom? Oh, I'm sorry. Zoom I confuse. I really watched all four of them, but now I don't know [inaudible 00:12:05]-

 

Haeny Yoon:

Because those actually came on one after the other.

 

Michael Preston:

They did. You could just sit down and watch, as one does [inaudible 00:12:11] today. But 3-2-1 Contact was awesome.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Totally.

 

Michael Preston:

The Bloodhound Gang, of course. Also, do you all remember that there was a light and sound, a science-y thing where they set up the KISS concert? There was a whole great segment.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Oh, no.

 

Haeny Yoon:

No.

 

Michael Preston:

I was introduced to KISS at an early age.

 

Haeny Yoon:

From Zoom?

 

Michael Preston:

From 3-2-1 Contact.

 

Haeny Yoon:

No way.

 

Michael Preston:

Yeah. That was very cool.

 

Haeny Yoon:

I loved Electric Company.

 

Emily Reardon:

Electric Company had greatness. And it also was re... I worked on it. It relaunched with Mos Def and Common.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh, no way.

 

Emily Reardon:

Yeah. Beatboxers, it was really good.

 

Haeny Yoon:

I can see that. I [inaudible 00:12:51] see that on YouTube or something.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Wow. Those are amazing. And that's nice little walk down memory lane there, even if our brains have created some strange-

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, fake memories.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Well, I wonder if you guys just could talk a little bit about what is happening in children's media that's driving your work today. How are the different trends and the different movements and the way we encounter media, the kinds of media that young people engage with, what are some of those questions that are really driving the production and also the research of that work for you each?

 

Emily Reardon:

There's so much going on in the field right now, so it's a pretty exciting time. It feels like a second start of Sesame, in some respects, that a lot of the similar things that were happening in '69 are now happening now with AI. And there was an anxiety about TV in '69, and there's an anxiety about AI, and screens and tech. And parenting and caregiving, and schools and tech, and data privacy. And there's just so much similar, where's this goingness?

 

Haeny Yoon:

Like hyper panics?

 

Emily Reardon:

Yeah. And then there's also so much going on in the world that needs help. And education and coming out of COVID, and mental health stuff. There's just so much fertile greatness in some ways because there are so many problems. My work, I always try and move towards play and connection. I'm really motivated by work that breaks the one kid one screen isolation. And how can we use screens to bring people together, or make people feel close?

I'm also really interested in tangible play. And a lot of research is about old play patterns and traditional play. And how can we use what we know is nourishing about that stuff? And the motivation and what kids like about and find appealing about technology, how can we merge those two? I do a lot of things that have to do with augmented reality and letter blocks, or just fusing those two things. Like the old play patterns that we know are enriching for literacy or for social play or empathy with the new tech that's coming through.

 

Michael Preston:

See, this is a perfect setup for me to talk too, I run the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame. We're of Sesame. We're named after Joan, who started Sesame Street and Children's Television Workshop in the 1960s with our co-founder Lloyd Morissette. What we get to do is basically translate all of the ideas that Emily was just sharing, the values and the methods that drive Sesame, and try to bridge that. Take 50 something years of innovative practice out into the wider world outside of Sesame and figure out ways to make that seem not totally too far afield from what today's tech and media producers do for kids.

If you're not Sesame, how do you get oriented in that way, and what are the things you can pick up and do that might be something we just already do because we have inherited this history? But per what Emily said too, the moment, it constantly challenges that notion of in 1966 TVs were in 95% of homes. Today's emerging media is so different now and so pervasive and fragmented in your pocket. And so, how do you ask those same questions? It's really fun and interesting challenge. There's so much opportunity.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. I am thinking about that a lot, about how back in the day it was really television that mobilized a lot of our watching and our engagement with media. And I think about my niece who's eight, and my nephew who's five, and their engagement with media is very, very different. I'm wondering if as a follow-up you could talk a little bit about what's different in the landscape. How are children encountering this media now, and what should we be paying attention to as we're thinking about that?

 

Michael Preston:

It's interesting that you mentioned the age difference, right? It's a small age difference, but it's a really big development difference.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Totally.

 

Michael Preston:

I also think of how it's not just kids. We know what the natural progression of child development is, but then five-year-olds today and five-year-olds of several years from now probably have different media experiences. And so, what are the patterns and what are the experiences? Or their orientations to media or the things they take away, how will that be different in these new ways of interacting? We're all imagining a future when we're not holding devices in our hand, but are just like... I love it when you go into... You're with a kid who goes into a room and just shouts out a question expecting it to be answered because they're used to having some-

 

Nathan Holbert:

Speaker somewhere.

 

Michael Preston:

Somebody's listening in the wing to be at their beck and call. The stuff that Emily and her team do about imaginings for even technologies that aren't quite here yet I think are super cool.

 

Emily Reardon:

I have been a producer of stuff for the TV show, so animation and live action animation mix. And I'm experience designer. And I think the big difference is what was happening when it was just TV, or when you're just working on TV, is that the context is assumed. You're basically going to be watching TV, and it's probably at home. You didn't have to think of you're designing a thing rather than experience. Now, almost all of the decisions you make are based on what's the context of who's there, where are they, what's the device?

 

Michael Preston:

How much time do you have?

 

Emily Reardon:

Yeah. And that slipperiness of we're designing for everything from one second to three hours, and also trying to get you from one thing to the next. Maybe we just want something about empathy, and then later, two days later you're playing with your stuffed animal. And can it come through? It's not even adjacent.

 

Haeny Yoon:

That's such a great point. Because I like that point about how when you're watching TV you just assume it's going to take place in a specific space. You could imagine it. You could imagine the people around-

 

Emily Reardon:

In the early 70s. Yeah. Now it's a little different.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, I could be eating chicken wings at Buffalo Wild Wings and watching it on my iPad.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Watching Sesame Street.

 

Emily Reardon:

Or in a plane, or your car broke down.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, exactly.

 

Emily Reardon:

Someone's having a tantrum.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah.

 

Nathan Holbert:

It's like a Mad Libs story.

 

Emily Reardon:

Where are you?

 

Nathan Holbert:

Probably is. But what's interesting there too though, some of the earliest work that came out of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center was around co-viewing. Which was actually breaking the assumption of what people thought TV viewing might be like, and recognizing that it was more of a communal experience than just an individual. It's fascinating to talk about how, oh, we could assume certain contexts for viewing. But your organization never really has made that assumption, you've always tied together the things that are produced and made to research about what's actually happening in those homes and spaces. So you're still doing that, right? It's just-

 

Emily Reardon:

Oh, totally.

 

Nathan Holbert:

... bringing it up to date in a new way.

 

Michael Preston:

But how you achieve... If co-viewing as originally conceived on a couch or whatever, is no longer as likely. How do you get there? Or, what are the specific kinds of experiences, interactions you want with the current format of things? You said you want people to feel connected, to feel together. How do we get there?

 

Emily Reardon:

And adults to get back to play. The human brain evolved to learn through social interaction, and it's somewhat arbitrary that kids are just spending a lot of time... If you're eight, you spend a lot of time with eight year olds. I think in some ways any mixed age play is super important and harder and harder to find sometimes.

A lot of my work focuses on daily life. This idea that parenting is relentless and heartbreaking and a slog, and your kid's making an X on the ground and you have to get home. And is there a game for that? And what's the goal there? The goal is to not have a game for it later. You can teach a grownup how to be more playful and get play to be the thing that solves and brings you closer to your kid, or solves your problems in daily life, like tooth brushing or shoes or bedtime, or anything.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Is there a resource called, is there a game for that?

 

Emily Reardon:

Yeah. No, we made this game. We made this game, it's called Sesame Street Family Play. It's an app for parents. The design is just gorgeous. It's very graphic and beautiful and fun and slick and playful. But you start by saying where you are. You could be anywhere. You could be at a restaurant, you could be in the tub, you could be on an airplane, you could be on a park bench. And it's a system of just drilling down and figuring out where you are. Then you say who's with you. You could be alone, you could be with one kid, you could be with 35 kids. And then there's some questions about context. Do you have sugar packets? Do you have a barf bag? Do you have three bars of soap? Do you have two bars of soap?

 

Michael Preston:

Well, I only have barf bag.

 

Emily Reardon:

From the airplane. From the airplane. There's so many good ones in the airplane. And then it's like, "I have a game for you," and the Muppet suggests the game. It's just basically this dynamic [inaudible 00:22:22] database of... Yeah. And I've used it when the car broke down, I've used it with my kid on the X. On the sidewalk, 10 blocks from home. And one of our favorite things is that we got a horrible review, that's our favorite review. Which is like, "This is not what you think it is, it's just play for grownups. But it did fix my problem," or whatever. And there's just hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of games and they all reconfigure, and it's super dynamic. And then, ideally you don't even need to do that anymore because you're thinking of games in your own head.

 

Nathan Holbert:

You start to see the world in a different way.

 

Emily Reardon:

We're coaching these parents to... I don't know.

 

Haeny Yoon:

It is play [inaudible 00:23:04]-

 

Emily Reardon:

... through the day. Yeah, get yourself through the day.

 

Michael Preston:

Did anybody assess the impact on parents' social emotional experience of-

 

Emily Reardon:

No, but for me it was strong. Help me.

 

Michael Preston:

N of one.

 

Emily Reardon:

No, I'm sure there's [inaudible 00:23:18] lots. I'm sure there's lots.

 

Nathan Holbert:

It definitely reminds me of two things. It reminds me of either an episode of The Office or something, where it's just people that are bored in an office are trying to figure out how to make up a game. And it also reminds me of, what cocktail can I make? [inaudible 00:23:33] version.

 

Emily Reardon:

Just random stuff.

 

Nathan Holbert:

The Muppet version of that.

 

Emily Reardon:

Yeah. It's like I'm making lemonade out of absurd stuff.

 

Nathan Holbert:

You were talking a lot about the new technologies and the ways in which we're thinking differently about how screens can contribute to collaboration and social interaction. I'm wondering if there's anything from the old days of how you thought about Sesame or how Sesame was produced, or how Sesame was encountered by young people. Or maybe just children's programming more broadly. Is there anything from those previous eras of children's media that you miss or would like to bring back into the way in which we all engage?

 

Emily Reardon:

It's really hard to find slow and soulful and sweetness stuff. There is so much out there, but it's not as easy to find. I think we knew Mr. Rogers, if your kid was just in a frazzle zone, you could put it on and it would be pretty calming. And I think it's out there. There's such incredible, incredible work out there, but it's just harder for it to get noticed or chosen by kids. It's in a lot of competition.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, I definitely agree with that. Because I think even as an adult I find that my attention span has greatly diminished. And I realize, I think I was telling you this, that it's so much harder for me to watch a movie now. Because I'm like, oh, I'll watch this 20 minute episode. Or I'll watch 10 episodes of this season that's probably going to be 10 hours of my life, but I can't sit through a one and a half hour movie. There's something strange about that dynamic. And I also do think that there's something that I miss in that process of what you're saying, the moving, soulful kinds of things.

 

Emily Reardon:

There's a lot of snarky, frazzled, fast, quippy.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Fast, yeah.

 

Emily Reardon:

Or-

 

Haeny Yoon:

Because that's [inaudible 00:25:30]-

 

Emily Reardon:

Somewhat meaningless at the end of it all. But there is so much good stuff. And it's just like, even I'm fairly deeply in this topic and it takes me a lot to find it.

 

Nathan Holbert:

There's probably a reason that Bob Ross became all the rage for Gen Z, right? That slowness, that calmness is actually really desirable.

 

Emily Reardon:

I think good examples are Daniel Tiger, Avatar. I literally adore a program that we made that I think is so undervalued called Ghost Rider. It's the reboot. It's on Apple TV right now. It is incredible. It's such a good show. Baby-Sitters Club I think is another one.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh, I love that. We love that.

 

Nathan Holbert:

We did an episode on Baby-Sitters Club.

 

Haeny Yoon:

I know.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Which [inaudible 00:26:12]-

 

Emily Reardon:

That was gold. That show is terrific.

 

Haeny Yoon:

I will add, because you talked about Ghost, I love City of Ghosts, which is this animated show on Netflix. It was one season, it was six episodes. And it's basically these kids that are modern day ghostbusters, they're like a ghost club. But then they go and they don't necessarily destroy ghosts, they make friends with them and conversations with them. And they do it to... Think about gentrification in LA. It's such a well done... Oh, my God, they're talking about a real social issue, but then they're doing it with this ghost framing that I think is just very appealing to adults and kids. And it's very sweet. And it just makes you think.

 

Emily Reardon:

I'm definitely going to watch.

 

Haeny Yoon:

After I finished an episode I'm like, I have lots of questions now.

 

Michael Preston:

But you just said it appeals to adults and kids, and it makes you think. I think that so much of today's media is none of those things. That there's so much of kids media that I see now. My own children are older and effectively not in any kid zone. But if you compare Sesame early episodes to today, the pace is so slow, the skits are so long. And it was normal then. And that attention spans and ability to focus was just different. Now, the sort of... I don't know, space race to capture more time, more eyeballs is so fine-tuned to what's possible in this very competitive space. You have to compete against... In the kids media space you have to compete against everything. YouTube clips themselves are named by duration, so that a parent... They're imagining the parent is queuing something up in YouTube for their kid.

And they're like, oh, 30 minutes or 60 minutes? I need 60 minutes because I'm going to take a shower and make a meal. And so they just know that's going to happen. It's very much instrumental for some other purpose that's not enriching the child necessarily, it's more like you've glued a media experience into the head of the kid for a period of time. And it's very hypnotic. It's a different thing.

And it's not what Emily was describing, it's a slow and meaningful experience where thoughts are happening, questions, things that might imply something you would go off and do separately from TV. Joan herself would say the most interesting thing that happens in a Sesame Street experience is when the TV gets turned off. What happens? What does the kid do, or what is the conversation they have with their family or caregiver?

 

Emily Reardon:

Yeah, I think about that designing all the time, actually. A really good way of designing...

 

Haeny Yoon:

What's aftermath of watching.

 

Emily Reardon:

Yeah, what's the goal?

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. I think the fact that you take children as a serious audience is-

 

Nathan Holbert:

Not just as consumers.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, not just as consumers.

 

Nathan Holbert:

That's huge.

 

Haeny Yoon:

A serious audience. A serious intellectual that wants to think about these ideas, that wants to think about empathy, that wants to think about the social conditions that are happening. I think that is mind-blowing for some people, which I think is really interesting. And I think back to even something like Sesame Street, how children and adults turn to it in moments of trauma or difficulty. I think about how during the pandemic this resurgence of Sesame Street clips got us through it. Or post-pandemic and we are emerging and for some reason that helps us. Or the election, and how Sesame Street finds a place again.

I'm just wondering, why do you think that Sesame Street has this thing that returns to the ecosystem when it's trying to think about these ideas of well-being or these ideas of trauma or difficulty, why it still provides a space for us to think through those things? What is the secret sauce? What is the magic?

 

Emily Reardon:

I think it's this idea of belonging, and the sweetness. And again, it's that little bit of pacing. Nothing's going too fast, everything's coming at the right time. It's all going to be... We're all going to get through these crazy hard things. And dimensional on some level, they amplify their one quality: hunger and craziness, or grouchiness or nerdiness, or funny or naiveness. And there's something soothing and understandable about that. But this idea of belonging matters. I think that makes people really comfortable, and adults feel they still belong.

 

Nathan Holbert:

It's not called The Muppets, that was a thing, but it's called Sesame Street. The name of a place where people get to be and belong and interact together. That community piece I feel like feels so core to even the name of the show, let alone how it's-

 

Emily Reardon:

And a lot of what was going on in the world was a broken belongingness. Kids weren't going to school, or this fractured political craziness. Or just not being able to go outside and be with your friends, or to the playground or whatever. This feeling of connection and belonging because their specialness.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. And related to that, that you could go back to something that you know that's predictable, that feels comfortable, that feels safe.

 

Emily Reardon:

It's always there.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah.

 

Michael Preston:

The neighborhood.

 

Haeny Yoon:

The neighborhood.

 

Michael Preston:

I was going to say it's the language of feelings. That where else can you better learn what it means to feel scared or upset, or anything that doesn't feel good? Where it's spoken out loud, it's demonstrated, and you see how people or Muppets cope with those feelings, how they're supported. It normalizes it. And maybe that's happening at home, but maybe it's not. That might be a kid's first exposure to those things.

 

Emily Reardon:

I think you and I are saying the same thing. Belonging is when you feel like you can do everything. You are yours. You don't have to not feel the hard feelings, or whatever. Yeah.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. God forbid you could have those big feelings.

 

Emily Reardon:

[inaudible 00:32:06] a so-do-will.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. And I think sometimes kids are told not to have them. And that this is a space where you can mediate and facilitate those feelings.

 

Michael Preston:

Or the opposite of media that tries to distract you from the things you're feeling. Because a lot of our attention-grabbing moments are taking us away from the moment or from each other. What if the media were to recenter you on where you are, how you're feeling, and whom you're with?

 

Emily Reardon:

And that's actually something that was learned really early on in the Sesame research. Sesame's also undervalued for its crazy research evolution skills. It redefined the whole entire field. But one of the things they found early on was that when the curricular information did not align with the highest emotional arc, it was not learned as well as when the emotion was layered-

 

Nathan Holbert:

Brought into.

 

Emily Reardon:

Yeah. They rewrote a lot based on this idea of affect and affective learning. And we learn things better when we're emotionally invested.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Just that emotions are part of cognition, not a separate thing, which has been incorrectly understood for many decades.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Well, thank you. I love that. Our last question is, what's popping? We like to think about, this is a podcast on planned pop culture. And one of the things that we like to ask our guests is, what is in the pop culture landscape that is exciting you right now that you want other people to check out? It doesn't have to relate to Sesame Street, you don't have to do all things Sesame or Murder She Wrote or Golden Girls, but it could be.

 

Emily Reardon:

Loyal.

 

Michael Preston:

I'm so out of touch with what's current.

 

Haeny Yoon:

It could be a book.

 

Michael Preston:

I'm so old guy.

 

Haeny Yoon:

It could be new to you.

 

Emily Reardon:

Something you like.

 

Michael Preston:

I just saw a trailer for a brand new Star Wars series called...

 

Nathan Holbert:

Rocket?

 

Michael Preston:

It's called Skeleton Crew.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Skeleton Crew.

 

Michael Preston:

Oh, I was [inaudible 00:34:05]-

 

Nathan Holbert:

Is that what you're talking about?

 

Michael Preston:

... Skeleton Crew.

 

Nathan Holbert:

With the kids?

 

Michael Preston:

The kids, yeah. Again, how many Star Wars stories could possibly be told at this point? Apparently you can tell a new one, but everybody's kids. And I don't know anything more than what I just told you, but that's pretty awesome. I'm excited for that. Whatever it is. I'll watch it. I'm going to watch it.

 

Emily Reardon:

For me, I'm still so in the market for looking for that really hard to find, really hard to make well done thing which appeals to a wide swathe of people. It works for my little kid, it works for my dad, who's over 80. And there's just some gems that when you find them I think... I mentioned Ghost Rider, I think is one. America's Got Talent just totally works. It has a soulfulness and an emotionality that is really just sweet. It's so bonding for a family.

I also adore the writer Stuart Gibbs, who has a bunch of different series for kids. And he doesn't make any of his books into shows at all, or movies or anything like that. But the audio books are totally great. And my favorite series by far is the Charlie Thorne series. And it's about a girl. A computer programmer girl who is super smarter than Einstein, but that's all researching science and physics and chemistry. And then her half brother is in the CIA. And it's so awesome. My dad loves it. My kids love it. Literally, [inaudible 00:35:36] it's my favorite book.

 

Haeny Yoon:

... all read it together.

 

Emily Reardon:

Yeah.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Oh, that's so great.

 

Emily Reardon:

And we reread it. I've probably read them hundreds of times.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Wow.

 

Haeny Yoon:

That's so great.

 

Nathan Holbert:

Cool. That was awesome. I had such a great time talking to you both. Thank you very much, Emily and Michael, for being here, hanging out with us, and thinking about children's media. It was really enlightening.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, totally.

 

Emily Reardon:

Our pleasure.

 

Michael Preston:

Thank you.

 

Haeny Yoon:

It was so fun. Thank you.

 

Nathan Holbert:

It was so fun.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Pop and Play is produced by Haeny Yoon, Nathan Holbert, Lalitha Vasudevan, Billy Collins, and Joe Riina-Ferrie at Teachers College, Columbia University with the Digital Futures Institute. This episode was edited by Billy Collins and Adrienne Vitullo.

 

Nathan Holbert:

For a transcript and to learn more, visit tc.edu/popandplay. Our music is selections from Leafeaters by Podington Bear, used here under a creative commons attribution non-commercial license. Blake Danzig and Meier Clark provided our social media and outreach support. Follow @popandplaypod on Instagram. Thank you to Abu Abdelbagi for support with our website and additional materials.

 

Haeny Yoon:

Do you teach about play and pop culture? Check out our topics collection organized for the classroom. And of course, don't forget to share Pop and Play with a friend or colleague.

 

Nathan Holbert:

And thanks for listening.