These Dames Are Bananas : the History of Action for Children's

THESE DAMES ARE BANANAS: THE HISTORY OF ACTION FOR CHILDREN’S TELEVISION. 1969-1992 By NAEEMAH CLARK A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2002 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In completing a project such as this, there is no end to the number of “thank yous” that should be given. I will try to express my gratitude to those who have helped me immeasurably over the last five years of my graduate program. Inevitably some names will be forgotten, but I hope those people know that their assistance was not taken for granted. Foremost, I would like to thank my parents, Betty and Kenneth; my sisters Kacie and Kamilah; and the Dobbins family for their support and humor during the most trying times of academia. Friends such as Lori Boyer, Stephynie Chapman, Andrew Clark, Tony Fargo, Laura Johnson, Lisa Joniak, and Aleen Ratzlaff were constant sources of encouragement, laughter, and lunches. I also thank Shelley Kimball for being a great dissertation buddy and friend. J he staff of the graduate division in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, especially my cheerleader Jody Hedge, will never know how much their work means to graduate students going through the program. Also the staff members at the Action for Children’s Television archives in the Guttman Library at Harvard University are to be commended for their attention to detail and assistance. Finally, I would like to thank my doctoral committee (Kenneth Kidd. Sid Pactor, F. Leslie Smith. Julian Williams, and Milagros Rivera Sanchez) for their guidance and patience as I completed my dissertation 1,000 miles away from their offices. Lastly, my 11 dissertation chair, Bemell Tripp, deserves my eternal gratitude for her pursuit of excellence and unending efforts to make me a better researcher and, more importantly, storyteller. TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ;; ABSTRACT vi CHAPTERS 1 INTRODUCTION j Background Information about ACT 1 Methodology 5 Literature Review 7 Preliminary Outline Implications 43 Notes 44 2 THE FOUNDING MOTHERS 52 Children’s Television in the 1960 s 52 Lillian Ambrosino: The Brains Behind the Organization 54 Judith Chalfen: Local Renaissance Woman 59 Peggy Charren: A Bohemian, Not a Bolshevik 62 Evelyn Sarson: An English Woman Becomes an American Activist 65 The First Meeting Notes 59 3 GRASSROOTS ACTIVITIES 75 He Who Destroys a Good Book Destroys Reason Himself 79 Conference Rooms and Classrooms 82 These Dames Are Bananas 85 Advocacy and Motherhood 92 Funding a New Organization 95 ACT Takes on the FCC and Broadcasters 98 A New Climate . Self-Regulation 104 Broadcasters, Pull Up Your Socks 114 Notes 119 IV 4 REGULATORY ACTIVITIES 134 Notes 160 5 EXPANDING ACTIONS ]70 Disappointments and Changes 170 Symposia 177 Fundraising jg 3 ACT’s Project Expansion 35 Notes 102 6 DEREGULATORY ACTION 200 Background 201 Let the Marketplace Decide 204 Regulatory Action 209 Changes in Children’s Television 215 The End of Fowler 220 Notes 222 7 THE CHILDREN’S TELEVISION ACT AND THE END OF ACT 230 Congressional Action 231 The Children’s Television Act of 1988 235 The Children’s Television Act of 1990 245 The Process of Going Out of Business 249 Notes 266 8 CONCLUSION 280 A Winning Combination 280 Implications 290 Notes 292 REFERENCES 294 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH v Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy THESE DAMES ARE BANANAS: THE HISTORY OF ACTION FOR CHILDREN’S TELEVISION, 1969-1992 By Naeemah Clark May 2002 Chair: Bemell E. Tripp Major Department: Journalism and Mass Communication This dissertation uses oral history, archival research, and popular and trade publications from ACT’s time to tell a story about Action for Children’s Television (ACT). An advocacy group started by a group of mothers in Newton, Massachusetts, ACT changed the way the broadcaster industry and the federal government approached programming for children. This dissertation is a historical analysis of ACT, its dynamic leadership, and its evolving agendas toward the industry and its regulators. The women who founded ACT—Lillian Ambrosino, Judith Chalfen, Peggy Charren, and Evelyn Sarson —organized ACT to reduce commercial content and increase educational substance on children s television. The founders laid the groundwork for children’s television regulation in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s by presenting their case to the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Safety Product Commission, the United States Congress, and U.S. presidents from Nixon vi to Clinton. Further, ACT also forced broadcasters and advertisers to alter their work as a reaction to the threat of impending regulation. Policy-makers credit the women of ACT with shaping present-day children’s television programming and advertising regulations. These regulations, found in the Children’s Television Act of 1990, require broadcasters to serve the information and education needs of children and limit commercial content on programs specifically designed for a child audience. Although the group’s leadership changed over time, the organization always maintained the aims it set in the first few months of its existence. With these consistent goals, ACT exemplifies the impact advocacy can have on government and the television industry. vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Background Information about ACT “Captain Kangaroo, we want you!” This was the battle cry of a small group of mothers and their children as they marched in front of WHDH-TV, Boston’s CBS affiliate in 1970. The station had cut the hour-long Captain Kangaroo in half to show its locally produced Bozo the Clown program. This program replaced the Captain’s educational content with a clown who led a gaggle of children in games and advertised products during the show. 1 Action for Children’s Television (ACT) organized a “good tempered television demonstration” to encourage the station to restore Captain Kangaroo to a full hour. During the picket, each child carried two balloons, while mothers carried homemade signs reading “Don’t cut up Captain Kangaroo” or “Give us ALL the captain.” This simple protest encouraged the CBS station to restore the children’s 3 program to an hour. This picket was one of the first grassroots activities of Action for Children’s Television, a group of mothers who worked to improve the quality of children’s television. Lour friends from Newton, Massachusetts, founded ACT in 1968 out of their concern for the lack of choices for children, the abundance of violence and the over- commercialization their children were exposed to on television. These women—Lillian Ambrosino, Judith Chalfen, Peggy Charren, and Evelyn Sarson—conducted their own research on television programs, and it was not long before they realized that violence was just one 4 problem they wanted to address. Over the nearly 25 years of the organization, the group tried to influence government policy and broadcasting standards on such issues as commercials, educational content, and host-selling on children’s programs. 5 This study discusses ACT s efforts in implementing its strategies for fundraising, educating, and representing children by monitoring the programs, as well as the success of these efforts and the subsequent changes in children’s television that were related to ACT s strategies. By looking at these strategies, the research addresses community, business, and government reaction to the group and the dynamics of ACT’s leadership and the role these women played in the success of these strategies. This study reveals that ACT s success was determined not only by government and broadcasters’ acceptance of its positions, but also by the ACT’s leadership style. When ACT’s leadership became more centralized and focused on Peggy Charren, ACT’s efforts received more media and political attention because both the press and politicians could not ignore Charren’s tenacity. Before Action tor Children’s Television began its work on a national scale in 1971, children s television in the late 1960s was a colorful array of cartoon superheroes 6 and talking animals. On Saturday mornings, anvils and sticks of dynamite continued to foil the likes of Wile E. Coyote and 7 Sylvester the Cat. Faster than a speeding bullet, elementary school kids were glued to the programs featuring amazing and often violent super heroes such as Roger , Ramjet who introduced himself as “Daredevil, Flying Fool, and All Around Good Guy,” and the fast-swimming, crime-and pollution fighting Marine Boy and 8 Aquaman . The A. C. Nielsen television ratings company estimated that some 1 5.6 million children, 9 2 to 1 2, tuned in to these shows each Saturday morning. While children flocked to these programs, some adults watched the shows for research purposes. Television researcher S. I. Hayakawa found that because television was an all-consuming appliance children became alienated from their parents. He also found that children became easily bored with human conversation. Not only did the programs make children less gregarious, the shows also made them more violent in some 10 cases. In the 1960s, Albert Bandura found that children acted out violence they viewed on television. In an experiment, children viewed a television program where the actor exhibited violence toward a doll. After the program, the children were observed acting violently toward a doll given to them in the experiment. 11 However, commercial television did offer some educational programs such as Romper Room and Captain Kangaroo which taught , preschoolers letters and numbers. These programs were the 12 exception. Explaining their reluctance to air these programs, commercial broadcasters consistently cited the lack of advertising dollars that these programs generated. By and large, broadcasters were airing programs positively not to influence children, but to captivate large numbers with colors and music.

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