As there seems to be some puzzle place-related questions on here... I might as well ask one... Now that KCET is a PBS member station again and the lancits are still in business... What do you think a revival of the puzzle place would be like? what would the characters be like? and what issues would they tackle?
Oh, golly gee! All of these wonderful Puzzle Place anonymouses-- I’m not going to make a whole separate post for whoever sent the “thank you for uploading”, but I’m SO grateful people care about the show!
I had NO clue that The Puzzle Place’s copyright owners had come back from the dead! I think that The Puzzle Place never shied away from any important issues for children, and a revival certainly wouldn’t, either! In the same way that Sesame Street (and its foreign adaptations) have tackled things in recent years like autism with Julia, homelessness with Lily, drug addiction with Karli, I’m sure The Puzzle Place would do the very same thing. I mean, gosh, in the last generation of PBS, Postcards from Buster had an episode where they visited a family with two moms, and in recent years, Mr. Ratburn just got married to his partner, for Pete’s sake!
An issue I think would be interesting to cover tastefully is domestic abuse. I can’t think of any really good examples of a show educating children on how to cope with that kind of abuse, or how to get out of such a situation. I also think the atmosphere is right for children to be taught, in simple terms, how to deal with friends of different religions. I think the show already was doing an awful lot to help foster an understanding & love for our varying beliefs. (Skye, for example, sings this amazing song called Sacred Ways in the Finders Keepers episode.) I think to outrightly say that everyone believes different things, and that’s okay would be an important message.
Bully for Jody already covered a lot of stuff about real-life bullying very well, but I do think that a cyberbullying episode would be brilliant. No one’s made a good piece on the subject thus far, I think. They could even do some rad stuff with Weebus, if they took on that subject-- show physically the kind of emotional damage that cyberbullying can do on a person through Weebus getting broken by these messages.
The question “what would the characters be like” is an interesting one. I personally would hate if the characters changed... I’m already of the opinion that the third season redesigns of the characters, while serviceable, aren’t anywhere near as good to perform with as the original puppets! For an example of some really excellent puppet designs from a revival, I’d definitely turn to The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. Complete perfection there-- I’m picky as all get-out, and I don’t have a single bad thing to say about that revival. Anyway, every season on Sesame Street, things change, and they’re catered to the needs of the children of that generation. These are needs that I’m probably not fully aware of, given I’m not a child psychologist. I assume a revival would do an awful lot of study, as they should, on what’s needed to make the biggest positive difference in the lives of the next generation of children.
... I will make one caveat: As positive an experience as I’m certain Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood has been for children who watch it, I don’t consider it to be a good substitute for Mr. Rogers from an artistic standpoint. Whatever someone were to do to Puzzle Place, just... ... try to be sensitive to not only those baseline educational needs (which should be easy enough to fill)-- but on the need to make something real special. I believe very strongly that having the opportunity to make a difference in a child’s life through art is a really sacred one, and we shouldn’t aim to simply make bargain-bin stuff that teaches “good values” and leaves you empty in your soul, you know? We should aim to make art-- beautifully simple-- something that goes straight to the heart and stays there, waiting to be shared with another little human being who’s new to the world. Things that tell stories that are complicated emotionally, but simple enough that anyone can understand it. Someone who I really look up to in the current state of children’s entertainment is Mo Willems, for example.
... Yeah, uh, actually, get Mo Willems on PBS, pronto! That’s my final thought.
EDIT: I was just given a response from this anonymous, which I’d like to share, but don’t have anything to add to (since as I mentioned in my answer, I didn’t want the personalities & design of the Puzzle Place characters to change, hahaha): “Following Up your reply to my “Puzzle place Revival” question... I could see it also tackling problems found in Teenage years (i.e. depression, anxiety, peer pressure), to appeal and relate to a wide audience of children, and also, what do you think each of the puzzle place characters would physically look and be like in this hypothetical revival?”
areudirty
stormborns
gummygunk
vaporwave
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