Sesame Street's new website is no "Gabba Gabba"

Big Bird during a recent 'Sesame Street' episode.
(Photo credit: Mark Lennihan / AP)

The folks at "Sesame Street" practically invented the preschool "edu-tainment" movement. So they can be forgiven for just now announcing that they've pulled together an all-"Sesame Street" website. Presumably it's for those "Sesame"-loving preschoolers who have felt alienated from the catch-all pbskids.org site or the site for the pre-school only PBS Sprout. On the "Sesame Street" site (launching soon, but a sneak peek is here) every game and every video will be "Sesame"-related.

PBS is saying the site is "research-based" (is that why it took so long?). Let's look at the state of research into the Web habits of 3- to 5-year-olds:

1) The cursor arrow has become a star: "The Workshop’s research indicated that children did not have a strong visual response to the arrow image, frequently used as a cursor; Designers revised the image to resemble a star to address this finding." Cool.

2) Clickable stuff is sparkly: "Children need overt visual indicators to determine what areas on the site they can access." Hey, why not? More catchy than the cursor turning into some guy's hand.

3) Online "safety" is a concern: "The site features exclusive and innovative safety precautions that secure children’s online experience." This is a button called "Play Safe" that parents can click on to make sure their kids can't navigate away from the "Sesame Street" site. Wait, but preschoolers can't read or write. ... How would they manage to navigate to some lurid and dangerous Web page?

"Play Safe" seems most of all like a good way for "Sesame Street" to tap into the pervasive (but in this case irrational) parental fear of online predators while keeping its little audience captive. And they'd better do that. Cable channels like Nick Jr.'s Noggin and Playhouse Disney have been eating PBS' lunch for years now. The cable shows also demonstrate an educational commitment (Noggin bills itself as "like preschool on TV"). But Noggin and Playhouse Disney wear their research more lightly, with less of a didactic feel to the shows.

On the Web, the show-related games move faster and feel more like real video games than PBS' games do. Both Noggin and Playhouse Disney have some dud shows (Noggin's young turtle drama "Franklin" can be a little treacly-sincere and, yes, PBS-like; ditto Disney's "Higglytown Heroes," in which Weeble-like characters celebrate the job of a different ordinary person every day, such as the mail carrier, the pizza delivery person).

But -- and it pains me to say this as someone who grew up loving PBS  -- overall, on Noggin and Playhouse Disney, the creativity factor is in another league. The shows usually seem to have sprung from the brains of writers and musicians, not just teachers.

I challenge anyone to watch Disney's incredibly charming cartoon "Charlie and Lola" without a huge smile breaking out. Noggin's Backyardigans, five adventurous multi-colored singing, dancing and wisecracking CGI creature-friends, will never make an adult squirm in embarrassment. And Nick Jr.'s funkadelic variety show "Yo Gabba Gabba," the modern-day heir to "Sesame Street," has a cult following among people in their 20s who don't even have kids. Accordingly, these shows (and their creators) make more fun computer games. What 5-year-old wouldn't rather "Join the Backyardigans as they steer the pirate ship to different islands" -- parents are assured this will help "develop problem-solving skills" -- than help Cookie Monster find things to eat that start with the letter L?

Finally, we must consider those preschool sites that do not worry themselves one iota about "teaching" kids. They just rock their little worlds. These sites are not necessarily even linked to TV shows. Take the site devoted to that ultimate bastion of 5-year-old girlhood, the My Little Pony (or as one friend calls it, My Little Porno) site. This is a high-pitched, all-female fantasy realm where pink and purple ponies with flowing multi-colored manes play out their mutual adoration while eating copious amounts of candy and ice cream, catching butterflies and making tiaras. I don't know what research led to the creation of the My Little Pony universe, but it was solid.

-- Maria Russo

Comments

[Boo's Mom]

I must say that I can't stand the new website. The original version was so easy to navigate that my two preschool age autistic daughters zipped through it with zero assistance. That one website played a major role in educating my children, more than any othre. The best thing about it was how everthing was contained in a distinctly-framed window, while the main menu remained off to the left at all times for super easy transitions between games. The first thing that popped up on the screen was a window with each Sesame Street character's head along the bottom. You could click on Elmo's picture to play Elmo games, or read Elmo stories, etc. Colors were bold and bright, games were catagorized by character and then by type, if you wanted. It was also very very fast. This new site is extremely unappealing to them, and the drastic changes had them really confused (and no, it's not because of their autism). The new site's webpages are also way too big and long with too many words and links. The oringal site required no downscrolling at all--which is a big challenge for very young kids. Anyway, I've said my piece, and eedless to say, we want the old site back!