Pingu

I found this in the old Sprout jingle ad:

Image from Vimeo

Pingu was one of the shows on the Children's Favorites section of the Sprout on-demand service before it launched.

Here's an up next bumper for the show:

And here's a full airing of the show from 2005 or 2006.

Super WHY!

Super WHY! was a CGI interactive cartoon starring fairy tale characters becoming superheroes and solving problems in books to find "Super letters" whenever they have a problem themselves and need a moral to solve it. The show aired on Sprout from 2011 to September 26, 2015.

The show was extremely popular amongst children, and aired on The Super Sproutlet Show, The Sunny Side Up Show, and The Sprout Sharing Show.

Since the show was an hour long, the SSU hosts danced to the theme song.

Because Sprout invested in acquired shows in 2010 (Chloe's Closet) and this show was from PBS (one of the channel's 4 founders), the show didn't hold up too well on the channel, and was one of the shows to be dropped during the rebrand.

Stupid Bird

Thomas & Friends' presence on Sprout hasn't changed over 10 years, but there was one episode with a curse word Sprout decided to remove.

Remember the episode Haunted Henry? In one point of the episode, Henry says "Stupid Bird" to an owl. Apparently, it's been established that Sprout hates curse words, so they removed the "Stupid" out of the sentence.

The same went to an episode of Caillou where he played baseball.

Old Later On/Next Bumpers (First Generation)

During the first generation, bumpers were used featuring a small television with animated buttons playing the split-screen credits of a show that was ending, and a circle showing what shows were coming up next and later on. These kind of bumpers used an unknown male announcer. I don't know if this was a VoiceOver or text-to-speech.

Below is an example of these types of bumpers, that MUST be anywhere from 2005 or 2006.

The transcript reads:

Announcer:

Later on, he's 4 and he loves to explore!

Guess who? It's Caillou!

Get ready to laugh and learn with Caillou and his friends.

It's Caillou, later on PBS KIDS Sprout.

But first, let's waddle through ice and snow with the silliest penguin that would know

Pingu! He sure knows how to have a good time!

Let's join him now. Pingu is coming up next, here on PBS KIDS Sprout.

Here is yet another:

Anyways, do you remember these? I don't because I was 1 and a half by the time Sprout rebranded.

Sproutoramas

Do you know what Sproutoramas were? They were dioramas created by Sproutlets that would often be shown before and after commercial breaks during the second generation.

Now here is an early Sunny Side Up Show Sproutorama bumper from 2009 and 2010:

Image from YouTube

Anyway, did you have a Sproutorama that was shown on Sprout or do you remember any? Let me know in the comments!

Brown Girl Gumbo post

I found an interesting post from the Brown Girl Gumbo blog.

There’s nothing more precious than witnessing your child experience a priceless moment.

I had that special pleasure a few weeks ago when I surprised my children with a visit to Sprout, the premier 24-hour cable network for preschoolers. Nestled on the 6th floor of Rockefeller Center in the heart of Manhattan, the NBC-owned channel is home to popular children programs like “Caillou” and “The Berenstain Bears,” as well as several original animated series such as “Dot.,” “Terrific Trucks,” and “Floogals.”

The private tour started with a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the control room. Having never visited a television studio before, seeing the multiple screens, monitors and unfamiliar knobs and buttons were fascinating for both of my kids. Watching their little faces light up in amazement was a true joy. But that excitement couldn’t compare to the jubilation of meeting Emily and Chica.

As we turned the hallway and walked into the studio where all of the action happens, the moment I’d been waiting for had finally arrived: they met Chica! Ava was excited, but certainly not as enthused as my 3-year-old son. His excitement was palpable and confirmed by his constant squeals and shrieks.

But, Chica wasn’t the only notable in the room. Emily is bonafide celebrity in our home so they were both pretty thrilled to meet her in person too. Her warm, peppy personality was just as vibrant off-camera as it appears onscreen.

After chatting with Chica and Emily, checking out the set, green room and makeup room, we were on our way with memories (and mementos) that will last a lifetime!

Anyways, these are wonderful pictures and I feel so lucky for these kids.

NYTimes article

Here is a great NYTimes article (mostly) about Sprout, but mentioning other shows like Sid the Science Kid (which aired on Sprout a few years later) and Yo Gabba Gabba!, written by Ginia Bellafante.

A NEW mother, who is also a television critic, is inevitably asked whether she will permit her child to share her public pleasure. Friends and strangers have posed this question to me repeatedly since my son was born a year ago, and I have yet to formulate a position. I understand how addictive the medium is, but refusing it (as the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends for children under age 2) feels too sanctimonious and unrealistic. A baby getting increasingly mobile does not sit still during a changing of clothes unless, according to studies conducted in my living room, he’s put in front of a TV for a minute or two whether it’s “iCarly” or Harry Reid on “Morning Joe.” And fathers who love sports tend to feel that ESPN does not count as actual television. There may be toddlers who, though they have never watched a single second of “Dora the Explorer,” could hand you a nacho and talk third-down conversions. 

But is it fair to force a child to live on Crimson Tide football alone? With this in mind, I approached an informal critical survey of Sprout. Begun five years ago by PBS, Sesame Workshop and several private media companies, Sprout is aimed at 2- to 5-year-olds and competes with channels like Nick Jr. It borrows programming previously shown on the air the still odious “Barney & Friends,” the still unsurpassable “Sesame Street,” and so on for some part of the day and devotes the mornings, a portion of the afternoon and the evening to original blocks of shows that are meant to correspond with the rhythms of the hour. The channel has a cheerful, earnest Yankee sense of industry about it, in line with the current fashion in parenting for scheduling. 

Sprout bills itself as the first “24-hour preschool destination available on TV.” Assuming that 24/7, quasi-educational television for small children was a plan to create a nation of super creatures who could best their Beijing peers, I asked a Sprout representative whom the intended 2 a.m. viewer might be. Apparently it is a child with a runny nose or a fever or anxieties about making potholders who cannot return to sleep. Sprout must be commended for ensuring that no American mother will be forced to confront her child’s insomnia with viewings of Cindy Crawford’s Skin Care Secrets infomercial ever again. 

“The Sunny Side Up Show,”which runs each morning, for instance, is meant to be a kind of “Today” show for toddlers. Just like “Today,” it is live and has its own versions of Willard Scott, positioned on sets seemingly forged from Play-Doh who say things like, “Milo is 4 and Milo is from Peru, Ind., and it is windy there.” Why this is better than subjecting a child to an actual NBC weather map is unclear. Later in the day, “The Sprout Sharing Show,” a kind of show-and-tell that features videos submitted by viewers, feels less like mini-adult television. But “The Good Night Show,” intended to help children decompress, returned this viewer to a state of confusion. The emphasis on activity and knowledge acquisition didn’t necessarily seem compatible with the effects of a glass of zinfandel on an exhausted mother. In one bit a mama bear instructed her child in the virtue of exercise. There were lessons in foreign words and echolocation (that’s animal sonar, for you adults). 

By far the most interesting of the series is Sprout’s new live-action program, “Noodle and Doodle,” on weekend mornings. It too has an idle-hands-and-minds-are-the-devil’s-workshop feel about it. The emphasis is on making things bird feeders out of yogurt containers and ketchup-bottle lids, bricks from milk cartons. The food revolution has extended its tentacles here, too, resulting in a recipe for spiky, rice-infused meatballs. All right, you won’t find this on “The Barefoot Contessa.” 

But no matter how well meaning the intent of any given “educational” series, you have to wonder whether learning (and quite possibly quickly forgetting) the concept of echolocation right before bedtime is any more valuable than letting a child finger-paint on an iPad instead. “Sid the Science Kid” on PBS devotes entire episodes to lethargically unpacking concepts like elasticity and friction when a few punchy minutes on rubber bands or hair scrunchies would seem to do. 

Programs like these, and the popular series “Yo Gabba Gabba!” on Nick Jr., make you appreciate the extent to which the Pixar and “Sesame Street” empires work on two levels, speaking intelligently to children and parents. What distinguishes “Yo Gabba Gabba!” from the mindless “Teletubbies” of a decade ago, I’m not so sure. Both seemed forged in a hazy, psychedelic reverie. The host of “Yo Gabba Gabba!” is a character called DJ Lance Rock, who talks to children as though he has never met one, which is possible given that he seems to be living inside a Dee-Lite video. 

“Sesame Street” began its 41st season last week, with simple ideas like comfort explained by guests like Jason Bateman. A lot of television for small children is so earnestly listless it seems almost intended to keep parents away. That leads to the unintended effect of making television that most evil of all possible things, a de facto baby sitter. For better or worse, moms on the second shift require a little more. Or at least this one does. We may just hold out until the kid can watch “Dexter.” 

 This article also provides us with some Sprouteriffic information. First, it came out in 2010, and mentions PBS and Sesame Workshop, The channel was also founded by two other companies -- HiT Entertainment (now owned by Mattel) and Comcast (the owner of NBCUniversal, which acquired Sprout in 2013).

Bellafante also said Sprout "competes with channels like Nick Jr.," but has gained the most viewers out of its competitors in mid-2012.

Also, a picture confirms that Barney did appear on The Sunny Side Up Show with Kelly and Chica that year, supposedly for Dinosaurs Week.

Anthony Hobbs at Sprout

I noticed this photo on Twitter, so I knew I had to post it for you all.

The description said he was going to film a segment for The Good Night Show.

Bob the Builder

Madeline Fretz - Bob the Builder was a British stop-motion show airing on PBS about a man and his machines building things. The show had two sequels - Ready, Steady, Build and Project: Build It. The show aired on Sprout from September 26, 2005 to September 26, 2015, as HiT Entertainment was one of the channel's founders.

Image from Current.org

Sprout described the series as:

Can We Build It? Yes We Can! Bob the Builder and his machine team are ready to tackle any project. Bob and the Can-Do Crew demonstrate the power of positive- thinking, problem-solving, teamwork and follow-through. Most importantly, they always show that The Fun Is In Getting It Done!

The show had a Sprout Diner recipe; Bob's Build Me Up Berry Shake.

The Christmas special; Bob the Builder: Snowed Under aired on Sprout during Elmo's Movie Merry-then in 2010 and 2011.

The show left Sprout during the rebrand, but returned to Universal Kids in 2019.

Thomas & Friends

Madeline Fretz - Thomas & Friends is a British children's show airing on PBS and then Nick Jr. and produced by HiT Entertainment. The show focuses on trains huffing, chuffing, puffing, and rolling along the Island of Sodor. Over the years, the show's style has changed from stop-motion to CGI. The show aired on Sprout from September 26, 2005 to September 26, 2015, as both PBS and HiT (now owned by Mattel) were founders of the channel.

The show has a Sprout Diner recipe; Thomas' Club Car Sandwich.

Thomas and the Magic Railroad has also aired on Sprout at one point in 2015.

However, the show left Sprout during the third generation rebrand on September 26th, 2015, along with other remaining PBS and HiT shows.

In 2021, the series was rebranded as "Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go!" and airs on Cartoonito. All Engines Go! received heavy criticism from original fans.

Send me your pictures, videos, and memories

Here is a Sprout promo I remember fondly as a preschooler, I named my blog that because of this promo:

However, my site doesn't have that much reads as other blogs.

But I take great pride that whenever people want to learn the complete history of The Sunny Side Up Show, chances are they wind up here.

Maybe you flip through the articles but don’t click my email to send photos or post memories in the comments.

I know, we are all busy. I'm guilty of this too. I "lurk" in plenty of sites... but I want you all to contribute here!

Please: pull out your old pictures, digitize that old video and let me know what you remember about Sprout!

Launch Day shows

One of the reasons I started this blog was so former "Sproutlets" could relieve their memories of the channel.

I watched Sprout in the early 2010s, and when Universal Kids came around I never even knew where the memories took place.

So much has changed.

There is a Facebook group called "PBS Kids Unite" and there, I saw a photo of (most of) the launch day shows that aired on Sprout. I knew they were missing both James the Cat and Thomas & Friends, so I decided to add those two.

There are a few shows missing as well. These include:

• Big Sister, Little Brother
• Archibald the Koala
• Captain Pugwash
• Dennis and Gnasher
• Kratt's Creatures
• Captain Zed and the Zee Zone
• Sheeep
• Fly Tales

Yes, all eight of these shows aired on Sprout, alongside the ones in the picture above.

Alphabet

Here is an undated video of a Sprout bumper, regularly used before commercial breaks.

Here, we see letter swings and kids appear in letters, then the green Sprout in the logo slides down a J to the rest of the logo.

It was replaced by the box idents in 2009.

Image from Facebook

Apparently a picture of the Alphabet ident remained up in Sprout studios in Philadelphia as late as 2014.

Sprout Timeline

SPROUTERIFFIC WORK IN PROGRESS!

Hi, Sproutlets! I will continue to expand this from time to time as I find more Sproutacular information.

September 6, 1999: PBS launches the short-lived 24-hour PBS KIDS channel, in an effort to compete with NOGGIN (now Nick Jr. as of 2009).

October 20, 2004: PBS, Sesame Workshop, HiT Entertainment, and Comcast announce plans to launch an on-demand service for preschoolers and a companion 24-hour digital linear channel. (Cite)

April 5, 2005: A formal groundbreaking takes place in the form of the VOD service. Parents could pause, fast forward and rewind the shows so their children could enjoy favorite scenes as many times as they’d like. (Cite)

September 26, 2005: The Sprout channel and its website (then called sproutletsgrow.com) launch to the public.

September 28, 2005: Kimberly-Clark's HUGGIES and Pull-Ups are announced as the sponsors for PBS KIDS Sprout. Kimberly-Clark explored the use of the on TV, online and VOD technologies to initiate Huggies and Pull-Ups cross-promotional content opportunities with viewers of the network. (Cite)

July 14, 2006: TVN Entertainment Corp. and PBS KIDS Sprout extend their partnership with a then-new VOD agreement. TVN provided distribution and asset management services for all the shows. Sprout used up online data from TVN’s ADONISS 2 platform and Provider Remote Interface (PRI) toolset to track and monitor on-demand programs and update metadata on a web basis. (Cite)

August 14, 2006: Melanie Martinez gets unfairly fired from The Good Night Show, after the block's crew discovered her in a Technical Virgin PSA called "Future." The block went on hiatus until they could find a new host (Michele Lepe joined as Nina in December 2006). (Cite)

September 18, 2006: Sprout launches its first webseries, Sprout Diner, and a series of interstitials featuring Sparkle the Fire Safety Dog.

September 26, 2006: Sprout celebrates its first anniversary. Leo (Noel MacNeal) guest hosts The Good Night Show until the new host is found. (Cite)

July 23, 2007: Sprout launches The Let's Go Show. (Cite)

September 26, 2007: Sprout launches Musical Mornings with Coo and The Sunny Side Up Show. The latter of which was a live block. Also premiering was a new season of the Good Night Show and Play With Me Sesame, a Sesame Street spin-off originating from NOGGIN. (Cite)

2008: Sprout launches "Sprout Please!" (a throwback to "I Want My MTV" from the 80s), a campaign to request for Sprout in your home. Commercials included kids and characters saying the title, and one was set to Elizabeth Mitchell's cover of "Three Little Birds."

2008: Sprout launches "Pajanimals," a musical interstitial series from the Jim Henson Company and Sixteen South.

January 16, 2008: Sprout launches a content-driven initiative called "Sprout Smart," to help Sproutlets and Grown-Up Sprouts establish an early foundation of healthy habits.. The initiative was sponsored by Motts for Tots. (Cite)

May 1, 2008: Sprout launches The Sprout Sharing Show. Premiering with the block is PICMe, a personalized Irish cartoon. (Cite)

September 23, 2008: Sprout partners with the Pajama Program to launch "The Great Sprout Tuck-In," extending their "good night mission" with The Good Night Show and also encouraging families to give. Sprout collected books and pajamas to give to the Pajama Program and then they would be distributed to children in need.  (Cite)

August 24, 2009: Wiggly Waffle launches, hosted by The Wiggles.

September 21, 2009: Yet another Good Night Show season and Rubbadubbers, of Nick Jr. and CBeebies premiere. Sprout and its on-demand service unveiled a new look, designed by the company Trace Pictures and Justin Stephenson.

September 26, 2010: Sprout begins investing in original programming with the debut of Noodle and Doodle.

July 7, 2011: Sprout launches its "Kindness Counts" initiative, including PSAs, digital and social media components, programming tie-ins and local extensions

September 26, 2011: Sprout debuts a full-length series based on its Pajanimals interstitials. (Cite)

October 24, 2011: Poppy Cat debuts on the channel.

February 14, 2012: The Super Sproutlet Show launches, with host Bean appearing on the Sunny Side Up Show. (Cite)

March 28, 2012: Sprout helps NBC launch its "NBC Kids" block for children, which includes many shows from the channel. (Cite)

June 20, 2012: Wibbly Pig, 64 Zoo Lane, and Olive the Ostrich launch on a new season of The Good Night Show, which now takes place in the "You + Me Tree."

August 24, 2012: Sprout partners with Produce for Kids and appears on the display unit in the produce section, featuring shows like LazyTown. (Cite)

November 2012: The Chica Show premieres and becomes Sprout's highest rated original series to date.

November 24, 2012: A Sprout float debuts in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

December 12, 2012: Sprout hits record ratings across its competitors, with an average total day household coverage area 0.23 rating / 122k homes. (Cite)

April 22, 2013: Sprout announces the additions of Sing It, Laurie!, Ruff-Ruff, Tweet, and Dave, Tree Fu Tom, Boj, and Lily's Driftwood Bay following a second season of The Chica Show. (Cite)

July 30, 2013: Sprout begins a Sunny Side Up Show "Host Hunt" audition contest. (Cite)

September 19, 2013: Sprout extends its Kindness Counts initiative by starting a contest called "The Kindest Kid," where a kind Sproutlet who enters full rules on sproutonline.com becomes the channel's Chief Kindness Officer (CKO) for a day and visits the set of The Sunny Side Up Show.

November 1, 2013: Sprout reaches over 60 million homes with a multi market launch including New York and LA. (Cite)

November 13, 2013: Comcast's NBCUniversal acquires a full ownership of Sprout, following a buyout of PBS, Sesame Workshop, and HiT Entertainment. As a result of this, the PBS Kids branding is no longer in the channel's name. (Cite)

June 2014: Sprout launches Astroblast!, based on a series of children's books by Bob Kolar. A live broadcast of The Good Night Show takes place in the set of The Sunny Side Up Show.

September 26, 2015: Sprout rebrands for its 10th anniversary, including Nina's World and Sydney Sailboat, The Sunny Side Up Show gets a shortened name and moves to a city, and the channel drops all PBS shows except Caillou and The Berenstain Bears. It is unknown why both shows continued to air past 2015.

September 9, 2017: Sprout becomes Universal Kids.

Two things coming...

2005 news article: New PBS Kids Net Sprouts Up

Here is a Ryan Ball article about the channel from September 26, 2005. This was the channel's launch day.

PBS KIDS Sprout, a new 24/7 preschool television network and web destination, debuts today on digital cable and satellite. The outlet is going out to more than 16 million subscribers with such program offerings as Sesame Street, Bob the Builder, Barney & Friends, Thomas & Friends, Angelina Ballerina, Sagwa: The Chinese Siamese Cat, Caillou, The Berenstain Bears, Jay Jay the Jet Plane, Teletubbies, Dragon Tales, Pingu and Noddy.
Diana Kerekes, the acting GM for PBS KIDS Sprout, comments, “Building on the remarkable success of our video-on-demand service, we’re very excited to be launching our digital cable channel and website today–making Sprout truly a multi-platform destination for preschoolers and their caregivers. Not only does Sprout offer programming that is trusted, we’re also able to provide such programs after 6 p.m., when other preschool channels just aren’t available."
PBS KIDS Sprout also offers a complete video-on-demand (VOD) service featuring 50 hours of content every day. Offerings include Plaza Sesamo, the Spanish-language adaptation of Sesame Street, as well as Spanish-language versions of Barney & Friends, Bob the Builder, Angelina Ballerina and more.
Created through a partnership between Comcast Corp., PBS, HIT Ent. and Sesame Workshop, Sprout features thematic programming blocks uniquely scheduled to follow a typical preschooler’s day as hosts Kevin and Melanie provide fun and learning from breakfast to bedtime.
Kids and their caregivers can play original games, view a programming schedule and interact with their favorite characters at the PBS KIDS Sprout website, www.sproutletsgrow.com. Contact your local cable company about availability of PBS KIDS Sprout in your neighborhood.

Here are some facts about the article:

• The channel's only two presenters at the time were Kevin Yamada and Melanie Martinez, who hosted The Birthday Show and The Good Night Show respectively.
• Sprout also hosted Spanish programming on-demand. One of which included Plaza Sesamo, the Spanish co-production of Sesame Street.
•  Jay Jay the Jet Plane, Teletubbies, Sagwa: The Chinese Siamese Cat, Dragon Tales, and Pingu all aired on the channel at that time.
• The channel's official website at the time was Sproutletsgrow.com, which launched on the day the article was published alongside the channel. It became Sproutonline.com in December 2006.

The Sunshine Barn

Here is an amazing behind-the-scenes look at the Sunny Side Up Show set from 2013 to 2015. The photos are from https://www.flickr.com/photos/dennisdegan.

Huggies and Sprout

On launch day for Sprout, Kimberly-Clark's diaper company Huggies has sponsored the channel, as well as their Pull-Ups training pants for older babies.

Image from The Wayback Machine

Here is an article promoting K-C First's sponsorship:

Kimberly-Clark has signed on as the first of four sponsors of PBS Kids Sprout, a 24-hour preschool network and Web site, where the company will promote its Huggies disposable diapers and Pull-Ups training pants.
The new digital venue, distributed by cable and satellite to more than 16 million subscribers, will also give Kimberly-Clark a laboratory to learn more about customers and extend its online marketing efforts, said Brad Santeler, director of media services at K-C.
“The new medium will also be relatively uncluttered with only four sponsors,” Santeler said. “We will have exclusivity in child-care products.
K-C has made a one-year commitment to the program and has right of first refusal in the second year, Santeler said. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. But Santeler said the company looked at the opportunity more for its research potential than pure sales growth.
“It’s a great medium for our concept of mom and baby together,” Santeler said.
Analysis of consumer patterns using the network and online component will be handled by K-C’s media agency Mindshare, Santeler said. Ogilvy & Mather’s existing spots will run on the new venue, he said.
PBS Kids Sprout is a for-profit channel that will feature children’s programming such as Sesame Street, Bob the Builder, Barney & Friends, Teletubbies and others.“Not only does Sprout offer programming that is trusted, we’re also able to provide such programs after 6 p.m., when other preschool channels just aren’t available,” said Diana Kerekes, acting general manager for PBS Kids Sprout.
PBS Kids Sprout, which offers 50 hours of video-on-demand content per day, was created as a partnership between Comcast Corp. and PBS.

Roads

Image from YouTube

Here is an old and rare Sprout ident from launch day. Here, cars drive by roads with tunnels, stoplights, and signs, and a boy (the same one in the Birthday Show opening and a few promos) appears near them. This was mostly used before commercial breaks.

In 2009, it was replaced by Sproutorama idents.

Sprout Jingle - Always Here For You

Over the years Sprout has had several different jingles for TV and radio. One of the earliest ones featured the lyrics:

On Demand,

Or On TV,

Day or Night and Online too,

Sprout is always here for you

We really gotta watch Sprout,

it's the place to be

'Cause there's so much to do,

And there's so much to see

Fun and Games

And your favorite shows

We're good to grow the whole day through

Sprout is always here for you

Primal Screen: Designer of the Sprout logo

I did a little research on the Sprout logo.

Image from Logopedia

Turns out it was designed by Primal Screen, who also did idents for Cartoon Network, PBS Kids/PBS Kids GO!, and of course, PBS Kids Sprout.

Self-described as: 

A multi-platform design agency, Primal Screen distills a keen knowledge of brand essence and serves it to every screen. Mmmm...tasty.

It's quite/kinda interesting to find out, as it is an outstanding logo!

Making Curriculum Pop article

Madeline Fretz - Here is an April 19th, 2009 (a few months before the second generation started) article titled Sprout and the Electric Company.

Let's take a closer look at this article (I fixed a few errors (ex. Sprout was a channel, not a show. It became a block on Universal Kids in 2017.)):

Before Saturday April 4, 2009 I had never heard of Sprout. But listening to Betsy Oliphant and Chica really got me intrigued in the channel. They did a great job of giving the class a quick overview of what Sprout is, how they got started, what each block consists of, and give a brief showing of each block on Sprout.

Sprout is a PBS show that is targeted for children ages two to five as well as their parents/guardians. The show is a 24-hour channel with five main blocks. The blocks are: The Sunny-Side Up Show, The Sprout Sharing Show, The Let’s Go Show, The Good Night Show, and Musical Mornings with Coo. Each block last for about three hours. Each segment in the block lasts for thirty minutes. A segment can be a cartoon, making a craft, cooking dance, acting, etc. According to the Sprout website, “Interaction between parents and preschoolers is an important element in everything we do.” This is evident by the many activities on the show that give parents/guardians ample opportunities to interact with their child.

What I like the most about Sprout is that it has a wide variety of activities for children. It is not just all cartoons or singing, or crafts. There are many different things children and their parents can do and if they don’t like what is on then they can just come back in thirty minutes to see what the next segment is! On the “about” section of the website Sprout states, “we follow the day of a preschooler from breakfast to bedtime, with daytime programming designed to get children moving and active and evening programming to help the family gently unwind at the end of the day”. This is so nice. Coming from a babysitter’s perspective, there is nothing worse then when you are trying to get a child ready for bed and they are all hyped up because of the show they just watched. It is nice to know that the Good Night Show helps to bring the child slowly down from all the running around they have done during the day.

My favorite block is the Good Night Show. I really like the fact that it is a show that keeps children active but does not do it in a way that gives kids lots of energy. My favorite part is when the kids are doing yoga. The kids in the clip shown to us were absolutely adorable. I was really impressed with how well some of the kids were doing the poses because I am horrible at yoga!! I would really like a stuffed version of the star puppet. I think it is so cute!!

Here was a GNS real kids segment leading into Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat. This video's uploader came back years later and archived the Let's Go Show's opening as well as another real kids segment.

The Sprout website is amazing. You can find all the craft projects, stories, and songs from the show on there. There are coloring pages and kids can even make there own cards. It is a very user-friendly site and even has sections for parents.

I can definitely see myself using this website in my classroom. The have great songs to use for starting the day and I would use the videos of how to do different yoga poses with my students. I think that would be a great way to calm them down when the class has a little too much energy. The coloring sheets would be something nice to have as part of choice time. There are many ways that an educator could incorporate Sprout or Sprout materials into their daily routine.

Links to Sprout homepage and homepages of each block on the show!
Homepage
http://www.sproutonline.com/sprout/home/
The Sunny Side Up Show
http://www.sproutonline.com/sprout/ssu/
The Sharing Show
http://www.sproutonline.com/sprout/tss/
The Good Night Show
http://www.sproutonline.com/sprout/Originals/GoodNightShow.aspx
The Let's Go Show
http://www.sproutonline.com/sprout/Originals/LetsGoShow.aspx
Musical Mornings
http://www.sproutonline.com/sprout/characters/?preset=coo

Not sure how you feel about Sprout? Check out these reviews!
http://media.families.com/blog/pbs-kids-sprout
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/316431/review_of_pbs_kids_...
http://www.commonsensemedia.org/tv-reviews/Sprout-Sharing-Show.html

Melanie Got Fired

Below is a controversial story about The Good Night Show's launch host Melanie Martinez.

From Observer:

In the summer of 2000, Melanie Martinez—who was fired a few weeks ago as the host of the PBS kids program The Good Night Show—responded to an ad in Backstage. Someone was seeking a “young-looking” actress who could play a short role in a public-service announcement.

“No nudity,” the ad promised.

Fifty women auditioned for the part. The director was David Mack, a onetime aspiring filmmaker who has since gone on to a lucrative career authoring Star Trek novels.

Mr. Mack and his partner picked the obvious candidate. She declined. He and his partner offered the part to their second choice. She also said no. Thus the role fell to Ms. Martinez.

Filming occurred on a tumultuous July day in Weehawken, N.J., on the steps of an elementary school across from Mr. Mack’s best friend’s house.

Dressed as a goal-oriented Catholic schoolgirl, Ms. Martinez delivered such memorable lines as: “One thing I’m not planning on is getting pregnant. That’s why I choose anal sex. I mean, sure it hurts a little, and I wind up walking funny for a day or two. But I think my future’s worth it.”

Locusts, an idling school bus and chatty workmen wrecked the audio. “But Melanie was very consistent, very sincere in her delivery, and she didn’t try to camp it up and oversell the humor,” Mr. Mack said. The short was called I Have a Future, and Ms. Martinez was paid the going Screen Actors Guild rate of $500 for her work.

They shot a second short, called Boys Can Wait, in February 2001. In it, an actress playing Ms. Martinez’s mother gives her a purple dildo. She was paid an additional $500.

“I did them as an actor, and, you know, I thought they were really funny,” Ms. Martinez said. “It was on a really timely issue that was part of the current social climate, if you will, and I thought they were funny, and I did them because they were funny, and I knew that I could add my humor to it, and I did them.”

Three years later, Ms. Martinez decided that boys couldn’t wait any longer, and she and her husband had a baby. She had met her husband in the mid-90’s, just after her grunge-era graduation from Tisch at N.Y.U., when his underground New York rock band Gorgon was hitting it big enough to sign with a German record label. He was the lead singer, and “it was love.” Their honeymoon was a concert tour through Germany.

“I don’t recommend that to any girl,” she said. “We had to take a couple other honeymoons after that to make up for it.” With a new baby, her husband left Gorgon to work behind the scenes on commercials and short films, and they were settling into a happy Lower East Side domesticity. Ms. Martinez decided to stay at home, forfeiting all but the occasional theater roles. Then she heard about the Good Night Show auditions.

Produced out of Philadelphia, the program was to be the keystone of a new PBS channel on digital cable called Kids Sprout. It would be her own show, airing for three hours every evening, showcasing her talents as a singer, actress and soporific storyteller. “The audition was a lot of fun because, um, I really wanted it,” she said. “This was something that I really wanted, and I knew that if I got it, my son would have a lot of fun.”

After three auditions, she got the part and excelled at it. “It was my own show,” she said, “for a new network, and it was silly songs and silly dances and the scripts were ditzy and sweet, and there was nothing jaded about it at all.”

For Ms. Martinez, this was the role of a lifetime. There is something squeaky-clean about her, befitting the Texas-born and Virginia-raised daughter of a Department of Defense worker and a stay-at-home mom. The young Ms. Martinez had claimed a place on both the prom and homecoming committees of her local high school, where she was also a class officer.

She filmed two seasons and received positive marks from even the most enthusiastic “family television” watchdog groups. One such, called Common Sense, gave The Good Night Show four out of five stars and praised its host for “promoting sharing and other good behavior.”

Ms. Martinez said she neither hid nor disclosed the existence of the faux-P.S.A.’s when she auditioned for The Good Night Show in 2005. Mr. Mack, who still exchanges Christmas cards with his former starlet, removed the spots from his Web site, technicalvirgin.com, in 2004.

Still, the P.S.A.’s found their way—as all things will, eventually—back onto the Internet, on YouTube and other sites. It was then that Ms. Martinez voluntarily told her bosses about the existence of the P.S.A.’s. She was fired six days later.

“PBS Kids Sprout”—an 11-month-old digital network that reaches 20 million homes—“has determined that the dialogue in this video is inappropriate for her role as a preschool program host and may undermine her character’s credibility with our audience,” was the official comment from network president Sandy Wax.

On the afternoon of Aug. 7, 18 days after she was fired, Ms. Martinez took a short and cheerful stroll through Tompkins Square Park.

Along the way, she discussed the television makeup she no longer has to wear—“It’s the one nice thing about all of this”—and her love of the Lower East Side “because it’s filled with eccentrics,” one of whom, anal-sex P.S.A.’s or no, Ms. Martinez is not. Wearing a black cotton camisole, jeans and a light dusting of face powder, she declined to speak ill of her former employer.

She said hello to a few junkies and pointed out the playground where she takes her 3-year-old son. She then went home to “wash my face” and maybe change a cardigan or two.

In the annals of creepy kiddy-show hosts, from the boozy clowns to the convicted felons, Ms. Martinez ranks somewhere alongside Mister Rogers. Her television persona, “Melanie Martinez,” was gentle and upbeat, a kind of Ritalined Shari Lewis, given to singing silly songs to her audience of “sproutlets” and cuddling up in a giant chair with one or another of her anthropomorphized friends. The real-life Melanie Martinez is simply a petite 34-year-old actress whose many interests include singing silly songs, volunteering at the local Girls Club and leading her friend’s daughter’s Brownie troop.

“They did what they did” is Ms. Martinez’s non-defamatory take, no doubt mandated by the severance agreement it took her agent a week to negotiate. “I really—I loved my job. It was a dream job for me. It was a really, really, really special time, and the role was, you know, a joy to perform. Um. But it was out of my hands. I don’t make the decisions, and, you know, they did what they did.”

But dozens, hundreds or thousands of parents, known as “Big Sprouts,” used The Good Night Show to lull their toddlers to sleep every night, and they have not been so accepting. They have called and e-mailed the network, accusing PBS of hypocrisy and—worse!—of once again kowtowing to the conservatives who are perpetually threatening to cut off their funding.

The standoff recalls one of a year ago, when PBS pulled an episode of the children’s show Postcards from Buster in which the program’s star, a bunny, visited the child of a lesbian couple in Vermont. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings wrote a sternly worded letter objecting to the topic. Public-television supporters and free-speech advocates erupted with outrage.

The response to Ms. Martinez’s firing has mixed this outrage with a strong hint of bafflement. Blogs have been launched, earnestly listing all the celebrity visitors to Sesame Street (George Carlin, Jason Alexander and so on) who have played unsavory roles or uttered explicit lines of dialogue in their careers.

Really, who can rationalize this decision? LeVar Burton, host of Reading Rainbow and a male-infertility awareness advocate, has spent far more time talking publicly about sex, his own abortive attempts included, than Ms. Martinez.

By further comparison, there is Pee-wee Herman creator Paul Reubens, who was arrested twice—first in 1991 for masturbating during a public screening of the adult film Nurse Nancy and again in 2002 in connection with a child-pornography investigation—and who made his triumphant return to the airwaves this summer. The Cartoon Network now shows Pee-wee’s Playhouse Monday through Thursday nights, and Mr. Reubens did Letterman in July.

Ms. Martinez’s only television interview was on CNBC—with Donny Deutsch.

“I just feel really badly for Melanie, that something so trivial as this could have cost her a job that I know she really loved,” said Mr. Mack.

Now that she’s out of it, Ms. Martinez has found temporary work and is spending the summer with her son, listening to the Ramones and preparing him for his first year in school. She “takes meetings” and does volunteer work with local girls’ groups. And in a struggle befitting any good former children’s show host, she seems to be searching for a moral to the story.

“I think it’s very important for girls to know that they can do anything and to stand up for what they believe in and to express themselves” is one. “I think it’s really important for them that they have a place to go to and know their place in the world.”

And another: “I think, now more than ever, I’m a role model to my son because I’m honest and truthful and, you know, am a loving individual to him. And, um. I just try to be the best parent I can be.”