The New York Times - USA (2020-10-25)

THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2020 AR 11

Television

35

GHOSTWRITER

Middle-schoolers,

mysteries and some

cool cameos.

The premise of “Ghostwriter” —
a ghost communicates with
children by magically rearrang-
ing letters in diaries and grocery
lists, with the help of some very
rudimentary animation — belied
a subtly sophisticated show that
ushered in a new wave of smart-
kid television programming
when it debuted in 1992. Filmed
in a pre-gentrified Fort Greene in
Brooklyn, “Ghostwriter” fea-
tured multi-episode story arcs,
cameos from the likes of Samuel
L. Jackson and Spike Lee, and a
diverse crew of middle-school
amateur sleuths with complex
and realistic home lives. Each
mystery also offered kids new
ways to engage with the written
word, as a reader, rapper, poet or
— memorably — as the cyber-
punk school newspaper editor
played by Julia Stiles.
AMANDA HESS

36

PBS NEWSHOUR

A measured media

presence rising above

the frenzy.

Judy Woodruff, the anchor of
PBS NewsHour, is always seek-
ing the middle road as she deliv-
ers the news without raised-
eyebrow or smirk. She doesn’t
aim for the pithy, pointed phrase
that will go viral on Twitter. She
may not attract as big an audi-
ence as her broadcast competi-
tors, but her commanding, no-
nonsense and fair-minded mien
gives her a moral authority that
few figures in today’s media can
equal, matching that of her pred-
ecessors, Robert MacNeil and
Jim Lehrer. And it is one she
carefully asserts. In March, as
the reality of the coronavirus
sent Americans into buying
sprees of essential items like
toilet paper and household clean-
ers, Woodruff ended her broad-
cast by urging viewers to refrain
from hoarding and to think of the
less fortunate. “This is the time
for the lucky healthy ones to
think of others,” she said.
KATHERINE ROSMAN

37

THE TITLE SEQUENCES
FOR ‘MYSTERY!’

The best way to get in

the mood for murder.

It begins in a flash of lightning,
followed by widows, detectives,
tombstones, a mysterious invalid
and a body sliding slowly into a
lake. Before audiences could
enjoy their polite murder of the
week on “Mystery!” (later, “Mas-
terpiece Mystery”), they could
delight in this louche and spooky
animated opening, courtesy of
the deliriously macabre illustra-
tor, Edward Gorey. (Gorey
produced several versions; into
one, he inserted a bearded be-
furred self-portrait.) Later, trag-
ically, the program shortened the
sequence, but the originals, via
YouTube, can still chill the spine
and gladden the heart.
ALEXIS SOLOSKI

38

NOVA

Follow the science,

or the scientist.

“Nova,” the long-running science

documentary series, came to

PBS in 1974, and just months

later, The New York Times was

calling it one of public televi-

sion’s “most glamorous shows.”

Inspired by the British science

series “Horizon,” “Nova” brought

its science alive by showing

scientists at work — as when

they followed archaeologists

trying, by experiment, to figure

out how ancient builders moved

the enormous stones to create

Stonehenge. No wonder it’s still

going, nearly five decades on.

JOHN SCHWARTZ

39

VIETNAM: A TELEVISION

HISTORY

Confronting a bitter

conflict.

“I died in Vietnam and didn’t

even know it.” When PBS’s docu-

mentary series aired in 1983,

enough time had passed for such

vivid self-reflection, yet memo-

ries also remained lucid. An

American Marine recalled meal-

times amid the smell of a battle

in the city of Hue during the Tet

offensive: “It was almost like

you were eating death.” There

were 13 hourlong episodes and a

750-page book companion by the

series’s chief correspondent,

Stanley Karnow. The epic sweep

of these projects captured public

attention: Nearly 10 million

tuned in a night, and the book,

“Vietnam: A History,” stayed on

the New York Times best-seller

list for months. Yet in the docu-

mentary, American veterans said

civilians had not acknowledged

their sacrifices. The vet who said

he’d unwittingly died in Vietnam,

Paul Reutershan, was not exag-

gerating. Exposed to Agent

Orange during the war, he died of

cancer before the documentary

airedALEX TRAUB

40

KRATTS’ CREATURES

Behaving like animals,

and that’s a good

thing.

“Kratts’ Creatures” premiered in

June 1996, a few months before

Steve Irwin made his debut on

Animal Planet, and while Chris

and Martin Kratt did not share

the Crocodile Hunter’s accent,

their enthusiasm for the world’s

fauna was just as infectious. On

the preschooler-aimed “Zo-

boomafoo,” the immersive “Be

the Creature” and the animated

“Wild Kratts,” the brothers have

continued to share their exper-

tise on the animal kingdom —

often by doing their own leaping,

strutting, bellowing, mud-wal-

lowing impressions of the crea-

tures themselves — with genera-

tions of young viewers. “For us,”

Martin told The Times in 2000,

“learning equals fun. There’s no

difference between educational

TV shows and entertaining TV

shows. That’s a false construct.”

JENNIFER HARLAN

41

THE MAGIC SCHOOL BUS

Far out field trips

with Miss Frizzle.

Biology lab meets “Alice in Won-

derland,” “The Magic School

Bus” ran for just four seasons

but left a lasting imprint on the

brains of ’90s kids. It’s remem-

bered for its Little Richard theme

song, its trippy animation, and

its grotesque plots, in which the

bus drove a class of kids through

sore throats, pulsing intestines

and sewage systems. But mostly

it was a star vehicle for the sci-

ence teacher Miss Frizzle, known

as the Frizz (and voiced by Lily

Tomlin), whose topical shirt-

dresses and shock of curly red

hair cut a feminine figure in

contrast to the male TV nerds of

“Bill Nye the Science Guy” and

“Beakman’s World.” The bus is

still running, in the form of a

Netflix reboot and a forthcoming

film starring Elizabeth Banks.

AMANDA HESS

42

LIVE FROM LINCOLN CENTER

When New York’s

cultural hub stretched

out to America.

Like PBS, Lincoln Center was

still young in 1976, when it took a

chance on a series that continues

to bring world-class opera, or-

chestra, dance and theater to

millions. From the first broadcast

— André Previn leading the New

York Philharmonic and Van

Cliburn — the experience for the

home viewer was that of peering

at live performances by stars like

Pavarotti, Baryshnikov and

Perlman from the best seat in the

house. This was the real deal,

you were meant to feel — not a

studio production. Ratings were

rarely gangbusters, but the se-

ries persisted, including more

pops and standards offerings as

the years went by, and Lincoln

Center was cemented in the

American imagination as the

country’s premier arts complex.

ZACHARY WOOLFE

43

RACE TO SAVE THE PLANET

If only we’d known.

Oh, wait.

They warned us! America circa

1990 enjoyed a surge in ecologi-

cal awareness (think acid rain),

and this TV event, running over

10 weeks and with few of the

adorable animals of most nature

specials, stands as a landmark

for public seriousness about

climate science. Roy Scheider

narrated each episode of the

impressively global series, intro-

ducing us to sailors at the oil-

slicked port of Rotterdam and

farmers on parched grasslands

of Botswana, while our host,

Meryl Streep, sitting crossed-

legged outside her home in Con-

necticut, calmly lamented the

smog and the deforestation. “In

10 years, the natural world as we

know and cherish it will have

changed unalterably,” Streep

warned, when global carbon

emissions totaled 22.5 billion

tons. In 2020, global carbon

emissions will be more than 50

percent higher.JASON FARAGO

44

CHARLIE ROSE

Highbrow generalism

with a low-key style.

There was already something

archaic about “Charlie Rose”

before PBS swiftly canceled the

talk show in 2017, after eight

women accused its host of sexual

harassment. The chat around the

oak table in the black box theater

had a calm and discursiveness

that recalled early TV, and that

was its appeal: Here, titans of

industry and stars of academe

could speak freely, and Karl

Lagerfeld might cross Madeleine

Albright in the green room. Rose

had an assurance that viewers

could understand all topics if the

tone was right, and a knack for

getting scientists or artists to

expatiate from the most vapid

questions. (Were they open-

ended by design, or just the

ad-libs of a Southern gentleman

who didn’t do the reading?) With

TV talk now mostly receded to

the safe spaces of cable news,

“Charlie Rose” appears now

almost like a lost horizon, a last

gasp of highbrow generalism.

JASON FARAGO

45

CLOSED CAPTIONING

An accessibility

breakthrough.

“The French Chef” not only

revolutionized cooking shows, it

also made history on a more

technical front when, in 1972, it

became the first television show

to feature open captioning —

captions that are always on-

screen — making it accessible to

deaf and hard-of-hearing view-

ers. The following year, as ABC

began rebroadcasting its na-

tional news program on PBS just

five hours after it originally

aired, it became the first timely

and accessible news program.

As smaller tests of the closed

captioning system (which allows

viewers to toggle captions on or

off ) proved successful, PBS

engineers worked to create

caption editing consoles, encod-

ing equipment and prototype

decoder boxes. And on a Sunday

evening in March 1980, closed

captioning went mainstream.

Deaf and hard-of-hearing view-

ers got their chance to enjoy

some of the most popular pro-

gramming on television, getting

to choose among “The ABC

Sunday Night Movie,” “Disney’s

Wonderful World” on NBC and

“Masterpiece Theater.”

JULIA CARMEL

46

BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY

A science class you

will never nod off in.

Bill Nye was the science teacher

every kid wanted: hyper, goofy

and so darned smart. The show

was, too: Nye made ideas come

alive, and made his young view-

ers laugh while they learned.

“The Science Guy” came to PBS

in 1994 by way of Disney. Nye,

who studied mechanical engi-

neering at Cornell, raced through

100 episodes in a lab coat and a

bow tie, and the show snatched

up 19 Daytime Emmy Awards

along the way. The science was

real, and largely funded by the

National Science Foundation.

That investment appears to have

paid off; when Nye speaks at

college campuses these days to

enthusiastic audiences, many of

the students cheering for him are

studying science and engineer-

ing, and claim their early inspira-

tion as that skinny guy in the

bow tie.JOHN SCHWARTZ

47

FREE TO CHOOSE

An economist makes

his case for capitalism.

This 10-part defense of free-

market capitalism was released

on PBS the year that Ronald

Reagan, a strong advocate of

economic deregulation, defeated

Jimmy Carter to become presi-

dent of the United States. With

the Cold War with the Soviet

Union still on, Milton Friedman,

the Nobel Prize-winning econo-

mist, argued his case against

centralized planning, welfare,

government oversight and trade

unions, respectfully discussing

his views with both opponents

and like-minded thinkers.

Whether you agree or disagree

with Friedman’s position, the

program offered a clear defense

of capitalism at a time when the

debate was particularly robust.

PETER LIBBEY

48

PARENT-FRIENDLY CARTOONS

FOR A NEW GENERATION

Cyberspace and a

talking aardvark, what

more do we need?

For those of us growing up with-

out cable (or with parents who

believed that commercial TV

would rot our tiny brains), PBS’s

after school lineup was neutral

ground. Educational cartoons

like “Cyberchase” entertained

young viewers with the adven-

tures of a science and technol-

ogy-inclined trio, who chased an

evil hacker through a digital

world to save an omniscient

being called Motherboard and

unwittingly taught us about logic

and mathematics in the process.

Airing immediately after “Cyber-

chase” in the early 2000s was

“Arthur,” the beloved problem-

solving show that introduced us

to anthropomorphic aardvarks,

conniving little sisters and the

wonders of having a library card.

I suppose you won this round,

mom and dad.JULIA CARMEL

49

DANIEL TIGER’S

NEIGHBORHOOD

Sincere imitation,

but with whiskers

and a tail.

An animated successor of both

“Mister Rogers” and “Mister

Rogers’ Neighborhood,” Daniel is

the furriest protagonist in his

red-sweater-wearing lineage. A

simple, playful rascal who rarely

wears pants, Daniel invites a

new generation of kids to the

Neighborhood of Make-Believe,

which is filled with plenty of

simple jingles and toddler-size

problems. As he explores along-

side O the Owl (a tiny blue bird

who exclaims “nifty galifty”

whenever he learns something

new), Katerina Kittycat (a

friendly feline who loves ballet),

Prince Wednesday (Daniel’s

regal best friend) and Miss

Elaina (a sort of homage to Mis-

ter Rogers’s Lady Elaine

Fairchilde who calls everyone

“toots”), the show, which began

in 2012, reminds youngins that

it’s always a beautiful day in the

neighborhood.JULIA CARMEL

50

VIEWERS LIKE YOU

That’s right, we’re looking at you.

Open your wallet.

Beyond offering educational programming and

handy tote bags, public television makes us feel

like we’re a part of something bigger. Since 1989,

any program that’s been funded by PBS is tagged

with a message about viewers like you. A decade

later, “thank you” was tacked on to the end of it.

It’s a familiar and comforting slogan that’s seeped

into countless tweets, memes and even an episode

of “The Simpsons,” where Betty White declared

during a pledge drive that “if you watch even one

second of PBS and don’t contribute, you’re a thief.

A common thief!” After all, these programs

wouldn’t be possible without contributions to your

PBS stations without viewers like you. Thank

you!JULIA CARMEL

Celebrities stop by during pledge drives to plead for

your support, while volunteers answer the phones.

PBS

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PBS

50 YEARS OF PBS

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