Episode 118: More than Sesame Street

Do you remember Thomas the Tank, Barnie, or Sesame Street? How do you use these resources in your center? In this week's episode, Carrie and Kate discuss our favorite childhood shows and ideas to use these resources while being aware of copyright. 

Transcript

Welcome back to the colorful clipboard Carrie and I are so glad that you have joined us. And so today we are going to talk a little bit about. So there's a phrase that we often use

when thinking about things from our childhood. And I'm going to go with the term childhood icons and there's the icons from when we were little and so, and a lot of people know those icons In different ways. So whether it's something like Sesame Street or Mister Rogers Neighborhood you know Captain Kangaroo you know I was like why can't I remember

any of the ones, my kids watched How is the Tank Engine?  I'm just taking him Arthur you know so Barney huh. Barney. 

Okay. So yes, PBS Public Broadcasting System as a great place to find a lot of our childhood icons, but we also probably have those in some of our favorite books and even movies from when we were kids and a couple of things we're going to talk about today we're going to talk about let you know what does it mean to be age appropriate? Because just because we remember doing it as a kid doesn't necessarily mean that it's appropriate for kids under 5 like it still may be a six or seven year old thing so we gotta keep that in mind. Carrie is definitely going to help us kind of review and discuss things like copyrights. What's the best way to use those resources? We all have you know TV shows or something that we love. You know everything from The Mouseketeers to pick a Disney movie. 

There's lots of them but it's also, so it's actors. It's a TV show. Its books, Winnie the Pooh

Is a huge deal to me. I think what we need to poo is you know the bee's knees. There was a center that I went to and did a little bit of coaching with that. I was a little confused by the icons that they had represented. They had big pictures of it there because they were British. And in the office all of the books were Beatrix Potter and Paddington Bear and stuff like that in  the office. But in the school none of those were reflected and I was confused because there was this disconnect. So if you're going on the tour of the center you're seeing you know

modern American icons, like Daniel Tiger and then you go into the office and it's Beatrix Potter

and Winnie the Pooh and Paddington Bear and it didn't make sense together.

My nickname there are people across the world who call me Fred and in today's world this gets to be confusing because they're like is she transgender know my maiden name was Rogers and I'm insanely cheerful and I'm constantly taking my shoes off. So as a kid everybody said oh you're like Mr. Rogers. So they called me Fred. maiden name Rogers. Take your shoes off all the time you're obviously Fred Rogers and there is probably not a week that goes by that. I don't think of something that Fred Rogers did in some way that improved my life or my kids lives or TV. Okay. 

So the next time you come down to Orlando to visit Marie let's make sure we go to Rollins College in Winter Park Florida because that is where he went to college and grew up and they have all kinds of memorials to him. So anyway if you know want to see a life-size you know to Mr. Rogers sitting on a bench. I always like to see. I mean it one of my theories it One of my kids core memories is actually the day that Mr. Rogers died. You know it's very much not a shiny yellow core memory. It is a blue core memory but you know Blue Core memories are important. 

We all have our version of it and today is the day Olivia Newton-John passed away. So I'm going to kick off with her as I launch into what I would call an age-appropriate childhood icon.

Because I do remember it came out when I was seven. So Carrie you would have been what five or six depending on the time of the year. And so I definitely associate the greases Childhood show you watch as an adult. You're like what were people thinking? Let us watch those things. There are a lot of movies. But yeah. So not only were the actors really not high school students. They didn't look like high school students and there was nothing about the content that was age-appropriate for any kid. 

So let's talk a little bit about perhaps, maybe some childhood icons or or even books or stories. Stories or movies that we often see in childcare centers because the adult who's in that classroom or who's running that program or owning that program this is something that

they think of when they think of a child or children. 

So, Okay. Well, I have seen Transformers which is an incredibly violent TV show. What was that in the 80s? I don't know but it's coming back like eight times and everything with that. Right? The turtles Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Has definitely made its world around Power Rangers you know. So yeah and now it's Yu-Gi-Oh well I'm sure you give it a pass but you know we have various different fighting TV shows. And the question is should you have the items from the fighting TV shows or fighting movies in your program? What are the pros and cons of having you know I'm always gonna side more with comic book people because I was a comic book person. I wasn't a Manga person. So what is the difference between having a Yu-Gi-Oh action figure and having a Flash action figure? 

Those are both you know a lot of times we hear people talk about oh, I don't want swords and guns but they're going to have lightsabers. Which is a sword gun. Like it got some people unhappy. 

So you know you have to, we've talked about the whole rough-and-tumble play and where does that cross into violence play and you have to draw lines between you know, do I allow violence? Play? What kind am I? But again a lot of those are childhood icons. you know how many little boys that I grew up with had Darth Vader action figures and Luke Skywalker action figures.

Okay? But let's talk this through. Because you and I are both I mean, we're both about you know we're both the same generation we're both talking about the same thing. And so to me I agree. We think of those little kid things but they're still not always toddler things. And

so that's where I found myself noticing that you know Oh, it's so cute. They have ABC Disney movies because you know I love Disney movies but let's be realistic. A lot of those are really kind of scary for a three-year-old. And so you have to remember when you're choosing to show a movie or read a book or tell a story or even have a picture on the wall I mean I remember going to a program that had an awful lot of copyright very large you know characters on their wall which were four-man adults. They were appropriate, right? But they were massive and I kept thinking to myself. Now, if you're looking at that and your three he's no good. He's painted as an 8-foot Big Bird because a big bird is 8 foot all right? Is that going to be something that is a positive impact for the kids in that program? Not to mention the fact that you have definitely broken the law.

So definitely we talked about this when we start talking about art projects we start talking about it if you're a faith based organization and we talk about holidays, right? So make sure you're really aware of what the child is taking away from what you are teaching, not necessarily. What do you remember that? You think you were a child? When do you remember? Because most of us do not remember what we learned when we were doing three. 

Yeah absolutely So I want to transition. I was talking about using them as decorations in your program. Please don't put up a life size painting of Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia in your school. You have no legal right to her face or to the character design. So, those are two different things and two different people own them. So Carrie Fisher's daughter owns the right to Carrie Fisher's face which is weird but it's true and she's off doing her own acting gig now. And the Princess Leia design is owned by I don't the guess now by the Disney. So you can't do a Princess Leia design because Disney owns that and they can and will sue you not because they want to put your daycare center out of business but the way the law works is anytime they are notified that somebody is infringing on their copyright. They have to enforce it or else the losses that they no longer sure have a copyright. So if you paint a big bird on a wall in your school sesame street has to sue you if they hear about it, okay? 

But there are companies that make life size stickers that you can put on your wall of these licensed characters. So you can do with that, you can absolutely buy those products that are licensed but make sure they are licensed that they are not a knockoff you bought on Etsy, yeah if you're going to buy those stickers that are fat boys, big boys? Well there's various different ones but Disney has some specifically licensed and so does the children's television workshop make sure that you have like I said don't buy them off of Etsy because if you buy them off of Etsy and put them in your business, your business has now violated copyright. Even though you're not the one who created it. You're displaying it but again it can just be some discussions or some active thought processes. So this one I think is gone a little long but you can tell it was definitely something that Kate and I felt  passionate about and we just wanted to talk about it with you guys because  you know, the Elvis movie came out this year, you know, there have 

There were a number of Childhood icons that have passed  away in the past, you know, a couple of months and it's just the way. Okay  guys. Well if you enjoyed this podcast or any of our other podcasts, be sure to share it with a friend and we'll see you next week.