TidBITS: Welcome to Internet U, via Video
I was raised on the most successful initiatives from Public Television, or ETV as it was previously known (E standing for Educational of course). Sesame Street, 3-2-1 Contact, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, and Reading Rainbow were my bread and butter as a kid.
I couldn’t agree more I too grew up with Educational Television as a child. In fact in the Northeast corner of South Dakota there was a huge transmitter just outside our little town. It was a PBS tower and sometimes that was the only station we could get. In between days at school and dinner time I watched re-runs of Gilligan’s Island or old Hanna Barbera cartoons on Captain 11 on KELO-TV. Those were the days. I used to thoroughly hate the adult shows my parents watched like Masterpiece Theatre. They must have seen every episode of Upstairs, Downstairs three times. But then I too loved watching repeats of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood and Sesame Street. I was one of the chief beneficiaries of Newton Minow’s speech to the National Association of Brodacasters back in 1961. For me television might have been a vast wasteland, but there were some bright shining spots along the way.
