Q&A
Boohbah
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Question: I'm writing to you this time to ask if you have heard of "Boobah", which is a program on PBS (here in saint Paul, it's TPT 2 (Twin Cities Public Television).
I've watched this program twice. My knee-jerk reaction to the show was, "How stupid is that?!?". Colorful, fat creatures that mainly just run around, bump into each other, "speak" some unintelligible "language", and such. Please pardon my phrasing, but, Boobah just seems like Teletubbies on PCP or some other mind-altering illicit drug.
Then, there's a long segment toward the end of each program where these "creatures" run down a rainbow road, into some sort of spacepod, where they each nestle into a spoon-like "bed" and their heads shrink down into their bodies. Then, the "ship"/pod starts to spin 'round and 'round, then, the next thing you know, you see their sparkling "ship" superimposed over a backdrop of some city, flying through the air, and stopping off at certain points, dropping a child off to do some inane activity, like bending, dancing, leaning over to stretch, and each kid that gets dropped off does his or her activity for about a minute (for example: A young girl gets "beamed" to the ground, and starts doing a stretch over and over again for about 1 minute (maybe it's less, but, it's repetitive). Then, the camera cuts to the blue sky above, and we watch the Boobah's "ship" streaking off to another destination to repeat the process.
In one episode of Boobah, before the above-mentioned segment, the Boobah creatures spent roughly 2 to 2-1/2 minutes jumping over one another. The same thing over and over again. Maybe it's because I am 35 years old, but, what on earth does this teach a little tyke? It just seems like someone got bored and wanted to make a bigger and better Teletubbies.
I have included links to the section of the PBS site that is set aside for this "Boobah" television program. To me, it just seems like mindless, brainless programming offered by a station that is more known for offering programs that educate (things like NOVA, FrontLine, et al.)
Boohbah- Interview : "I think in Boohbah the main thing is that you have engaged children totally with movement, right from the beginning. Everyone knows that movement is good for children. What we’re trying to do is engage the children in recognition, recognition of what the movement is, imitation - let’s imitate what they do and then what you might call consolidation - make them really happy - because what we want to do is make children feel happy inside. ...The Story People have been designed to be 2 dimensional characters. They’re like pieces in a game to be played with.
The Secret of Learning with Boohbah : Boohbah is different from most educational TV. It is intended to foster a style of active viewing in which the things that children learn from viewing are not determined primarily by the content of the program, but rather by the ways that young viewers (and the grown-ups who care about them) engage with the program