![]() ![]() He learns about high-rising apartments and rising taxis, but also learns that aside from prayer services, the school that his new friends attend is a lot like his own. ![]() Buster meets up with a Jewish family who he hopes can be a big help, since Francine is Jewish. 19, Buster revisits some children from the first season, whose homes in Louisiana were damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.When a magazine quiz helps Francine discover that her lifestyle is perfect for the hustle and bustle of New York, she asks Buster to get her as much information as he can when he pays a visit there. And in the last show of the season, scheduled for Feb. 29, Buster will learn about the Mexican border, traveling with children to Tijuana from San Diego to meet their pen pals. In an episode that was shown Monday, Buster visited Fort Leonard Wood, an Army post in Missouri, to meet the family of a father who is stationed in Iraq. Perhaps surprisingly, this season continues to deal with hot-button issues. That fall PBS decided to provide most of the money needed for a season of 10 shows. The producers, musicians, editors and writers of “Buster” were let go from the show for almost a year under normal circumstances the second season would have begun in fall 2005. Neither the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is controlled by Congress and provided funds for Season 1, nor the traditional corporate sponsors of PBS children’s programming would underwrite the show. “All the traditional funding sources backed away,” said Jeanne Jordan, the series producer for the second season of “Postcards.” The Education Department’s Ready-to-Learn program, which had largely financed the first season of “Postcards” with $5 million through PBS, rewrote its grant to eliminate the call for cultural diversity, and PBS did not pursue that grant for Season 2. But the “Sugartime!” controversy made finding funds for a second season difficult. It said that 57 of 349 stations broadcast the episode in March 2005, making it available to more than half of PBS viewers. WGBH responded by independently offering “Sugartime!” to each PBS station. In the days that followed, the American Family Association, a major Christian conservative organization, orchestrated a campaign of more than 150,000 e-mail messages and letters to Spellings supporting her position, said Ed Vitagliano, a spokesman for the association. ![]() The same day PBS removed “Sugartime!” from its lineup. “Many parents would not want their young children exposed to the lifestyles portrayed in this episode,” she wrote. But most adults probably first heard of Buster in January 2005, midway into the show’s first season, when word got out that an episode about maple-sugaring, called “Sugartime!” would feature children in a Vermont family with two moms.Įducation Secretary Margaret Spellings attacked the episode in a letter to Pat Mitchell, the former PBS president, dated Jan. This season includes only 10 episodes, which began in November and will run through February, a far cry from the 40 produced for the show’s first season.Ĭhildren first came to know Buster Baxter, the animated bunny who is the show’s star, as the best friend of Arthur, the animated aardvark who is the title character of another PBS series. In “Postcards From Buster,” documentary footage of children from different cultures is combined with animation of Buster and his friends. “It’s a children’s show dealing with diversity by showing real kids in real-life situations. “We were proud of ‘Postcards From Buster,’ and we are proud of ‘Postcards From Buster,”’ said Brigid Sullivan, vice president for children’s programming at WGBH, the Boston PBS station that produces the show. What happens to a children’s public television show after it has been attacked by the secretary of education, pilloried by conservatives, then abandoned by its underwriters? In the case of “Postcards From Buster,” it manages to return, belatedly but unbowed, for a second season. ![]()
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