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WGBH Will Air Postcards from Buster Episode
WGBH regrets the decision of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) not to provide public TV stations with the "Sugartime" episode of Postcards from Buster, produced by WGBH's Children's Programming department.
WGBH will air the episode locally on Wednesday, Feb. 2, at 5:30pm on WGBH 2; Thursday, Feb. 3 at 11am on WGBH 44; Monday, Feb. 7 at 7:30pm on 'GBH Kids (Comcast 217); Wednesday, March 23 at 5:30pm on WGBH 2; Tuesday, March 24 at 11am on WGBH 44. Additional plays may be added. We also will offer the episode directly to PBS's 349 stations to allow local broadcasters to decide whether to air the program.
"Sugartime" is about Buster's visit to northern Vermont. Set against the background of mud season and sugartime, the program explores the wonders of Vermont—from sugar houses to dairy farms to nighttime bonfires. As with many episodes, the real children Buster meets (in documentary footage cleverly integrated with the animation) introduce us to their family. In this case the children have two moms. The parents' lives are included only as a backdrop to the kids' lives; the focus is on Buster's visits to a sugar house and a dairy farm.
WGBH believes, as do the series' advisors, that the program is appropriate for our audience and fits the series' mission to introduce children to the rich and varied cultures that make up the United States, including kids living in a wide range of family structures.
We consider it the responsibility of public television to give children and
parents the resources they need to understand the world they inhabit—without excluding any segment of our society.
The major goal of Postcards from Buster is to help kids understand the richness and complexity of American culture, and to support the language learning of children who are in the process of acquiring English. Over the course of the series we feature more than 45 different families, introducing young people from many ethnic backgrounds, including Mormons in Utah, Hmong in Wisconsin, Orthodox Jews, and a Pentecostal Christian family. The series explores the role of religion in their lives. We visit kids living in a variety of settings in cities, suburbs, and the country.
Of the 40 Postcards episodes, this is the only one that visits with kids in this kind of family structure (the majority of episodes are with two–parent, male/female households; we also visit kids who live in single–parent households and extended family households). We included the Vermont family because significant numbers of children in the United States live in a similar family structure.
WGBH stands behind this production.
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