Free Buster Baxter

July 30, 2005

Guest Post by Morbo

I just happened to walk by the television and saw that my 7-year-old son was watching “Postcards from Buster,” the PBS show that a few months ago got Education Secretary Margaret Spellings’ nylons in knots because one episode contained a brief segment featuring lesbian couple. Spellings sent a nasty threatening letter to PBS, and most affiliates refused to air that episode, called “Sugar Time.” (Spellings had the power to do this because the Education Department provides some funding for “Buster” under a program called Ready to Learn.)

For those of you who have never seen the show, “Postcards from Buster” deals with the adventures of a food-loving animated rabbit who travels around the country with his dad meeting children and sampling local cultures and cuisines. It combines live action with animation, and Buster often interviews real kids about their lives.

What caught my eye about the episode my son was watching was that it was set mostly in an African American Pentecostal church in Seattle. There was the cartoon Buster, clapping and swaying with the real-life congregation.

Buster seems awfully interested in religion. In recent episodes, he has visited Orthodox Jews in New York City, popped in on some Muslims in Detroit and hung out with some Catholic altar boys in training. I’m not sure, but I think he has also visited the Amish and some Mormons.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for Buster — and by extension his viewing audience — learning about religion, and I’m pleased that the show includes a range of faiths. But it seems to me that the American mosaic is a little more colorful than Spellings believes. If Buster can visit with religious folks all over the nation, why can’t he drop by to see a little girl who just happens to have two mommies and loves them both?

Spellings seems to think that was a controversial message. But religion can be controversial too, and it looks like Buster is handling it well. It’s time to let this rabbit out of the cage and restore Buster’s “lost episode.”

Here’s another one that’d never get aired – Buster visits an atheist family. They’d get up on Sunday, go to their local Ethical Society meeting, make pancakes afterward, watch the game etc. They’s also tell Buster they don’t think they need to tell their kids about some invisible cloud being who’s going to torture them in a fiery pit for eternity if they aren’t good. Buster would learn people can live worthwhile lives while behaving well toward others without having an imaginary being to tell them to do it.

That’d be a program to see. As would the screams from theocrats like Spellings as they shut it down.

  • “If Buster can visit with religious folks all over the nation, why can’t he drop by to see a little girl who just happens to have two mommies and loves them both?”

    Morbo, Morbo, Morbo…. Don’t you get it? I mean, don’t you GET it?

    We simply MUST protect our childrent from the Fags, the Freaks, the Fucked-ups, and those who actually Fuck. And all of those 4Fs — the people who are Fags, or are Freaks in some way (atheists, Jews, dark-skinned, etc., you know, DIFFERENT from the Rethug WASPS), or are Fucked-up in some way (disabled, poor, unemployed, homeless, uninsured, immigrants, etc.), or who Fuck (yes, I mean have sex in any one or more of its infinite varieties, whether with a spouse or not, straight or gay or otherwise, alone or with neighbors at a block party, etc.) — ARE ALL DEMS (or so the stereotype goes). EVERYONE knows that, right?

    So now do you “get” it, Morbo?

    P.S. For those of you who may be somewhat unfamiliar with this site and therefore my individual predilections, this is all snark. I know Morbo “gets” that!! 🙂

  • Hey, jimBob, I’m with you. I think atheists have to get vocal about how we’re such a persecuted minority. Problem with this is that atheists don’t have the kind of support group that religionists have. We don’t have a rallying point, regular meetings where we can whip ourselves into an antireligious fervor. If we’re gonna ever do this, we’ll need to form some sort of group that’ll focus our energies, get our combined cosmic juices flowing, subsume our individuality in the service of the greater cause, the cause of lamenting our persecution at the hands of religious Americans.

    Whew, almost got carried away there in a paroxysm of atheistic enthusiasm. Never mind.

  • Wonder what Buster learned from “some Catholic altar boys in training” . . .

  • Wonder what would happen if Buster visited a Metropolitan Community Church?

  • I really like jimBOB’s idea of a visit to
    an atheistic family. Why not suggest
    that to the station, making the same
    points that were in your comment?

    Sanitize it a little, so you’re not coming
    down hard on religious folks, but only
    pointing out that good moral behavior
    is not dependent upon belief in some
    supernatural being(s).

  • Buster needs to talk Marge into renting a convertible and taking a road trip down Southwest to visit a Native American Church. Buster’s a little too young to participate but Marge can get right with the Lord by participating in a ritual soul cleansing assisted by a little Peyote tea.

    Buster can check out fantastic local cuisine while Marge clears out the brain pores. She’s carting around a lot of baggage and I know she would be relieved to realize that she can set it down and walk away.

    It’ll make a great episode. http://peyote.org/

  • Hark –

    Perhaps I should. You’re right, for the purposes of the post I’d been a bit inflamatory (maybe having folks blithely stating that my beliefs are a force of evil gets under my skin a little).

    My guess is it’d still be way too hot a potato; atheism is the belief system that dare not speak its name, and admitting you are an unbeliever makes you the same as an axe murderer in the eyes of some.

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