Tag Archives: children’s television

Following up on African-American children’s TV

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Following up on my past post, I just sent this email to the contact emails of five African-American-oriented TV channels: TV One, BET, Bounce TV, Soul of the South and Aspire. 

To whom it may concern,

I am an African-American who is concerned that there is little programming on African-American TV channels that is dedicated to children and youth.

There are several channels on television which offer children/youth blocks of shows, both animated and live-action, and the lack of such content on African-American television channels is disappointing due to the alienation of that audience in their daily lives.

Would it be possible for your channel to feature a children/youth’s television block featuring Black lead characters? I think oncoming generations of Black TV-viewing youth will benefit and be positively impacted by such an action.

Sincerely,
Harry Underwood
Fort Benning, GA

My Fantasy African-American Children’s TV Block Lineup

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To date, I have not heard of anyn African-American-oriented television network (BET, Bounce, Aspire, TV One, or Song of the South) having a children’s television block.

I find it rather sad that there is a dearth of African-American lead characters in children’s, teen’s or YA television, or at lest not enough to fill a morning or afternoon block on these television channels, particularly because of a lack of presence for characters to which young African-Americans can relate, or be inspired, or find character narratives which they can follow with avid interest. 

But really, if television channels which talk of catering to an African-American audience are not building a gallery of titles aimed toward children within this mandate, then what room does any person have to bemoan the state of self-esteem among African-American youth, or of education, or of culture?

So I’m posting this list to raise awareness of television series which should be considered for inclusion in any of these channels’ hypothetical, nonexistent children’s/teen’s blocks:

  • Static Shock
  • Gullah Gullah Island
  • The Famous Jett Jackson
  • That’s So Raven
  • Corey in the House
  • A.N.T. Farm
  • Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids
  • The Proud Family
  • Little Bill
  • True Jackson VP
  • Men in Black: The Series
  • Gargoyles
  • Mister T
  • The Super Globetrotters
  • The Jackson 5 Cartoon
  • Class of 3000
  • Reading Rainbow

And heck, I’ll even throw in an import from South Africa: URBO: The Adventures of Pax Afrika, as well as an obscure, realistic-without-being-offensive web series titled Blokhedz. 

I purposefully exclude the following:

  • live-action “family” sitcoms which only focus on the goings-on of a family (there’s plenty of those nowadays). 
  • animated sitcoms which are aimed toward an adult audience, content-wise (i.e., The Boondocks and The P.J.’s).
  • animated action series which are aimed toward an adult audience, content-wise (i.e., Afro Samurai and the short-lived Black Panther)

After those are excluded, one has too look through much of the post-1970 history of animated and live-action children’s television just to find such shows as listed above. Maybe those who take the depiction of African-American lead characters seriously might use the above viewing list as a starting point.