Series · PBS · 2012

Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood

73Then talk about it.Not an average of critics. Eight questions, one house.

A parent, a neighborhood, and a tool a child can actually use. Keep it for the young.

The glance

Piety is the thin one.

This phone

Set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

After the credits

Can conscience actually stop someone, or is reverence only in the shot so it can be mocked?

Daniel's house has a mother and a father who are still in charge, a clock, and a neighborhood of adults with jobs. The songs are instructions, not vibes: try a new food, wait, use your words, go potty. A preschooler can carry the instruction out of the room, which is the test this shelf usually fails.

It is not for anyone over six, and it is not trying to be. Put it on for the child it is for. Do not sneer at the sweater. The sweater is a civic document for people who cannot read yet.

Where to watch

Finding the page.

The eight

Industry
6/10
Adults have jobs. The child has the work of learning a skill.
Household
10/10
The family is intact, affectionate, and in charge.
Piety
4/10
Kindness is practiced as a rule. A creed is not named.
Courage
5/10
Trying the hard thing at child scale is the courage.
Republic
8/10
A neighborhood where the adults know the child by name.
Temperance
9/10
Feelings are acknowledged and then given a limit.
Truth
8/10
The songs say the true next step, not a flattery.
Stewardship
8/10
It hands a child a sentence they can use tomorrow.

Live historicallyWhen a small child is overwhelmed, use one of the songs, then do the thing the song says.

Series · Pluto TV · 1960

The Andy Griffith Show

73Then talk about it.Not an average of critics. Eight questions, one house.

A father, a town, and a pace. Keep it. The joke is almost never cruel.

The glance

Piety is the thin one.

This phone

Set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

After the credits

Can conscience actually stop someone, or is reverence only in the shot so it can be mocked?

Andy will not hurry, and he will not humiliate a man who can be redirected. Opie is being raised in public, which means the episode is often a lesson, and the lesson is usually about telling the truth or not using someone. Barney wants a gun and a title. Andy wants the street quiet. The show agrees with Andy.

A child can watch this. It is a picture of authority that does not need to be feared to be mind. The limit is the one every old comedy has: the town is narrower than a real town, and you should say so. The virtues are not narrow. They are the reason it is still on a free channel fifty years later.

Where to watch

Finding the page.

The eight

Industry
6/10
The work is keeping a town boring. He is good at it.
Household
9/10
A widower and a boy. The household is the point of the quieter episodes.
Piety
5/10
Church is in the week. It is not a joke and not a plot twist.
Courage
6/10
The brave thing is usually not making a scene.
Republic
8/10
Mayberry is a commons. He treats the eccentric as a neighbor.
Temperance
8/10
Appetite is not the engine. A fishing hole is enough.
Truth
8/10
He makes Opie say the true thing, including when it costs the boy.
Stewardship
8/10
He is raising a person, not an audience.

Live historicallySpend one evening at the speed of a porch, with a child if you have one.