75 East Broadway | Bringing The City to Kids Everywhere

When Roo was a toddler, I came across an article about holding a baby barbecue. Sounds like a quaint Texan custom, but this one involved grilling the placenta. I was amused to discover it was written by an old college radio friend and obviously his sense of humor had not abated.

Flash forward to now and that same friend has created an awesome web channel for kids with a similarly off-kilter sense of humor and thirst for knowledge: Welcome to 75 East Broadway, which bills itself as "a free online media network in progress. Showcasing premium original content for enlightened families everywhere – we’ll bring you videos, images, artifacts, science experiments, experimental art and other curiosities from around the globe." It's kind of like public access TV for digital natives, with educational content, video art, and man-on-the-street interviews of urban denizens by a roving band of puppets. New videos are posted every Friday, so you should subscribe, obviously!




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Astroblast! Rockets On To Sprout TV

Sometimes I get a little depressed that the kids are getting older. Not because I have rabid baby lust but because I love all the trappings of the 0-5 world: picture books, teensy tiny clothes, educational television programming. When Roo and Jasper were little, nobody would question me having Sprout on all day, for example.

Anyway, I don't really write about little kid stuff as often anymore, but I had to pass along this Scholastic-Sprout collaboration. With that pedigree, it's not hard to imagine how smart and kid-friendly the new show Astroblast! would be, but you just have to see how cool and cute the CGI animation is:

Astroblast! premieres Monday, January 19, at 1pm on Sprout.

Astroblast! follows the zany adventures of Comet, Halley, Sputnik, Radar and Jet, a crew of animals who run the Astroblast Space Station, the coolest hangout in the galaxy, all under the watchful eye of Sal the Octopus. Along with a constantly changing cast of quirky visitors from other planets, the Astroblast Space Station gang cooks up the perfect recipe for promoting positive relationships, self-esteem, good nutrition and physical activity.

Astroblast! is inspired by the Scholastic books of the same name by award-winning author/illustrator Bob Kolar, and every episode offers fun stories with age-appropriate messages about friendship and self-awareness. Like many of Scholastic Media’s popular TV series, Astroblast!is also a perfect choice for kids and families to tune-in to together – and its humor will have viewers of all ages laughing along.

Curious George - New Episodes This Week!

I've been a fan of Curious George since I was little and he did naughty, politically incorrect things like smoke pipes and start fire alarms. The current incarnation of the classic character is still mischevious but he's also a little less destructive, thankfully! Curious George is starting its seventh season on PBS this week with three brand-new episodes about animals.

The premiere episode of the season, "Monkey Down Under," finds George and the Man with the Yellow Hat in Australia for an Outback adventure. George investigates giant footprints in the sand and learns about indigenous animals from local conservationist and wildlife expert Bindi Irwin, the progeny of the late Crocodile Hunter and a force for animals in her own right. George learns all about koalas, kangaroos, emus and more in this fun episode.


Curious George is a great way to engage preschoolers in learning. Check your local PBS channel listings for December 3-5th and watch these with your little ones. You won't be disappointed!

In accordance to the FTC Guidelines and the WOMMA Code of Ethics, I am disclosing that we received a screener DVD to facilitate this review. No compensation was provided for this post. All opinions are, as usual, entirely my own.