Stop Doing Things for the Woke Mob: The Destruction of PBS in Real-Time

Here's an in-depth timeline of how PBS started to stink like a "rotten fish," as Todd Friel said on his Wretched Radio show. Wise companies took an object lesson from PBS's self-destruction through its overt media bias.

2005

Bustergate, the HUGE Postcards from Buster scandal, erupted. The incident centered on the episode "Sugartime!" in which Buster goes to Vermont and visits children with two moms, because Vermont allowed civil unions for same-sex parents at that time. Former Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings did not approve of the episode. It was pulled from most PBS stations, but some could contact WGBH (currently GBH Kids) for a tape to broadcast it. On some stations, "Sugartime!" aired late at night with a disclaimer to let parents make their own choices whether or not they were okay with the content. Then, the episode was moved to the normal Postcards from Buster schedule (weekday afternoon). Shockingly, "Sugartime!" had a VHS, DVD, and Amazon Prime Video release. It was even released on the 2005 Buster's Outdoor Journeys DVD and VHS, and the 2010 complete series DVD from Mill Creek Entertainment — when this nonsense was unpopular with most of the US population.

2017

Marc Brown, the Arthur creator, unironically wrote about going to Paris to "escape the non-stop Trump show" in a blog post called "Paris Trumps Trump."

2018

PBS ran promos to celebrate family, friends, and community. One of them was a song called "You, Me, and Community," which contained a scene with a kid who had two dads.

The same year, Sesame Street started to encourage kids as young as three and a half to use smartphones (I found this in the Elmo's World segments). And in a musical segment about different ways to play, Grover dressed as a princess.

2019

Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum was released, and it was full of historical errors and watered-down history, according to Common Sense Media reviews.

More infamously, Arthur depicted a same-sex wedding (without a disclaimer beforehand) between the established teacher Mr. Ratburn and a "surprise" new chocolatier character, Patrick the aardvark. Alabama and Arkansas PBS affiliates banned the episode "Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone" and replaced it with a rerun of an Arthur episode from years ago. Marc Brown was upset, but absolutely no one cared. A stultifying article on the PBS Parents website, written about representing different families "in all shapes and sizes" on TV, praised the episode: "Mr. Ratburn marries an aardvark named Patrick." The article starts off with the familiar Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood and gradually segues into the Ratburn incident.

During 2019 and the 2020s, Common Sense Media and the App Store quietly deleted user-generated (parent) reviews that painted the episode in a negative light and depicted upset kids and families. One deleted App Store review on the PBS Kids Video app said, "My kids were watching Arthur and all of a sudden the teacher comes out as gay." A censored Common Sense Media review (reposted on an alternative called SiteJabber) stated, "My kids have liked Arthur a lot but we are going to have to decrease the eyeball time for them. This last episode of the gay marriage was quite inappropriate.… They know this is a controversial issue." Another said, "She has watched [Arthur] for 10 years without incident" and mentioned that the writer's child was very alarmed at the Ratburn situation. Those reviews aren't there anymore. Further, the now-deleted Hideout Now blog said it was "insidious" for Patrick to be "heavily associated with candy."

2020

PBS rebooted Clifford the Big Red Dog, after the original show stopped releasing new episodes in 2003, but with one of Emily Elizabeth's friends (Samantha Mulberry) having two moms. There wasn't a disclaimer to explain this. Arkansas senators decide to cut PBS funding because they ruined Clifford.

PBS also had a guy in a dress (Billy Porter) appear in an episode of Sesame Street.

The Arthur producers made an online short in which Arthur is seen videochatting with Buster. Apparently, Elwood City had a fear of COVID-19.

The Wild Kratts encourage kids to "activate your mask power!" Daniel Tiger had an episode addressing coronavirus, promoting masks, and normalizing COVID fear. Sesame Street and CNN held a town hall-style special about pretty much the same thing. There was an Arthur "virtual graduation" video, and also a music video (recycling clips from episodes) about washing your hands. You could have gone to Aldi and seen all the COVID fear you wanted. Why did we need cartoons that warned kids to be afraid?

The producers just had to put Patrick in the Arthur Thanksgiving special. They also made a syrupy-sweet new Arthur web game called "An Elwood City Thanksgiving," where kids could go to characters' houses to see how they celebrate Thanksgiving, and Patrick was in that, too. The narrator (eight-year-old child Buster) says, "This is Mr. Ratburn and Patrick's house. They like a quiet Thanksgiving for two." Visitors could feed them "their new tradition" chocolate cake, cranberries, peas, hot tea, and mac n' cheese. Kids could take a family photo — they had coordinated outfits and held hands.

Interestingly, PBS itself had the more unusual response to the Ratburn kerfuffle. Patrick appeared in four (of 200+) Arthur episodes and merely had speaking appearances for half of those. PBS hyped him up and painted him as Ratburn's "new best friend," only to seemingly sweep him under the rug when enough parents complained. Footage of Patrick himself, let alone him talking to his "buddy" Ratburn, was few and far between. A spokeswoman for PBS said diversity was important, but willfully ignored the logic of said diversity bandwagon/promises and didn't care whether Ratburn would miss his friend or get lonely. However, Ratburn remained a mainstay of the series (because of his function as teacher, they couldn't really get rid of him) and Seasons 23-25 were business as usual, maybe to try fooling people into donating to PBS and thinking nothing had ever happened. This "business as usual" could presumably be why, for viewers without the context of having watched "Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone" beforehand, Patrick appears to simply be Mr. Ratburn's friend on Arthur Thanksgiving.

2021

The notorious episode of Sesame Street showing a human character's "brother and his husband" aired.

2022

There was a same-sex wedding on Odd Squad with two brides near the Eiffel Tower.

2023

In Work it Out Wombats, produced by GBH Kids (the Boston-based PBS affiliate that made Arthur and Postcards from Buster), two female kangaroos (Leiko and Duffy) adopted a daughter, Louisa the tarsier.

2025

The Trump administration defunded PBS, and deservedly so.

2026

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting shut down.

The woke mob is never grateful for anything anyone does for them. Companies need to stop doing things for them, because the mob will want more, and more, and more. When the inevitable backlash arrives, the company loses its bottom line, plus it alienates children and families who were once big fans.

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