the death of wit: what is it for?

Children's television is going downhill, we hear. No kidding. To coin a phrase. Apparently this is because of ever-falling budgets - and indeed, the BBC has cut its children's programming budget by 10%. Our kids are now to be fed a TV diet of cartoons, reruns and cheap American imports (including, presumably, the now-pc Sesame Street).*

How can we expect the kind of high-quality programming our children need - and they do need it, because they will get something in any case and we need to prevent them getting the stale, content-free, mind-numbing alternative - to materialise if the money isn't there to make it? Why must they think the whole world is like either a reality TV setup, or a celeb opportunity, or an ersatz American school, or computer-generated?

So. Not like grownup television, then. Nooo... Of course, everyone knows of the handy coincidence, that reality TV is so much cheaper to produce than, let's say, a new sitcom or drama - but that's okay, right? And everybody also knows that kids don't watch kids' TV anymore anyway, except for CBeebies. As long we we have Big Brother, the X Factor, Wife Swap, and the latest Stephen Poliakoff... oh, sorry, where was I - I must have dropped off -

I was away, so I missed writing about Jeremy Paxman's famous MacTaggart lecture in August, when he asked "What is television for?" He threw down the glove - and it seems the challenge is being taken up in the negative: "it's not for this, it's not for this..." It reminds me of the hero of the opera I wrote with my best friend in 6th grade, whose catchphrase went, "I won't marry you, I won't marry you, I won't marry yooouu..." I can't remember who, if anyone, he did marry. Maybe we never finished the opera.

In yesterday's Guardian Peter Fincham dusted off Paxo's question and sent it to lots of people for an answer. It seems none of them have answered it in a practical way. No one can say "Ban Big Brother, scrap the next top bimbos, do away with Extreme Makeover or whatever it is, and bring back The Good Life, Father Ted, the Forsyte Saga (not again - ed.), Tiswas, The Old Grey Whistle Test and LOTS more things like Life on Mars. We want intelligent quiz shows,** proper news, stories that ARE stories, and maybe some new Slaters to duke it out with Ronnie & Roxy. We want documentaries like that one about Ancient Egypt that the Baroque kids loved so much. Make everyone watch Dennis Potter's famous final interview again, and try to learn something from him" It's still, in other words, mostly a load of blather because nobody really wants to rock the boat. The bottom line really is the bottom line (cue line of fat arses).

The people who say we can get by with bad television*** (except for Poliakoff - he, presumably because he is its main beneficiary, with his affectless exercises in po-faced turgidity, thinks British TV is doing never better! and excelsior! into the ever- glistening future!) seem to think it is because we don't really want TV any more. The kids are all watching streamed movies, Smack the Pony and X Factor on catch-up TV, anyway.

Shame on us.

Meanwhile, the good news is that the original episodes of Sesame Street - one of the most pioneering and enduring programmes ever made for preschool children - are now available on DVD. But watch out. They're only suitable for adults, and that's according to the current Sesame Street producers. The concerns involve the irresponsible behaviour modelled by both humans and puppet characters in the early days.

Picked out for particular opprobrium is the spoof of the sainted Alistair Cooke, who used to present Masterpiece Theater on US public television: a character called Alistair Cookie, who presents Monsterpiece Theater, who initially smokes and then, cookie-monster-style, eats his pipe. Other examples of "bad role models" include the character Bob, holding a girl's hand and taking her home with him (to meet his wife and drink some milk, asd it happened); Oscar the Grouch, who spreads gloom and misanthropy with no recourse to counselling, therapy, group hugs or prozac; the scapegoating - and possible unreality - of the Snuffleupagus; etc, etc. Even in the real-life sections there are worrying trends.

Have a look, here. All those teats. And drinking unpasteurised milk, from non-EU-approved buckets! And as someone or other has pointed out, it's even full-fat.

Of course, Life on Mars adressed all this head-on with its idyllic view of the (sexism-n-racism -n-all) 70s. Yes: we all miss the days when you could just live. Be yourself. Deal with what you're dealing with, not what someone else will think of how you're dealing with it, whether it's going to make someone lots of money, or whether it might make you famous.

* Then again, I remember being horrified years ago when the first Harry Potter books came out in America with the "Englishisms" edited out - so that Hogwartrs is referred to as a "high school." and even slang terms are Americanised. Given this as a comparitor, I think we should be grateful that the UK TV bosses are happy for their sprigs to imbibe all that Americana, instead of sticking to a more local flavour. At least it shows someone is capable of not taking everything literally.

Hmm, or maybe we should get Gordon Brown onto it. How will we define, and forge the "new Englishness" if our kids don't have a cultural model for anything further east than California?

** Not me, okay. I don't watch quiz shows. But you know what I mean.

*** Okay, Bleak House was tremendous, exceptional. And in the summer I liked Debbie Horsfield's True Dare Kiss, with Dervla Kirwan et al. But week on week, not that I watch much anyway, there is nothing to watch.