Classical Baby is the name of an HBO television series touted as a show for parents to watch with their babies. The show features pieces of classical music played while images of clowns, animals, and works of art are shown.
Critics, including some child psychologists, have condemned the show, which premiered on May 14, 2005, for marketing television to babies. They contend that television is generally unhealthy for children, and that such a promotion is geared towards acclimating children to television at too young an age. Nevertheless, the show won two Emmy Awards in 2006: one for Outstanding Children's Program and another for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation given to animator Barbara Wierzchowska.
It won a Peabody Award in April 2005, and was assessed by the judges as follows:
- "This whimsical, charming, deceptively simple marriage of animation to the music of Tchaikovsky, Bach and Ellington becomes an interactive treat for young children and parents alike."
Read more about Classical Baby: Episodes
Famous quotes containing the words classical and/or baby:
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“The cohort that made up the population boom is now grown up; many are in fact middle- aged. They are one reason for the enormous current interest in such topics as child rearing and families. The articulate and highly educated children of the baby boom form a huge, literate market for books on various issues in parenting and child rearing, and, as time goes on, adult development, divorce, midlife crisis, old age, and of course, death.”
—Joseph Featherstone (20th century)