

Merchandise-Driven: Claster Television, the show's creator, was bought by Hasbro in 1969, making Romper Room merchandise inevitable.Romper Room was known as the longest running children's television show in America until Sesame Street beat that record in 2010. the teacher named off children who had written to the show, it was likely that she might give the name of a child who was watching. this was a show franchise produced by local stations and 2. In particular, the concept is played with using the Magic Mirror that the teacher would look through at the end of each episode to "see" who was watching the show. Fake Interactivity: Yup, it used this.

Every Episode Ending: All episodes ended with the teacher looking through the Magic Mirror to see who was watching.Edutainment Show: Likely a Trope Codifier, being one of the earliest American edutainment shows out there (by no means is it the first one from America, though Ding Dong School predates it by a year).Anti-Role Model: Don't Bee demonstrates to children how not to do certain things.At the end of each episode, the teacher would look into a "magic mirror" and say the names of the children who the magic mirror thinks are having a good day. The general premise of Romper Room was that a woman serving as the hostess of the show would spend about an hour doing various activities with a group of children, such as storytelling, exercising, singing songs, etc. The show was created by Bert and Nancy Claster of Claster Television. The format also was exported to other countries, such as the UK, Japan, and Australia.
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With my value of creating greater unity in my world, I know it starts with one truth I hold which is all every person on the planet wants is to be heard and seen. Thank you, Jessica, for calling out my name through your Magic Mirror and making my childhood wish come true. I feel seen. I feel I belong.An American educational TV show that was highly influential to the Edutainment Show genre, Romper Room aired from 1953 to 1994 and was a rare case of a show being franchised and syndicated (i.e., local affiliates could produce and air their own versions without having to air one single national version, although there was a national version made for affiliates that didn't have their own local version of the show). I coach BIPOC leaders and this is a common thread. Belonging comes from a place of being seen and being heard. For me when I hold leadership roles, my aim is to create places for people to feel safe. Safe to speak, safe to say silent, safe to stay, or safe to walk out. I do this because in my experience being safely seen and heard is connected to a deep-felt reality of belonging.
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I was seen. With the correct pronunciation said ‘I see Kanchan’. I intuitively exhaled. In a fraction of a minute, without any effort of my own, with no preparation, Jessica gave me the gift of being witnessed.Īs a woman of color, there is a deep-seated need for belonging in the spaces I work in when outwardly (name and skin color) there aren’t as many like me. Because of my experience with shows like Romper Room, as a child, I learned that I may not belong. This adds to the shape of my adult life in that I seek out heart-centered places of belonging. She called out my name. An immediate wave of being 5 years old came over me. Speed ahead 50 years, and in a ZOOM call this week Jessica Potts closed the meeting by reached down to pull up her ‘magic mirror’ and called out names just like in Romper Room. Tell me, tell me, tell me, do. Magic Mirror, tell me today, did all my friends have fun at play?” Then recited random first names of children while looking through the open mirror, into Television Land and everyone’s living rooms.Īs an optimistic child, I felt it was on me to move a little more to be noticed so my name could be called. Day after day, my name was not called. As a 5-year-old, I weaved and bobbed so I could be seen by what I believed was a true magic mirror.įor some of you who may not know, Romper Room was a staple television show in North America for preschoolers. At the end of the television show, Miss Nancy would hold up the Magic Mirror (an empty open frame without the mirror), to recite her ending phase “Romper, bomper, stomper boo. As a five-year-old, every day I would weave my body, stretch my head as high as I could so I could be seen. These daily actions all happen in our living room, in front of the television in the early ’70s. At the end of my favorite show Romper Room, the teacher would hold up a magic mirror to call out people’s names she was ‘seeing’ in Television land.
