Postcards From Buster

Postcards from Buster is an educational children’s program on PBS that began as a single episode of Arthur before spinning-off to become its own series in 2004. Eight-year-old rabbit Buster Baxter (Daniel Brochu), Arthur’s best friend, is the star of this show about exploring the world around us. Buster’s parents are divorced and in this show, he travels with his airline pilot father, Bo Baxter (Marcel Jeannin), and records what he sees on his video camera, to show his friends back home in Elwood City. The show mixes animation and live-action footage, showing Buster interacting with real children from across the United States of America and participating in their family traditions and hobbies. Each show incorporates an original song about the city or region visited, from the bayous of Louisiana to a Midwestern county fair, helping children remember what they have learned from the episode. Although the show has received much positive critical acclaim, in January 2005 then-United States Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings criticized the show for including episode #133, in which Buster visits a girl in Hinesburg, Vermont, to learn about the production of maple sugar. The girl had a lesbian couple as her parents, and former Secretary Spellings did not believe that introducing the concept of same-sex marriage, even as casually and minimally as was done in the episode, was appropriate for children. That moment of controversy aside, Postcards from Buster is a raging success as a children’s show, and a great source of educational entertainment. MORE