Gullah Gullah Island

“Come and let’s play together in the bright sunny weather, let’s all go to Gullah, Gullah Island” (Gullah, Gullah Island Theme Song).  When Nickelodeon first aired Gullah, Gullah Island on Nick Jr., preschoolers across the United States of America did just what the theme songs’ lyrics told them to do, they “went” to Gullah, Gullah Island.  The interactive approach to children’s television proved to work profoundly when Gullah, Gullah Island hit the airwaves on January 19^th, 1994.  Starring Ron Daise and his wife, Natalie Daise, the live-action show featured an African American family and their pet pollywog, Binyah Binyah.  Living off the coast of Gullah Gullah Island, the family would teach important life lessons through song and dance with neighbors and friends.  The show made a huge impact on children’s television due to its unique ability to make a child smile, simultaneously giving the child an education at the same time.  To understand why child audiences loved and related to Gullah, Gullah Island, one should first go over three important characteristics of children’s television. In order to find out why Gullah, Gullah Island succeeded as one of the top shows of the 1990’s (TV.com), one must research the three most important aspects of children’s television relating to the television show, Gullah, Gullah Island, including censorship and regulation, business, and audience. 

Censorship is “preventing the production or dissemination of meanings that are deemed dangerous, potentially dangerous, or even potentially controversial” (Hendershot A17).  Regulation, on the other hand, is “the act of controlling certain kinds of content through the use of officially sanctioned rules” (Lecture 09/02/09).  Therefore, one can conclude that these two ideals are not the same.  Censorship and regulation in children’s television are not being practiced because of a sense of duty to consumers, but merely as a survival mechanism for large companies.  When it comes to looking at censorship and regulation in the Nickelodeon show, Gullah, Gullah Island, they are not applied because it does not necessarily disobey rules such as indecency and obscenity, but it does create new meanings for children’s television.  It showed adults that a children’s television show could educate children while entertaining them, thus producing the meaning of “edutainment” (Lecture).  Gullah, Gullah Island helped Nickelodeon meet the requirements that the Children’s Television Act of 1990 created including meeting the obligation for a certain number of hours of educational children’s programming per week (Hendershot B255).  Unlike the children’s television shows in the 1980’s, Gullah, Gullah Island was not toy-based and was not a cartoon, it was not cheap to make, however the income from the show made up for expenses.  Another way that Gullah, Gullah Island produced new meanings for children’s television is that the show had an all-black cast for the first time in Nickelodeon’s history, thus proving that the network was not racist, to say the least.  Censorship and regulation did not play too large a role in the show, Gullah, Gullah Island, when it was dealing with prohibiting meanings, however, it did have a part when it came down to producing meanings.

     Before the industrial capitalism era, children were looked at as cheap labor; after capitalism took over, however, children became “mindless” consumers (Lecture 10/07/09).  Soon after, an idea that children were brainwashing their parents to buy them toys taught big market businessmen how to grab a hold of children as potential customers.  The 1980’s came and went leaving cheap, product-based television shows in the dust.  Nickelodeon, which started in 1977 as Pinwheel, (Lecture 10/09/09) decided to change everything up and started producing creative original programming, which would “pay off in the future” (Hendershot B9).  It wasn’t until the 1990’s that Nickelodeon gained its ultimate success.  Nothing like shows seen in the 1990’s had ever been seen before, especially not like Gullah, Gullah Island.  Geraldine Laybourne, President of Nickelodeon, created the success, or the “Golden Age” (Hendershot B20) of Nickelodeon and it should continue to be successful for many years to come.  Geraldine Laybourne did not agree with product-based shows but the money was necessary to continue with these shows.  Also, children certainly wanted merchandise so that their favorite TV characters could be with them all the time (Hendershot 20).  Therefore, simple products like t-shirts, movies, stuffed animals, and cassette tapes were made for these shows.  For Gullah, Gullah Island, however, cassette tapes helped them strike gold.  Because Gullah, Gullah Island was a musical television show, the soundtrack was a huge hit, an album called “Jump Up and Sing: Binyah’s Favorite Songs” pleased children all over the country.  Because the writers of Gullah, Gullah Island, Ron and Natalie Daise, were the main “characters” of the show, it seemed as if the show was created not out of greed, but out of the desire to help children learn.  In terms of the business side of Gullah, Gullah Island, the show clearly was not entirely based on money, but did make a great deal of money by working hard to meet the average child’s wants and needs.

     “Come on, what are you waiting for?!” This appealing phrase was said almost every episode by Ron or Natalie Daise, inviting the audience members to join them on their fun adventures happening inside the screen.    As seen later on Blue’s Clues, Gullah, Gullah Island’s average viewer’s comprehensibility relied on “the role of cues for attention, transitions and montage, attentional inertia, and audience participation” (Hendershot B256).  The preschool aged audience falls for cheesy participation; they love to feel like they are important.  Therefore, Gullah, Gullah Island’s writers’ main objective was to make each and every adolescent feel like they are special in one way or another.  The show also incorporated song and dance, and these are the songs that most preschoolers at that age were singing and doing the hand motions to, songs like: “The Itsy, Bitsy Spider,” “The Wheels on the Bus,” “Old MacDonald,” and “If You’re Happy and You Know It” (Rhino).  Though the show was similar to Barney and Friends in the light that it had song and dance, it was also exceptionally different because the characters on the show had real struggles.  It showed the viewers how to overcome obstacles such as boring rainy days, meeting new friends, and getting in arguments with family members.  Of course children did not actually know they were being taught by these not-so-hidden “morals,” as one could call them, but their parents did understand that Gullah, Gullah Island was helping children discover a lot about life, through television.  Parents and children together loved Gullah, Gullah Island because it was a show that would bring them together by singing the shows’ songs outside of television time.  Rather than working hard to complete the requirements for censorship and regulation or trying to make a large business out of the show, focusing on the audience alone helped Gullah, Gullah Island gain enormous success.

     Unfortunately, Gullah, Gullah Island stopped producing new episodes on May 5^th, 1997.  However, this was only a strategic way of saving money because their target audience was the preschooler.  They had a group of preschoolers that grew up watching the show from 1994 to 1997.  Because re-runs of the show have been on syndicated channels such as Noggin and Nick Jr. ever since the show ended its first airings, a new batch of preschoolers can “grow up” with the show, just like the first few thousand children did.  Regrettably, children cannot watch Gullah, Gullah Island at a decent hour anymore, but there are plenty of other shows on Nickelodeon, such as Dora the Explorer and Blue’s Clues for children to watch.  Gullah, Gullah Island used censorship and regulation to create new meanings, its business succeeded greatly due to its lack of effort in making money, and the audience genuinely loved watching the show, Gullah, Gullah Island made massive achievement on Nickelodeon and will be missed for countless years to come.

Works Cited

CBS Interactive Inc. “Most Popular Shows: Kids/Teens.”    TV.com. 2009. 20 Nov. 2009 http://www.tv.com/shows/top-shows/children/3/today.html

Daise, Ron. CD-ROM. Rhino/Wea, March 26, 1996.

Daise, Ron and Natalie. “Gullah, Gullah Island.” Rhino/Wea.  Nick Jr., 1996.

A. Hendershot, Heather. Saturday Morning Censors:    Television Regulation before the V-Chip. North     Carolina: Duke University Press, 1998.

B. Hendershot, Heather. Nickelodeon Nation: The History,

Politics and Economics of America’s Only TV Channel for Kids. New York: New York University Press, 2004.

Nick Jr. “Nick Jr. Shows.” Nick Jr. 2008. 24 November 2009      http://www.nickjr.co.uk/shows/index.aspx