'Little Bear,' 'Arthur' and 'Clifford' are back: Why more parents are turning on 'gentle TV' shows from the '90s, '00s

Scour social media pages, and you’ll find moms and dads recommending shows like Little Bear, Arthur and Clifford the Big Red Dog for kids to watch. These programs, which first aired in the 1990s or early ’00s, are making a comeback as juggernaut children’s shows like CoComelon and Paw Patrol take over living rooms across the country.

Looking for a mix of “low-stimulation” and familiar shows that resonated with them as children, some parents are skipping the flashy colors, quick cuts and brash music that often characterize newer programming, instead opting for what’s been referred to as “gentle TV” — shows that offer slower pacing, calmer sounds and colors that are more muted than maximalist.

“What I’ve noticed is that in the last 10 years, a lot of preschool shows have become sort of harder-edged and are more frenetic again,” Michael Hirsh, the creator and producer of shows including Little Bear, Franklin and Max & Ruby, told Yahoo Entertainment.

There’s a need for parents of preschool children to find programs that are “gentle and calming, because there is so much noise out there,” he explained. That’s where older shows fit right in.

Morgan Eriquezzo, a speech-language pathologist and mother of two, agrees.

“When we were [not limiting screen time or monitoring shows] and I didn’t know any better, I noticed a lot of tantrumming, I guess, and a lot of emotional outbursts,” Eriquezzo said of her 5-year-old daughter.

In addition to the amount of screen time her children were clocking, the Bremen, Ga., mom also started evaluating and comparing the shows they were watching.

“CoComelon, for example, the screen never stops moving if you watch it. It’s like a consistent movement, so it lights up something in a child’s brain,” she said. “It’s constantly stimulating over and over and over again, and it never lets the mind rest on one scene.”

“We dedicate substantial care and resources to ensure all of our content, including CoComelon, is as enriching as it is entertaining. We work closely with experts in childhood development to inform our content development choices,” a spokesperson from Moonbug, which owns CoComelon, told Yahoo Entertainment.

Referring to the animated kids’ program on Netflix and YouTube as a “high-stimulation” show, Eriquezzo then started looking for shows that featured scenes that lingered for at least four seconds so that her daughter “has a chance to latch on to that scene and understand.”

Next, Eriquezzo and her husband, who also have a 2-year-old daughter, started experimenting.

“I’m not kidding, on days that [our elder daughter] would watch the [high-stimulation] shows, she would be so emotional. It was very whiny, crying, couldn’t express herself, which looking back now, I look at it, she was just overstimulated and didn’t know what to do,” Eriquezzo said. “Now it’s like a night-and-day difference. I mean, it’s like a different kid.”

Eriquezzo is one of many parents who have opted to show their young kids a greater number of gentle TV shows when they have screen time.

“One thing we’ve really seen is this increased awareness of the impacts of things like content and pacing of programs on kids themselves,” John Mootz, a representative from Children and Screens: Institute of Digital Media and Child Development, told Yahoo Entertainment, “and when I say awareness, I mean awareness by parents, that not all content is created equal.”

While the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends about an hour of screen time per day for kids ages 2 to 5, their focus is really on “quality” over “quantity.”

Hirsh, who also wrote Animation Nation: How We Built a Cartoon Empire, says qualities like a show’s color scheme, choice of music and sound, and pacing determine a show’s characterization as gentle or low-stimulation.

“For example, Little Bear has music that’s original but inspired by Schubert, so it’s a very calming, classic music sort of sound,” he said. “The storytelling unfolds at a slower pace so that it’s easier for the child to get involved, relate to it and feel comfortable with it, rather than just being pushed along on a great roller-coaster ride.”

Eriquezzo, along with other parents on social media, recommended Little Bear, a program that originally ran from 1995 to 2003, as a go-to show for her kids. Adapted by Hirsh from the books by Else Holmelund Minarik and Maurice Sendak, the series is about a young bear cub and his forest friends.

Focusing on qualities like “friendships and family themes” and avoiding overly complicated problem-solving, the shows offer a calmer option for kids, those parents say.

“A kid can only attend to so many things; there’s a lot of cognitive load that happens when a scene switches, or there’s a lot happening or it’s a really convoluted storyline,” Mootz explained. “The general recommendations are removing as much of that as possible so that the kid can attend to what the main messages are, what the main storylines are and what the main lessons are. [Those are] really key when identifying these more age-appropriate, slower-paced, what you call gentle programming.”

For Lauren Tuck, Yahoo’s lifestyle editor and a Los Angeles mom of two, tuning in to gentle TV happened by accident, after her father set up her new TV to automatically go to PBS.

“So then my [3-year-old] daughter became obsessed with PBS, and she has typically been someone who’s really into very inappropriate TV shows for her age,” Tuck said, referring to programs that are “annoying and overstimulating.”

“She’ll watch Sesame Street when it’s on, which is great,” said Tuck, who also has a 15-month-old son. “She also has been watching a show called Super Why! which is from the early 2000s and it’s teaching kids how to read. And she’s literally learning how to read.”

In addition to Super Why! Tuck’s daughter also watches Little Bear, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood and Pinkalicious & Peterrific, the last of which “asks questions like ‘How have you helped your mom today?’ And then she’ll weirdly help me all day,” Tuck said.

“What it comes down to for us is that we’re really focused on what makes content age-appropriate, developmentally appropriate for kids and really is going to help them learn the best,” Sara DeWitt, senior vice president and general manager of PBS Kids, told Yahoo Entertainment. “For young preschoolers, the pacing is absolutely part of that. It’s really about how are kids able to take in information and pay attention to a story, and how do we guide them through it in a way that’s really going to have the impact that we want it to have.”

In addition to the old-school programs, parents across social media have also recommended modern shows including Bluey (Disney+), Puffin Rock (Prime Video), Tumble Leaf (Prime Video) and Pocoyo (Prime Video).

That said, when it comes to shows like If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (2015-2021) and Clifford the Big Red Dog, nostalgia also plays a role in parents choosing these programs for their kids.

“I grew up watching Clifford,” Eriquezzo said, which originally aired a season in 1988 and from 2000 to 2003. “So that one is also really, really cute to see as an adult.”

Whether old-school or brand-new, these shows are arguably more soothing for kids than ones that feature quick scene cuts, bold colors, louder sounds and bigger emotions.

“You hear a lot about like bright colors and lots of noises as being something that really draws kids in. And that may be the case for older kids, and that’s certainly what we saw [in our research],” said DeWitt, who also oversees other recommended and similarly low-stimulation shows like Elinor Wonders Why and Carl the Collector. “For younger kids, that was overwhelming.”

She also said that “when you think about what’s going to really land with kids, what they’re really going to be able to comprehend, sometimes slower is the way that it’s going to really get through.”

DeWitt added: “We hear from parents that some of our shows can kind of help their kids calm down.”

For Eriquezzo, choosing gentle TV (and dialing back screen time to once a week) has made a noticeable difference in her home. “I will say that just the tone of the whole house is better when we watch something that’s more slow-paced,” she said.

While more parents are highlighting gentle TV shows, Hirsh admits that families will always want a mix of programming.

“There are moments when kids want something that’s more engaging. And sometimes there’s something that, like Magic School Bus, that’s more educational. So the shows can have different functions,” he said. “The kids want their sugar and their candy too. So there’s always going to be a demand for something that’s just pure fun, right?”