I recently read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell and I was impressed with the concepts that he was describing.
One story that stuck with me most of all was the telling of how Sesame Street was able to resonate with children so well, research. And not just simple Q&A with little Joey, but intense ethnography and eye tracing technology.
In case you are not familiar with the layout of the children's show here is a dirty download: Puppets "teach" lessons of elementary topics through songs, rhymes, and dancing and games. Each edu-tainment section was emceed by a overjoyed live person that reinforced the learning goal and introduced the next character.
This was the original plan as suggested by top psychologists of the day. They stated that mixing fiction (puppets) and reality (humans) would severely confuse and inhibit children's ability to learn and reason.
Fortunately the eye tracking studies told a different story. Whenever Elmo would be teaching a lovable factoid about the numbers 1-10 children were glued;, however when the person on the street scene would appear (no puppets for blocks) the viewing child would soon become bored and her eyes would wander to the next best thing.
This may have not been a big deal since the "human" parts were very short, but when you have a few of them throughout the show a child was for sure to lose interest and move on. Thus was the birthing of the Sesame Street gang which you know as Big Bird, Oscar the grouch, Snufflufugus and others.
The new concept of mixing humans and puppets for the transition scenes worked incredibly well. The eye tracking studies proved the concept, as well as the endless staring (and learning) by children.
Now I have to ask myself (and you), which is better? A TV show that separates fiction and reality, but doesn't command attention - or a TV show that captivates a child, but risks a surreal state of mind.