Brings A Whole New Meaning To Sproutlets Grow! (UPDATED)
Because I'm Your Father | July 22About year ago, the 7 Things meme proliferated through the blogosphere. Among other things, it required a list of your 7 Celebrity Crushes. At the time, my son Albert was only around 9 or 10 months old, and had not yet been formally introduced to television. And I had not yet introduced myself to the 00’s world of children’s programming.
(I should stop here to note that prior to Albert’s birth, my wife BIYM and I bought into the study linking infant/toddler television viewing to attention problems, and made the choice to wait until he was older before showing him what his daddy lovingly refers to as Sunday’s Mistress (HBO Sunday nights, NFL, Indy-Car… mmm Sundays are so hot!). While we continue to limit his exposure, we have come to our senses enough to occasionally take advantage of Elmo’s magical ability to hypnotize the boy into a limp bodied, drool soaked coma at the click of the remote, ending the kind of tantrums that might have otherwise caused our heads to explode in such a glorious fashion that even Michael Ironside would have been proud. But I digress…)
When I posted my 7 Things entry, had I known of Melanie Martinez, the cute as a button host of PBS Sprout’s Good Night Show, I would have very likely substituted her for Suri’s momma. Then, as if my sick, twisted fantasy of a BIYF/Melanie/Star ménage à trois wasn’t enough, I’ve discovered that Ms. Melanie dabbled in a little showbiz while she was in college. She made an indie video (adult content - watch CLIP 1, CLIP 2) that has since made it’s way across the blogmos. Needless to say, Ms. Martinez just waddled her way up the charts to #1 with a bullet!
SAD, IRONIC UPDATE:
Just as I was about to click publish on this entry, I found THIS! It seems that Melanie recently made PBS aware of her prior work. They apparently decided the video “is inappropriate for her role as a preschool program host and may undermine her character’s credibility with our audience,” and as a result, she was fired!
Considering that this video has been available on the internet for quite a while (my brother tells me he saw it last year), and that it is highly unlikely that the target demo for The Good Night Show is regularly surfing iFilm or YouTube, I think they probably could have found a way to quietly let it slide. I do get the sense after reading their statement that they really wished they could keep Melanie. However, I understand and respect their decision.
I suppose in this world of new media where blogs sprout exponentially, it’s inevitable that people like us won’t be able to keep our collective traps shut when we stumble across this sort of thing. Clearly I couldn’t. After discovering that she’d been fired, I did consider not including the first part of this post. I kind of felt bad for her (and for my attempt at humor), and didn’t want to rub salt in the wound. But ultimately I decided to include it because it helps to make the point of this second part.
Unfortunately good people who have done ‘questionable’ things in their past, and are found out, will more often than not be affected in some way (case in point). Melanie - now a 34-year-old actress and mother to a 3-year-old - took it upon herself to alert PBS to the video. So, I think we can safely surmise that in doing so she’d considered the consequences, and for all we know, wishes she hadn’t been in the video in the first place.
Personally, I’m sad to see her go. Albert will be too.
It’s like she was a a porn or something. She probably should have gotten into a different line of work other than children’s programming.
It is exactly comments like Tony’s (and there are worse I am sure) why PBS had no choice but to let her go. Even if they actually understood that an acting job is just that acting, that the self-important judges out there would decide that because she did something of “questionable” taste (and I put that in quotes purposefully. She “portrayed” something that is questionable.)
I remember when “Johnny and the Sprites” first came on the Disney Channel reading about people that were upset about it because of “what he did with a Muppet” when on Broadway in the show Avenue Q. “What he did”, not “What the character did.” Disney is fortunately much more adept at handling this though after years of abuse at the hands of just about every activist group around.
If those that judge could just understand that acting is a job, and unless you are a huge star, you hustle from audition to audition and take whatever job you can get. But of course, those in the “moral police” rarely thing of others.
My daughter loves her and is going to be heartbroken.
I saw those videos years ago and thought they were HILARIOUS!
I thought you were referring to something more shocking like porn or nude scenes, but these clips were just meant to be funny. I really don’t think they’re something to be fired over.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Melanie is the only thing that calms down my 4-year old daughter during her daily “witching hour”. Not Melanie… why not Kevin? Why couldn’t it have been oranged-shirted Kevin.
Damn. Noggin’s touting on with Chris Meloni and he raped some dudes on OZ!!!
Well, I’m not surprised really. I don’t think they thought much of her to begin with. I mean look they couldn’t even buy her a jacket that fit. Next the make her share the limelight with a pillow shaped as a star.
Regardless, this whole thing is a mess I’m having a hard time explaining at home. Melanie was just so popular here its like having to put a puppy to sleep. I just leveled with my daughter. I said, “Melanie refused to join the teamsters union and pay union dues. Bob the Builder pulled a Jimmy Hoffa on her last weekend. Never mess with the teamsters sweety”. I her eyes she dead anyway so I thought I’d make it realistic.
Since sprout started, my daughter loved Melanie. She did the “little sprout poem” with her, and ejoyed seeing her on TV. She used to ask to see her at times she wasn’t even supposed to be on, and I’d have to say, “No… she comes on later..” At times I thought she was annoying (of course!), but blamed PBS on the fact that they just COULD NOT change her look or the segments that happened in between the episodes. Not too much after they decided to bring “Star” in, and let her hair down, did this happen. It’s kind of funny.
I feel bad for Melanie. They repeated the same things over and over, and finally when they were about to give her a new look and new character, this “ruined” her as a child entertainer.
She was a bit overboard sometimes and cheesy, but once again.. it was a script she had to follow! It was supposed to get kids interestd in the shows on that channel. It certainly did for my daughter.
Fortunately our cable providing service broke around the same time Melanie disappeared. We probably will not get to know the new host of the “good night show”, because we are not going to be getting that channel from now on. I’m glad it broke before “melanie” disappeared.
All in all, I don’t care. I hope whoever is the next host will convice PBS to give her (or him, or him and her!) a little more freedom than the all seeming robotic melanie. But at least Melanie didn’t do a porno.
I’m confused… When’s this thing on? I’ve never even heard of it before. So much for being cool TV dad!
Why hasn’t Melanie given an interview to the press yet? I’m left wondering if her previous video work was the only reason she was fired. In my opinion, and it’s only conjecture at this point, she had been looking a little plumper around the face, and she had a noticeable tummy bump.
I could be completely wrong here, but could she have been pregnant? The introduction of the Star puppet seemed a way to conceal her tummy bump, and her jacket seemed different too - looser and a different cut than before.
Could PBS be stupid enough to fire an actress who had the audacity to get pregnant and be inconvenient for her male producers? (I hope I’m wrong and that they’re just overly politically correct…)
AM you obviously didn’t watch the videos….she can’t get pregnant that way!
Obviously abstinence education doesn’t work either. (O.K. you got me Genuine Dad. Good one!)
What I find super ironic is all those episodes of Thomas PBS still airs with the George Carlin narration. Melanie’s videos are pretty tame compared to George’s routine. Or even Alec Baldwin (another Thomas narrator). His Schweaty Balls routine from Saturday Night Live a few years ago was just as racy as the videos in question. What about Greg Proops, voice of Bob the Builder - another comedian who has walked on the wild side and has a dirty past. All this seems a tad hypocritical on the part of PBS methinks.
Regardless of the reason for firing Melanie, I feel it was still worng that she was fired. References have been made on here about other questionable performers doing voice overs. I am a huge Whoopie fan and she is known for her racy stand-up and questionable movies. Let’s not forget Robin Williams another one of my favorites. I don’t allow my 3 yr old to watch their stuff, but I don’t see them as bad people either. What about Alec Baldwin, not just his racy background in acting but what about his very puicblic and often times heated custody battles with his ex wife. What does that say of their parenting skills?
I agree that this is definately advertiser motivated, “Pull her or we pull our money.” Let’s consider this… in the late 80’s there was a show called 30-something. It was in a primetime spot on network television. One episode showed one of the characters with underwear around her ankles sitting upon her porcelin thrown while talking to her husband. The particular scene was standard in length, but you saw her on the pot about 30 seconds or so then off camera you hear the toilet flush. That raised quite a stink (no pun intended). That being said, what of the Huggies commercial that airs on Sprout of the little African American boy sitting on the pot and the next shot is of him pulling his pull ups up. That could be considered offensive to some. Alluding to the fact that he was doing what is a natural thing to all of us. Heaven FORBID!
Now if you really want to get out landish and ridiculous about it, consider one more thing. All of those Huggies commercials have little boys and little girls prancing around; some in various states of undress. Where is the modisty in that? What’s worse is has anyone stopped to think that there is some pedophile out there getting his rocks off watching those commercials? That being the case the network that runs sprout should be offended and not accept the money of a company such as Huggies because of this. Sounds nuts I know but isn’t this whole thing about Melanie just as stupid?
Anne-Marie
My mom and I were thinking the same thing when we saw the new spots with her hair down. She looked pregnant. I went online to see if anyone had reported it and then saw that she was fired!
I totally agree with Clint. She’s a role model for our 1-3 yr olds. They cannot possibly know or find out what she did 7 years ago. She is excellent at what she does now. Alec Bladwin? George Carlin? I mean, the guy is Howard Sterns co-worker! PBS Better come up with something else to rake her thru the floor for. It;s ridiculous..
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