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Children's Programme Does Not Preach It's hard to find a Finn who would not instantly recognize the talking dog Ransu or the theme song from the beloved Finnish children's programme, Pikku Kakkonen [transl. ”Little Two”, referring to Channel Two of the Finnish Broadcasting Company]. For 25 years the hosts and main characters of Pikku Kakkonen have been as important to children as the legendary Finnish radio show of Uncle Markus was for the generations before them. Despite the slow renewal of the cast, the rituals pertaining to watching the programme have not changed a bit. – Children still have an incredible variety of ways of avoiding the Sandman and his sand that would send them to sleep. Thanks to the Pikku Kakkonen ”mailing address song”, which is repeated in each episode, our address is probably the most famous in Finland, recounts Maija Koivula, who has worked with Pikku Kakkonen from the very beginning. Children's Programmes Cannot Be Lame Computer games, flashy new animations and the busy modern lifestyle have not changed the fact that Pikku Kakkonen still attracts almost its whole target audience. Children's drawings still come in by the thousands weekly. A wide audience does not, however, guarantee the best possible broadcasting time for the programme. – We are constantly annoyed at the early time slot of Pikku Kakkonen. All the kids haven't made it home from day care by five o'clock. The feedback we get often addresses the problem that the youngsters get angry if they get home late for the children's programmes, Koivula says. The unchanged programmes, repeated series and familiar musical themes create a sense of security and set the pace of Finnish children's daily schedules. It is, however, sometimes difficult for the show's planners to predict the kids' reaction to new programmes. For example, an animation on the dangers of moving on thin ice on lakes and the sea in the winter was found scary by many children, even though it is hard for an adult to find anything horrible in the educational story. – Fortunately the children's programmes need not be completely lame, but a little thrill is acceptable. And despite the scariness of the thin ice animation, its advice has undeniably saved lives. Once we arranged a life-saving medal for a little boy who had saved his friend from drowning after he had fallen through thin ice. The kid said he'd learned his life-saver's skills watching Pikku Kakkonen. From Black & White to the Digital Age The Finnish Broadcasting Company (FBC), or Yleisradio, founded its children's programmes' department in 1975. The predecessor of Pikku Kakkonen was a British format programme called Tenavatunti [Kids' Hour], into which the Finns tried to incorporate some domestic content. – Fairly soon we started wondering why on Earth we were paying someone to tell us how many minutes we could speak between the parts of the programme. We decided to make our own programme here, and that's how Pikku Kakkonen was born, Koivula recounts. During her long career, Koivula has had to face many changes. The pace of the development of technology has been the fastest. – In the early days it would have been impossible to guess that we'd now be moving into the digital age and that the little viewers of Pikku Kakkonen would be routinely using the Internet. Initially, we filmed the programme in black and white, and at the time there were only two TV channels in all of Finland. The Host is the Child's Friend The world has changed, but Pikku Kakkonen has remained almost the same. According to Koivula, one of the most important old principles is that Pikku Kakkonen does not moralize, but offers entertainment and excitement to every child out there. – Of course we also teach, but we don't preach; the kids would see through that. The hosts are the youngsters' friends who teach them good manners, tolerance and other important things through their own behaviour, she says. – We have never handled religion. Nowadays with different kinds of families it's important to avoid talking about mother or father; we talk about adults in general. The fundamental idea remains the same, though: adults have all sorts of programmes, so why shouldn't kids have the same kind of variety? Still Koivula stresses the point that television is no educator. – We definitely do not recommend using television to replace the presence of an adult or telling stories and fairy tales. It's often a good idea to turn the TV off. The old parts of Pikku Kakkonen often raise nostalgic sentiments among adults. The Internet feedback box is constantly filled by requests for reruns of old episodes. An increasing number of these requests are actually made by people in their thirties instead of three-year-olds. In addition to the Film Festival's 25th anniversary screening, some of the most wanted old episodes are broadcast as TV repeats starting in March. – We got criticism from one adult who complained that for years our programme hasn't developed at all. A colleague of mine replied quite appropriately that if he's not happy with our programme, he shouldn't watch it. The adult is obviously not in our target audience. Emotional, Yet Serious-Minded Programme-Making Maija Koivula, currently producer of Pikku Kakkonen, has a nursery school teacher's training. Three decades working with the FBC children's programmes has made her a professional of children's affairs and programmes. She never tires of talking about the importance of children's culture. – Here we work round the clock strictly for the children's best. The whole team is extremely committed to making a programme on the children's terms - everything else is secondary, a genuinely enthusiastic Koivula assures us. – The most important thing with children's programmes is the feeling: if you're faking it, the kid senses it right away. Even the little folks can grab the remote control if the programme sucks. Pikku Kakkonen's 25th anniversary screening will be in the large auditorium of Tampere Hall on Friday, March 8 at 18:00 and in the Pakkahuone on Saturday, March 9 and Sunday, March 10 at 11:00.
TEXT: Inka Nissilä |
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Festival News 2002 festnews@uta.fi |