In Communications Law today we talked about the government classifying programs as children's educational programming based on spurious justifications -- e.g., this cartoon teaches kids to stay away from dragons. I thought I'd offer some justifications for some popular current TV shows.

Justifications For Classifying Some of Today's Most Popular TV Shows as Children's Educational Programming

ER:
1. Teaches kids that doctors are helpful.
2. Shows kids why they shouldn't do anything risky, since risky things may lead to accidents, which may lead to hospital trips, which will certainly lead to fire, plague, famine, blackout, earthquake, helicopter crashes, AIDS infection, unwanted pregnancy, or other desperate moves to increase ratings.
3. Helps child learn useful medical jargon.

American Idol:
1. Teaches kids that British people are mean.
2. Shows kids that the best way to get adults to pay attention to them is if they sing annoying pop sounds slightly off-key, week after week after week.
3. Demonstrates that the key to success isn't education and hard work, but being naturally blessed with a good voice and telegenic personality.

Friends:
1. Teaches kids that having friends is good.
2. Counteracts the myth that New York apartments are very small and prohibitively expensive.
3. Imparts the lesson that the best kind of people are pretty people.

Queer Eye For The Straight Guy:
1. Shows kids that gay people are different from everyone else.
2. Illustrates how quick and easy it is to remodel an entire house.
3. Teaches kids that sometimes even marginal cable networks can produce a show with media buzz.

The Local News:
1. Teaches kids to lock their doors.
2. Shows kids that there's lots of crime right in their neighborhood.
3. Demonstrates the necessity of guns for self-defense purposes.