What Three Kids' Shows Reveal About AI's Impact on Childhood

What do Teletubbies, the Morbegs, and Rosie and Jim have in common? Each was built on a radically different theory of what children need from television — and each was created by humans with intentionality, research, and care. Now AI-generated content is flooding YouTube Kids at pennies per episode, optimized only for watch time. This episode traces the hidden curriculum of children's media across three eras — public service, commercial cable, and algorithmic feeds — and asks what gets lost when the gatekeeper is a recommendation engine instead of a child psychologist.