‘Madeline’ Brings A Girl With An Attitude To Children’s TV

The fall children’s television season has begun, and this year it’s coed.

“Girls like adventures as much as boys,” Madeline tells Lord Cucuface in “The New Adventures of Madeline,” a new animated series on Saturdays at 7 a.m. on ABC (KXLY-Channel 4 from Spokane).

That a girl would make such a protest in 1995 may seem quaint, but children’s television, particularly on Saturday mornings, has long been a boys’ club dominated by Ninja Turtles, X-Men and Garfield.

Even Roseanne couldn’t muscle in. After ABC canceled her animated series, “Little Rosey,” in 1991, Saturday mornings were devoid of female title characters.

Girls, according to conventional wisdom, would watch programs with male protagonists, but boys wouldn’t watch shows about girls. Even “Sesame Street,” that champion of diversity, was a mostly male universe. Its creators at Children’s Television Workshop have spent years trying to make a female Muppet who could hold her own with Elmo.

But now, from the corners of children’s television that don’t depend so much on mass audiences, programs about girls are emerging. “Madeline” has even made it to a network.

HBO will show an animated series based on Marjorie Buell’s “Little Lulu” comics from the 1930s (Sundays beginning Oct. 22).

New Line Television has produced a syndicated series of live-action Nancy Drew mysteries. Other series, begun in recent years, are continuing.

In one way, the three shows are safe bets. The heroines are all household names, and all have succeeded in other mediums.

“Madeline” has appeared in earlier incarnations on HBO and the Family Channel. All are from bygone eras but have modern, not-so-subtle messages about girls’ self-esteem.

“Madeline” is based on the characters in the 1930s Ludwig Bemelmans books, but now, said Linda Steiner, vice president for children’s entertainment at ABC, “Madeline’s more active.”

“She gets involved in mysteries,” Steiner said. “She’s got more of an attitude. We wanted to say to girls, ‘It’s OK to speak your mind and have your thoughts.”’

The message is not exclusively for girls.

“Children live in a world they don’t control, and power is a compelling concept,” said Robby London, an executive at DIC Entertainment, which produces “Madeline.” “It always has been for boys, and now power is starting to appeal to girls, too.”

The most stylish of the new shows, “Little Lulu,” has a variety show feel, with Lulu (voice by Tracey Ullman) doing Seinfeld-like stand-up routines between segments in which she and her nemesis-best friend, Tubby, face-off in girl-boy battles or join forces against the grown-ups.

“Girls can do everything boys can,” Little Lulu says in one of her monologues. “Actually, girls can do everything better than boys. Climb trees, catch fish, throw snowballs. Girls can even eat more grilled cheese sandwiches than boys, if they feel like it.

“Girls are so much better than boys in every way. They just don’t go around bragging about it.”

Ronald Weinberg, executive producer of the show, warmed to Lulu because, he said, she’s a free-thinking young woman with a clear idea of where she’s going and how she’s going to get there.

“She’s a strong little girl you like a lot,” he said, but he added that the HBO series, like the comic strip, would have “as much boy stuff as girl stuff.”

“Lulu is the star the way Murphy Brown or Lucy are the stars, but she’s part of a gang of kids,” he added.

Will the female stars survive this time? There’s no doubt that testosterone still rules on most Saturday morning network series.

CBS has dropped “The Little Mermaid” from its schedule this season and is adding “The Mask,” based on the Jim Carrey movie, and “The Adventures of Hyperman,” about an intergalactic superhero and his dog, Studd Puppy.

But girls do appear, and when they do, they’re usually smart: Hyperman has a brainiac friend named Emma C. Squared, and “Reboot,” ABC’s series set inside a computer, has a character named Dot Matrix.

On playgrounds, girls clamor to be the pink or yellow Power Ranger.

Judy Price, vice president for children’s programs at CBS, said that what appeals to children is cyclical.

“We look more for things that will appeal across age lines, not gender lines,” she said.

CBS’s lineup includes comedy and ensemble shows so that children can single out a character who speaks to them, like a favorite Beatle.

Karen Jaffe, the executive director of Kidsnet, a clearinghouse for information about children’s television and radio, said children’s shows with elements of action, power or cleverness appeal to both sexes.

“Kids like to watch other kids who stay one step ahead of the grown-ups,” she said. “If a character is cool, it doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s a boy or a girl.”

In the past few years some female characters have held their own on cable channels and public television. Nickelodeon had a hit with its sassy “Clarissa Explains It All,” which is continuing in reruns.

“The Secret Life of Alex Mack,” a series about a 14-year-old girl whose superpowers help her navigate the shoals of adolescence, is returning for a second season.

Among Nickelodeon’s preschool programs begun last year and continuing with new episodes is “Allegra’s Window,” a puppet show about a 3-year-old girl.