A Big Wheel, Barbie's Dream House, the Easy-Bake Oven. For anybody who has been a kid in the last 30 years, drooling over toys like these has been as much a part of Saturday mornings as Bugs Bunny or the Smurfs. But not so long ago, there were no commercials punctuating Saturday morning cartoons. Heck, there were no Saturday morning cartoons. 

Born in 1969, history doctoral student Spencer Downing is part of a generation that grew up bugging parents for Lite Brites and Cap'n Crunch. He's been studying kids' television and how it, he says, helped turn kids into consumers. 

Downing is a history guy, not a sociologist, and he doesn't pretend to know whether TV has been bad or good for children. What he studies, he says, is "a change in the structure of childhood rather than a change in children. By fully integrating children into contemporary consumer culture, TV altered the very definition of what it means to be a child." 

As late as the 1950s, kids just weren't thought of as big business, Downing says. The way advertisers saw it, grownups were the ones with the money, so grownups were the ones who should see the commercials. In the 1930s and 40s, toy companies spent most of their advertising money on ads to retailers and in family magazines such as Life. Kids' shows ran mostly on weekday afternoons, and, strange as it may seem, many had a hard time filling commercial breaks. Sometimes the available time was filled with public service announcements. 

Back then kids didn't have much chance to handle or even ogle the toys they coveted. Most stores kept toys behind a counter where a salesperson would help customers select them. In the late 1940s some stores began trying "self service" toy aisles, Downing says. But store owners and manufacturers debated whether that would lead to more toys being broken than bought. Downing has tracked this and other debates by studying trade journals from the toy and broadcasting industries. 

People in these industries doubted whether TV would be effective in increasing toy sales. In journals of the toy industry, for example, "You find debates where people are saying, `will television actually sell things to kids?'" Downing says. "In 1955 the largest producer of toys in America bragged to Time magazine that he had spent only three hundred and twelve dollars on advertising that year. He felt that this was an industry that ran itself and didn't need advertising." 

But the market changed with the debut of a lanky wooden fellow with freckles and red hair. "The Howdy Doody Show," Downing says, "broke it wide open." One of the reasons advertisers had been reluctant to gamble on kids' TV was that there was no reliable ratings system—no one knew if kids were really watching the shows. In 1948, about two months into its run, "Howdy Doody" ran announcements that if kids sent in a postcard, they'd receive a free button. In only three weeks, about 150,000 viewers wrote in.

"Within a year they sold several million dollars worth of merchandising contracts," Downing says. 

Not every show was as successful at attracting advertisers as Howdy Doody. But by the 1960s, "TV toys"—those advertised on television—were more common. Gradually it became clear that TV toys sold much better than other toys. And advertisers had known since the 1930s that toys based on TV characters were successful. It was around that time that Mickey Mouse rescued the faltering Lionel Train Company. "They put Mickey Mouse's face on a toy train, and it sold like hotcakes," Downing says. 

By the late 60s, there was no question that kids could be consumers. Broadcasters now thought more about entertaining kids and selling them products than educating them, Downing says. Even Captain Kangaroo endorsed Schwinn bicycles and other products on his show. In 1969, the Mattel company went so far as to commission a show based on its Hot Wheels toy cars. But the Federal Trade Commission put a stop to that idea by placing a ban on TV programs based solely on merchandise. That ban was lifted in the early 1980s, resulting in shows such as "The Smurfs," "Strawberry Short-cake," and "He-Man." 

Also in 1969, the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, and the Department of Education set out to remedy the lack of quality kids' TV. They began plans for a half-hour educational show for preschoolers that eventually became "Sesame Street." But, Downing says, despite its creators' noble goals, even "Sesame Street" shows how prevalent consumer culture had become for kids. Distinguished educators, scientists, and broadcasters worked long and hard on the show's concept. Their idea? Teach kids their letters and numbers by using—commercials. 

The plan was to educate preschoolers with animated segments that used the fast-paced editing, lively music and jingles, and bright colors that had been so successful in commercials. In essence, they were "selling" preschoolers letters and numbers, even going so far as having each show "brought to you by" the numbers and letters of the day. The creators of "Sesame Street" were "using the devil's tools for angels' work," Downing says. 

Partly because of the way it blended education and consumer culture, Downing believes that "Sesame Street" may be the most important children's program in the world. He wrote his master's thesis on it and has been to the Children's Television Workshop to watch tapes of the show as it was in its beginnings. He was especially intrigued by five early episodes that never aired. These were tested with preschoolers in Philadelphia, and resulted in quite a few changes for the show—including the creation of Oscar the Grouch and Big Bird. 

Puppets were added to the concept of "Sesame Street" when Jim Henson, father of the Muppets, joined up. The show's creators wanted the street scenes to be realistic, with the fantastical puppet segments kept separate. When they tested the first five shows with the Philadelphia kids, the children were glued to the set when either the animation segments or the puppets were on. But when the show switched to the humans-only street scene, the kids got bored. So Oscar and Big Bird were created to live on the street. 

Some educators and parents dislike "Sesame Street" because they think the animated segments are "violent," with their fast pacing, abrupt transitions, and heart-pounding music. Downing says he knows people who won't let their children watch it because they say it makes the kids agitated. 

The fact that "Sesame Street" makes no bones about "selling" education to kids probably bothers some people, Downing says. "There are some who feel nervous about TV as a whole, and they may find it disturbing that `Sesame Street' exemplifies the essence of television." 

Besides watching hours of "Sesame Street" (so much that he says he can't watch it anymore), Downing is also studying the pace of other kids' shows, how hosts addressed children, what the commercials were like, and how these features changed over time. After watching about 200 hours of kids' TV, he's still "ambivalent" about TV's effect on kids. "I certainly wouldn't say that after studying TV I feel like it's a horror to be avoided at all costs," Downing says. Like anyone else, he can get sucked in by movies on cable TV. And he watches "The Simpsons," he admits, "pretty religiously." 

Before graduate school, Downing taught eighth-grade science in North Carolina for two years as part of Teach for America, which places college graduates from all fields in schools that have trouble attracting teachers. His school participated in Channel One, which piped TV news for kids—and commercials for kids—into the classroom. "The kids would halfway pay attention to the news, but they'd shush each other so they could hear the commercials," he says. 

Downing isn't sure whether that's as horrible as it sounds. "Advertisers have figured out what works with kids and what doesn't, and they've honed their techniques over the years," he says. "But I'm hesitant to say that there is this evil band of advertisers who are saying, `we can turn kids into zombies.'" 

Zombies or not, Downing says, many kids these days know their commercials as well as they know their alphabet.