JUDITH: I so much prefer that kind of reaction to what started to take over creative industries – the poll, the focus group, asking people what they want, as opposed to thinking, “Well, if this interests me it might interest someone else.” I saw that happen more and more in the various creative industries I’ve been peripherally involved in, where they’re always asking people, “What do you want?” And they don’t know. I mean, if you went around saying, “Do you want to read a long novel about a whale?” everybody would say, “Of course not.”

SHEILA: That’s why you kind of have to take the subway, because what you said, Judith, I think is really true. What your gut feeling is must relate to other human beings. That you’re not so isolated by the nature of your job or the nature of your salary or where you live, that you can’t really feel or touch your gut because it’s not everybody’s gut, along with yours. So you’ve kind of got to get down and dirty and trust your gut.

LIZ: Your comment just a few minutes ago made me think of the great line from Wonderful Town, where the girl sits down and says, “I was reading Moby Dick the other day. It’s about this whale.”

JOAN GANZ COONEY: I think that you’re correct about when you decide as an adult. But if you’re dealing with children and programming, you’d better not go by your gut. And I think what has always made us different from others is that we take our material out and research it both for its educational value and appeal, because I see really cool things that I love, that children don’t get and don’t like at all. And so, it’s a whole different thing when you’re dealing with audiences for markets that have nothing to do with your experience and where your gut just can’t be trusted.

JUDITH: Except don’t the most successful children’s things appeal on two levels? To both adults and children?

JOAN GANZ COONEY: Yes, and certainly the most –

JUDITH: We talk down to children. I remember when I was reviewing movies and doing plays. And the children’s things were all … I used to think, “What child is really all that interested in the marital fortunes of peasant princesses?” Absolutely we should listen to one’s audience. But on a couple of levels you think, “Well, the child has some sense, too, and wants to relate to real life in some way.”

JOAN GANZ COONEY: The preschoolers are a different market and you have to be careful. Maurice Sendak did such a cool animation for us on the number eight, and we got complaints and complaints because it was terrifying children and we tested it, and it was. But all the adults were just mad over Maurice Sendak’s artwork. You have to do both in certain kinds of businesses that you’re in. Sheila can’t put on shows that would have no appeal, that might appeal to her but would have no appeal to her audience.

SHEILA: I wouldn’t say that I talk down to my audience, but I am the audience. I mean, Moby Dick is about a whale. I mean, it is about other things also. There’s Ahab and there’s also some profundity. You can leave it on that level, too. I don’t know too much about children’s sensitivity because I don’t really program for children.

JOAN JULIET BUCK: This brings up the mystery of J.K. Rowling sitting down and just knowing she has to tell this story for children. I mean, it’s such a mystery to me how she wrote Harry Potter.

SHEILA: All the great children’s writers have done it that way, have written the story they’ve wanted to tell. Alice in Wonderland – he wrote what he wanted to write.

LIZ: And that’s very terrifying to a lot of children.

SHEILA: Yes. But that’s true of all the great children’s books. Maurice Sendak did for children what appealed to him. Like Where the Wild Things Are, which to many adults is terrifying. The animation was terrifying. But the books are not terrifying at all to children.

JOAN JULIET BUCK: When I was two years old and my father was a producer at Fox, he put me in a screening room alone to watch Pinocchio. And I still haven’t gotten over it.

SHEILA: You mean you were scared?

JOAN JULIET BUCK: I was beyond terrified.

LIZ: Well, I’m sure he didn’t think when he did it, do you think?

JOAN JULIET BUCK: Oh, no, he didn’t do it to torture me. He did it because he had to be on the set and –

LIZ: He wanted you to shut up.

JOAN JULIET BUCK: Which is all people really wanted from children. Before people said to children, “What do you want to do now, darling?”

LIZ: You have to remember, we’re not very far from Victorian times when they didn’t pay any attention at all to children. And they sent them at six and seven years old to the work house. You know, they weren’t concerned. We’re living in a very strange age where people have time for psychoanalysis, and to worry about what their children want.

SHEILA: Joan, were you marred by this Pinocchio experience?

JOAN JULIET BUCK: Yes. Forever.

SHEILA: As long as you only date men with pug noses?

JOAN JULIET BUCK: Those are really bad because they tend to be Bulgarian body builders.

LIZ: Don’t tell us too much, Violet. Don’t tell us too much.