CBS Children's Film Festival

Original plots, highly entertaining for adults and children alike. These award winning films from around the world expose us to unique cultural perspectives otherwise often not encountered though the universal lens of childhood. It is a tragedy these fabulous films are currently in limbo. Get on the ball CBS, before we who remember how fine these films were are in rest homes or dead: there is money to be made!!! Some of my favorites were "Skinny and Fatty" and "The Red Balloon," the latter of which we have on VHS. School teachers would love these to fight ethnocentricism, enhance awareness of culture, and even for character education.

I watched this every Sunday afternoon. It had some great international films for kids. It wasn't the big budget Disney cartoon movies for kids, or the stuff that came later like "ABC Afterschool Special" (which were poorly written and cheap looking). These films never insulted your intelligence.

My favorite was "Skinny and Fatty", about 2 friends from very different socioeconomic backgrounds who become friends. I will never forget the scene where "Skinny" is cheering "Fatty" on to get through a rope climb in gym class.

Unfortunately, as adults, you never have a friend like the ones you have in elementary and middle school.

As a result of these films, I became profoundly interested in foreign language and foreign produced movies as an adult.

I wish they had been around when my daughter was a child.

I grew up watching these and believe it taught me a lot about values. I learned respect for elderly, homeless, different ethnics, etc. I loved these shows and looked forward to them every Saturday. My favorites were The Johnstown Monster and Mr. Horatio Knibbles. Along with The Red Balloon, Shopping Bag Lady, and the Boy who wore Spectacles. I wish I could get a copy of all of them just to reminisce what Saturdays were all about. TV has never been the same. We need these old values back for our kids. Just like all the cartoons of this era as well. What has happened to our world when everything on TV is violent and sexually explicit? What values are we giving our children of today? We need these films back on TV and released on DVD now. If our children are our future, then this is one piece of the past we can give them to take with them in the future.

This was actually a long-running series on CBS that each week featured a wonderful movie that I watched with my kids. Now I would like to find those movies to play for my grand-kids, but without more information, I am at a dead end. Is there any possibility that CBS has some sort of archives in which the old movie are stored and from which they could be retrieved? If anyone knows, how about a post? I recall a particularly poignant Russian film about a dog named Chip. It had me balling like a baby, along with my 6-year old. And that wasn't the only one. Like I said, I recall this as very wholesome entertainment that we could trot out again for the 5 - 10 year old generation.