“There is a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America,” Buchanan said at the time. Bush for the Republican presidential nomination. In the ’90s and aughts, however, Christians and the right fought to make sure that no character telegraphing even a modicum of queerness could appear on kiddie TV without a fight.Ĭhildren’s television as we know it is still relatively young Nickelodeon sprang up as the first children’s cable network in 1979, followed by Disney Channel in 1983 and Cartoon Network in 1992-the same year Pat Buchanan centered morality in his bid against George H.W. In the absence of canonically LGBTQ+ characters, queer viewers have long identified mascots of their own within pop culture-including some kids’ show characters, like the Peanuts’ Peppermint Patty, Sesame Street’s Bert and Ernie, purple Teletubby Tinky Winky, and Nickelodeon’s indefatigable sponge. In the 1990s and early 2000s, youth programming became a somewhat improbable nexus for increasingly vicious culture wars.
