Hello, welcome back to another week of So Into That. I'm your host, Caroline Chambers, and this is so into that the podcast where we get to chat all about the things that we are really into right now with cool people from across the world this week's episode I feel will be especially valuable for the parents or I don't know anybody

who has like young children in their life grandparents parents

aunties uncles educators but I also think it's really interesting for anybody because we talk a lot about

just how media consumption has like, I don't know, kind of changed who we are as a culture and the ways that we can make that work for us instead of against us.

This week's guest is Angela Santo Mero. She is the

creator of shows such as Blues Clues and Daniel Tiger and oh my gosh so many more that the list would just go on and on but those are the

two that really stuck with me. I have a younger brother who is a 1994 baby and Blues Clues was just on at all times in my house when I was, I don't know,

five-ish when he was born and Blues Clues was a big big part of our life and it's just a great like early childhood development show.

Angela is incredible. She has a lot of educational

background in early childhood development and she has really taken her

career in media from that perspective as opposed to from how can we get kids addicted to the show how can we make it the most successful show possible instead of approaching it that way Fred Rogers of you know Mr Rogers that one he was very much her

Childhood hero and then career hero so as a child she grew up watching Mr Rogers and feeling just really

seen by him. That was his entire thing was connecting with his audience of

children and looking them in the eyes through the screen and taking the time to pause and

slow down and listen for their answers and make them feel like he was really a part of

their life and she grew up you know watching. Rogers and adoring him

and then approached her entire career

from a place of that's what I want to do.

I want to make children feel seen in that way,

but in a modern context.

So her first job was at Nickelodeon, you'll hear all about it through this, but she basically flipped the script on what Nickelodeon was trying to do with childhood programming and created something that was what Fred would have done.

And then later in her career, she actually got to work with Fred Rogers Productions, creating

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