Tonight at 9:00 p.m. on the Food Network, Al Roker will host Childhood Obesity: Danger Zone, a special that delves into the obesity epidemic that now affects more than 12 million children in America. The special will focus mostly on children, including: a teenager who weighs 500 pounds; the public policy initiative put in place by Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee to help overweight children; and a doctor who teaches kids how to shop for healthy food.

This July, CBS will broadcast two specials geared toward raising money for disadvantaged children around the world.

The first special, Why Listen, will follow six different celebrities to different countries where they'll meet children and learn about organizations designed to help them.

The second special, Listen Live, as the title indicates, will be broadcast live and will feature the usual celebrities and music acts synonymous with these kind of television events. Viewers, of course, can also call in and donate. There is no official word yet on who will appear on the two specials.

The specials are both tied to the Listen Charity, an organization that doles out funds to over two-hundred different charitable organizations for disadvantaged children.

Since my doctor recommends I talk about cartoons at least six times a day, I thought I would mention this awesome collection of Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoons. There are many other videos to be found on the site, and some of them are NOT SAFE FOR WORK, so click ahead with caution and/or lustful excitement, depending on where you are at this exact moment.

Like Matt Groening, I have trouble not referring to Casper as "Casper the Little Dead Boy," since that's essentially what he is. As cute and adorable as he was, you've got to admit a cartoon based on the spirit of a deceased child is somewhat morbid.

The first Casper cartoon, "The Friendly Ghost," was created for Famous Studios in 1945, and you can watch it both here and here. The "friendly ghost" wouldn't be given a name, however, until the first Casper comic book was published in 1949.

[via Boing Boing]

While video-sharing sites and online communities like MySpace are making user-generated video more and more common, TLC is hoping to bring that same concept to television with My Life As a Child, a new documentary series set to air February 26 at 7pm.

Last year, TLC asked kids ages 7 to 12 to document their lives on camera. Twenty kids out of four hundred were chosen to have their footage used in the series. The kids featured include eight year old published author Adora; Cole, a boy with cerebral paulsy who takes karate classes; and Lisetanne, a black girl being raised by her white adoptive mother. The series will focus on aspects of growing up that is typical for kids of all generations, plus new experiences such as growing up in a same-sex household.

PBS' Frontline series will air "Hand of God" on Tuesday, January 16 at 9pm. The 90-minute special tells the story of Paul Cultera, who, in the 1960s at the age of fourteen, was sexually abused by his priest, Father Joseph Birmingham in Salem, Massachusetts. It wasn't until thirty years later that Cultera decide to confront the Catholic Church and launched his own investigation into whether or not the Archdiocese of Boston was moving Father Birmingham from parish to parish and putting other children in danger. Cultera placed ads around towns where Father Birmingham had lived, which resulted in many more people coming forward and alleging abuse. Birmingham allegedly abused almost 100 different children.

"Hand of God" was filmed and directed by Joe Cultera, Paul's brother.

If you have little kids in your house, you might want to tune into Noggin's Jack's Big Music Show on February 2. Daily Show host Jon Stewart will be appearing on the show, making it the best opportunity for you to enjoy a kid show along with your kids, not counting that time David Brinkley appeared on Teletubbies*. Stewart, who watches the show with his children, is a big fan.

Also, if you're a Flaming Lips fan like I am, the same episode will feature a video collaboration between the Lips' Steven Drozd and Steve Burns of Blue's Clues. Burns and the Lips have a history together: Drozd helped produce and also plays on Burns' album, "Songs for Dustmites" (which is actually quite good), and Burns also appears in the Flaming Lips movie, Christmas on Mars, which may or may not ever be finished. The band is kinda making it whenever they have free time.

Thanks to my buddy Wild Bill for the info.

*May not have ever happened.

Animation Collective, the company behind Wulin Warriors, has developed another series for Cartoon Network, a preschool series called Ellen's Acres. I'll assume most of you couldn't care less about this, but if you have young ones, either children of your own or a small child who just happened to follow you home one day, they might want to check it out when it premieres on January 8.

Ellen is a little girl who lives with her parents at Emerald Acres Hotel in Nevada. There are no other children her age around, so she has to rely on her own imagination to have fun. That sounds a little like Calvin and Hobbes, and not too different from my own experiences growing up in a rural area away from the city, except Ellen plays with a radial tire and I played inside large tractor tires. Trust me, it's fun when you're five.

Ongoing research at Cornell University has revealed a possible link between autism and children under the age of three who watch television. The study found that when cable became more prominent in households in the '80s, autism rates also increased. The study has not found anything specific in television viewing that may trigger autism in young children, only that there is a strong correlation between the two. Some have pointed out it may not be television, but indoor air pollution that may be the root of the problem.

While experts study this and try to come to a consensus, I think laypersons should see this as a reminder that too much television exposure at a young age is not a good thing. As Slate's Gregg Easterbrook points out in his article, humans evolved responding to three-dimensional stimuli, and repeated exposure to two-dimensional images, whether it turns out to be directly linked to autism or not, is still not a good thing in the early stages of development.

[via Netscape]

If your kids are looking for an alternative to Cartoon Network's Halloween marathons, Nickelodeon is offering a bunch of Halloween-themed episodes at the end of this month for every age group from the Nick Jr set to young teens. Kids can catch spooky episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants; Catscratch; Fairly OddParents; Mr. Meaty; The X's; Danny Phantom; The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius; Hey, Arnold; Kappa Mikey; Rugrats; The Amanda Show; Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide; Unfabulous and Zoey 101.

The little tykes will also be able to catch episodes of Blue's Clues, Dora the Explorer, The Backyardigans, Wow! Wow! Wubzy, LazyTown and Wonder Pets. Hey, kids gotta have something to watch while they're shoveling all that candy into their mouths.