Edutainment means shows that blend an entertaining story with educational material. For example, The Magic School Bus tells stories while also teaching about science.

There are educational shows for adults, they’re usually called documentaries. But any that blend educational material with fiction? I guess an argument can be made that biographical films fall into this category but they usually take creative liberties and aren’t fully historically accurate. An argument can also be made for medical dramas and legal dramas, but I’m not sure how accurate the medical and legal information in them is. Of course, The Magic School Bus also takes creative liberties and has inaccurate science, but there’s always a segment at the end explaining where they took creative liberties.

How I Met Your Mother kind of had the vibe of a kids show that teaches moral lessons, but for adults. Edit for clarity: the reason I bring this up is I consider “moral of the week” a genre closely related to edutainment but not quite the same thing

Edit: now that I’m thinking about it, I guess Jeopardy and other trivia based game shows could qualify as edutainment. They’re not fictional, but they do blend entertainment and education

  • Solumbran@lemmy.world
    2·
    2 hours ago

    But then the show is not educational? I am confused by how you can ask for an educational show, mention HIMYM about its morals as an example, and then say that it might be a parody.

    So you want an educational show, or a show that pictures characters trying to be educational within the show, to other characters?

    • FreshParsnip@lemmy.caOP
      2·
      1 hour ago

      I’m sorry if my mention of it was confusing, it was meant as kind of an aside. I wasn’t comparing it to edutainment, I was comparing it to kids shows that try to teach morals, which I guess is sort of a subcategory of edutainment. I was saying it can be seen as an adult version of a moral of the week type show, albeit a poor one. It was meant as kind of an aside because I don’t consider a moral of the week show as quite the same as edutainment but related to it