Star of First Show for Gay and Lesbian Families Sets Sail on R Family Vacations Cruise

“Dottie” of Dottie’s Magic Pockets to Appear on R Family Vacations Spring Cruise LOS ANGELES, December 5, 2007 – Production company Pink Pea announced that the star of Dottie’s Magic Pockets - the first children’s program for kids in gay and lesbian families – will appear on the R Family Vacations Cruise to the Mexican Riviera, March 15-22, 2008.

(Dottie's opening credits )

Dottie is a wacky and playful woman whose house seems suddenly empty when her partner, May, leaves to take their son, Ollie, for his first day of school. To cheer up his mom, Ollie gives her a gift: a sweater with huge, dotted pockets.

When Dottie reaches into the sweater's pockets, she pulls out handfuls of magic glitter! She sprinkles the glitter around and -- voila! -- her living room is transformed into a zany funhouse filled with a gaggle of new friends to keep her company during the day, including: James the Flower, Randal the Beaver, Motilda the Mouse, Uncanny the Singing Can, and Wally the Wall.

Excitable, sweet, and silly, Dottie is also a patient and devoted mom and friend who enjoys playing with her magical playmates as she helps them solve their problems.

(The "doing the flower" song from Dottie's first DVD)

Tammy Stoner is CEO of Pink Pea, the company that created Dottie's Magic Pockets. Her own son was the inspiration for the show -- Stoner raises him with the help of her ex-partner, Beth.

TAMMY STONER: By about 2-and-a-half, we'd say "Well, Mom and Momma and Oliver are going out" or whatever, and he would actually replace one of our names with Dad. He had started asking for videos of two mommies -- and after I did hours and hours of research on the Internet, I realized there literally was no programming available for him at that time.

There are roughly two million American households with same-sex parents. That number grows every year as gay families choose to raise children. You'd think that companies would be salivating at the thought of a clearly defined, growing market, but they're not.

JERRY MCHUGH: It's a market that has hardly been touched.
Jerry McHugh is senior research director for Community Marketing, a consulting group for gays and lesbians. He says gay men have been on marketers' radars for years. But lesbians haven't, and most gay parents are women. The median income of those families who have children is about $80,000. They have some money to spend, it's a well educated group of people, they're looking for products that speak to them in identifying their own unique characteristics.

If business hasn't paid much attention to same-sex-headed families, the media seems to have actively avoided them. Sure, there's plenty of gay-friendly programming out there, like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Will and Grace.

But in 2005, when PBS tried to air a show that included a family with two moms, activists forced PBS to pull the episode. Pink Pea's Tammy Stoner recognizes that gay parenting is still a sensitive issue. She's only selling DVDs of Dottie's Magic Pockets over the Web, and she's not pitching to the networks -- yet.

We wish Tammy Stoner much success in getting this program widely distributed. If you have lesbian friends raising young children please consider these dvd's as educational and entertaining gifts.

Excerpts from http://www.dottiesmagicpockets.com/ and http://marketplace.publicradio.org/