Reactions of 50 2-year-old and 46 4-year-old Japanese children to selected experimental television programs were examined in two studies. The child was placed with his or her mother in a room where the experimental program was shown on one television and a fast-moving animation without sound was shown on a second television as a distractor. The child was observed by two video cameras and microphone, and his or her attention, language, and smile reactions to the experimental programs were recorded. The child was also interviewed to assess the degree of character recognition, comprehension, and recall. The first study used two short experimental animations, "Yadamon" (the Hard-to-Please Child) and "Tazura" (the Mischievous Child). The attention rating for these two segments was extremely high. About 20% of the 2-year-olds were able to answer questions about the story, but many of the 4-year-olds answered questions with concrete details and showed that they understood how the character felt. The second study compared the children's reactions to Japanese and English versions of an episode of "Sesame Street." The average attention ratings were about the same for both groups and both versions, with the exception of the older children, whose attention rating was slightly higher for the Japanese version. Data on language reactions and smile reactions revealed that the 4-year-olds showed more language reactions to and smiled more often at the English version than the Japanese one. Of the 13 references listed, 2 are in English and 11 in Japanese. (MES)