Once you become a parent, your daytime television options radically change. With inquisitive little ones bouncing around the family room, gone is the opportunity to catch up on the latest "CSI" or "Desperate Housewives" episodes during lunch.

For the next few years, no matter how many channels your cable company may offer, the majority of your TV choices will involve hyperactive cartoon characters, precocious child actors, and obnoxiously good-natured dinosaurs. While your children may love these shows unconditionally, you can grit your teeth and suffer through many of them.

Don't despair. Here's a list of quality children's TV available on DVD that won't drive you away with soporifically rewritten nursery rhymes. In these shows, you'll find smart, funny, good-hearted characters, exceptional educational content, and — depending on the show — a high degree of pure silliness. And you might find yourself watching some of these even when your kids aren't around.

Sesame Street — Old School, Volume 1 (1969-1974)

Sony Wonder, 3 discs
Purchase this DVD set.

Long before Elmo became a ticklish, chicken-dancing phenomenon, "Sesame Street" redefined the possibilities of educational television. By using the aesthetics of advertising — short, simple messages, colorfully presented and repeated — Sesame Street succeeded in introducing generations of pre-school children to numbers, letters and the world around them. The first volume of the Old School collection presents five full-length early episodes of the show (including its first episode) as well as a collection of each season's highlights ("Rubber Duckie," "It's Not Easy Being Green," "The Ladybug Picnic") — all of which demonstrate the show's straight-out-of-the-gate brilliance. Parents will enjoy seeing the original appearances of Muppets Big Bird, Grover, Ernie, Bert, and Oscar (who was originally orange). Look for cameos by Bill Cosby, Carol Burnett, Jesse Jackson, Johnny Cash and Jackie Robinson.

The Best of the Electric Company

Shout Factory, 4 discs
Purchase this DVD set.

The Best of the Best of the Electric Company

Shout Factory, 1 disc
Purchase this DVD.

With a rousing cry of "Hey, you guys!", the Electric Company promised to "bring you the power." Designed by the Children's Television Workshop as the next step after "Sesame Street," this half-hour show targeted beginning readers with goofy skits, cartoons, and musical numbers introducing phonetics and basic grammar. You can't go wrong with a show where a pre-Academy Award winning Morgan Freeman plays Easy Reader, the coolest, most laidback reading advocate ever.

The Muppet Show — Season 1

Buena Vista Home Video/Disney, 4 discs
Purchase this DVD set.

After finding success on "Sesame Street," Jim Henson's Muppets returned to prime-time in 1976 as a theatrical troupe of new and familiar characters staging an Ed Sullivan-esque variety show every week. Mayhem and chaos reigns on and offstage as the Kermit, Fozzie, Gonzo, et al, perform musical numbers, installments of "Pigs in Space" and "Veterinary Hospital," and interact with the week's human guest star. There's no educational value to any of these episodes, just singing, dancing, so-bad-they're-good jokes, the occasional explosion, and of course, the beginning of romance between Kermit and Miss Piggy.

Schoolhouse Rock!

Walt Disney Video, 2 discs
Purchase this DVD set.

If you can sing the Preamble to the Constitution ("We the people…"), it's because of these educational cartoons that ran in between Saturday morning cartoons from the mid-'70s on. Each season of "Schoolhouse Rock" taught us the basics of multiplication, grammar, American history and science with infectious, cleverly animated two-minute songs. Whether they're old enough to understand the subject matter, your children (and you) will love to sing "Three is a Magic Number," "Conjunction Junction," "Interjection," and many equally catchy others.

The Magic School Bus (Various)

Warner Home Video
Purchase this series on DVD.

Another animated adaptation of a long-running book series, "The Magic School Bus" introduces viewers to biology, physics, astronomy, and many other fields of science through the extraordinary field trips taken by eccentric teacher Valerie Frizzle's science class. To illustrate her lessons, Miss Frizzle takes her students around the world, across the universe, and even inside the human body with the help of a mutable and multi-functional yellow bus. In the course of these fun and factual explorations, the "Friz" encourages her students to "Ask questions. Take chances. Make Mistakes." And that's an important lesson for grown-ups, too.