The program was created by a young producer at WGBH, Boston’s public-television station, named Christopher Sarson. He and his wife, Evelyn, were English immigrants to the U.S. and something of a glamour couple: he had been a rising star at Granada Television, and she had been a reporter for the Guardian and Reuters. (They were introduced to each other by a mutual friend, the actress Eleanor Bron, to whom the Beatles sang “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” on “Help!”) By 1971, the Sarsons, living in the Boston area, were the parents of an eight-year-old girl and a six-year-old boy, and Christopher, who was then working for WGBH, was increasingly concerned about his children’s social awkwardness around other kids as they approached their preteen years. “They were cautious,” he said. “It was, ‘We would like to be your friend, but we don’t want you to laugh at us.’ ”
Keen to foster more easygoing relationships between kids, Sarson came up with a general outline for a program in which a cast of children of preteen age would perform songs, sketches, and craft projects based on scripts and premises sent in by home viewers in the same age group. Onscreen and off, kids would learn from each other rather than from an adult authority figure. “If the emphasis is on learning rather than teaching, you achieve a lot,” Sarson said. “If the kids are learning rather than being taught, they’ll be more sure of themselves and enjoy life more. So, it was this feeling of getting kids in a position where they could be thinking for themselves.”
Sarson had already set a precedent for making waves at WGBH. A year earlier, recognizing that his native Britain excelled in a television format in which the U.S. was lacking—the limited-edition serialized drama—he suggested to the station’s top brass that they should secure the American broadcasting rights to such series. The result, premièring in January, 1971, was “Masterpiece Theater,” which is now, under its abbreviated title, “Masterpiece,” the longest-running prime-time drama series on TV. The more Sarson thought about his new idea, the more its specifics came into focus: there would be a diverse cast of seven children, local Boston-area kids, none of them trained performers. There would be no adults. Sarson decided to call the program “Zoom In, Zoom Out,” he said, “because it was, ‘We’re gonna zoom in on the kids’ lives, and we’re going to zoom out on how that affects you in the world.’ ”