A study analyzed the features of nonstandard English spoken on television during the hours when children are most likely to be watching. A grammatical analysis of the speech of 150 television characters revealed that, in general, television presented a homogenized version of nonstandard English. The relative frequency of usage of nonstandard English was highest among males and blacks, depending on the role they portrayed. Although black characters were found to have the highest incidence of variants per person on television, their speech contained few features characteristic to black English, as described by Labov and Burling. The results suggest that nonstandard English may essentially be a device used for stereotyping television characters into categories of the power assertive, the comedian, and/or the victim. (References, tables and figures are appended.) (Author/SRT)