Remember the cartoons you used to watch just because they were the only ones on. Sometimes running over a lunch hour as you were scarfing down a bowl of Hamburger Helper or at 6:30am before any real programming came on, these cheap ass cartoons were the saving grace of 70's kids who couldn't stand watching test patterns... where I grew up anyway.
The Mighty Hercules... "Iron in his thighs."
Rocket Robin Hood... "Band of Brothers marching together."
Kum Kum... this made for some bad acid trip lunches.
Hammy Hamster... wow! I just wanna chill to late night Hammy, Maddy and GP.
via youtube.com
If you really want to get a sense of how trippy kids' shows can get, check out this intro from the classic HR Puffnstuff. Oh, I know that Japan has done its best to create some very surreal and bizarre anime for the past 30 years that have become even more crazy when adapted for the US, but Puffnstuff was just "Woah man, is that Mayor McCheese and a talking flute" kinda trippy.
Since I've been getting some nice responses from the two installments of Sesame Surrealism, and since it's too late to post a long and rambling lovehate about the minutae that is my pop cultured life, I give you Sesame Songs.
To refresh you on the basic concept, so many of the animated clips on Sesame Street, completely normal within the context of the show when we were kids, are odd to downright bizarre when watched on their own years later. The songs, however, were sometimes completely groovy and endlessly catchy.
Sunny days sweepin' the clouds away... I hope you are inspired to Do The Pigeon... that sounded dirty and probably illegal.
When I first learned the rumored existence of a British boy who has fathered a child at age 13, I let out an audible "WTF?" and grew dizzy, eventually bashing my head into the wall and blacking out. Upon awakening I thought to myself, did I wasted my teen years away watching television and movies? Did I miss out on having to wake up for midnight feedings in grade eight? Were all those wasted trips to the arcade developing my hand/eye coordination nothing but hokum and being a victim of the powerful Space Invaders lobby?
When the proud new teen papa looked up from his Harry Potter books enough to be interviewed and was "asked what he would do to support the child financially, Alfie replie[d] in a small, high-pitched voice: "What's financially?""
And after reading that I became at once thankful for the video arcades of my youth, and awestruck at "Alfie's father, Dennis - who reportedly has nine children [and] allowed [him] to sleep over at the girl's house."
I suppose we can just be thankful the 15 year old mother wasn't taking fertility drugs or there may have been need to start up six new Jerry Springer-like shows to deal with the white trash backlash.
UPDATE: 13 year old boy scammed into believing the child was his by parents scamming media deals.
What can I say? In the context of the show, great learning moments. On their own, it's like someone dropped the brown acid at Woodstock.
via youtube.com
When I was very young this Rankin and Bass production would come on at 6am on Saturday mornings with the New Adventures of Pinocchio... not the greatest animation or storytelling by any means, but hey, it was 1961 when this was made and a couple decades later before I saw it... if it was Saturday mornings and there was a cartoon, I watched it.
Within the context of watching Sesame Street as a child, most of their short cartoon clips seemed completely normal. Outside of such a context these clips are small surreal bits that seem better matched with Sprockets than Sesame.
...and just because I couldn't resist, the Count's origin with Cookie
Monster. The best part - Cookie's exit at the very end!
Okay, first off, "Badges? We don't need no steenking badges!"
Seriously, congrats to the boy/man who's 18 now, but that's not the point. One might as well be dedicated to something. I never was a scout or a cadet or anything that required formations. If I could get a merit badge for blogging, maybe I'd also stitch it to a sash. My concerns lie more in some of the 121 subjects that these badges are based on.
- American Business (updated in 2003) - Already obsolete. See "recession" or go back to pamphlets from the early 1930's.
- Aviation (initiated 1911) - read: How to drum up pilots to fight the Kaiser.
- Basketry - really!?!
- Cinematography - And so we find what all those Steven Spielberg donations were really all about before he resigned in 2001.
- Collections - I guess it's deconstructionist to just claim one is collecting badges.
- Computers - That this was initiated in 1967 is a bit scary... Boy Scouts or Bilderberg!?!
- Fingerprinting - what was the motto again, To Serve and Protect?
- Golf - What!?! ...is that a Titleist?
- Graphic Arts - Teaching Scouts to Photoshop their first crush's face onto celebrity bodies.
- Indian Lore - I'm sure the folks in New Delhi will be thrilled.
- Journalism - Not a bad idea, but I'm at a loss as to who might be qualified to teach journalism these days.
- Mammal Study - read: Sex Ed.
- Motorboating - Getting ready for your future in the Hamptons.
- Railroading - Am I just cynical or isn't this the same as American Business?
- Rifle Shooting AND Shotgun Shooting - Two different badges. I suppose if you're bad enough at Rifle Shooting they just give you a Shotgun to spray your prey into tenderized little bits.
- Stamp Collecting - Soon to become Domain Squatting.
Like I said, I applaud the young man for enduring what must have been some torturous endeavors to attain all 121 badges. I'm curious as to whether, under the multiple Citizenship badges, Scouts are required to learn tolerance for sexual orientation as well considering the leadership fought like hell to remove Scoutmasters for being gay in 2000.
Then again the Scout Oath calls for all Scouts to be "morally straight".
