i never watched much children's programming as a kid. Bugs Bunny was
the only
one i watched regularly. why is that? because most everything else
scared the
shit out of me.
Mr.
Dressup
for american readers, Mr. Dressup was a long-running children's show
in Canada on CBC-TV, along similiar lines to Mr. Rogers Neighbourhood.
Mr. Dressup hung out with two puppets, one a small boy named Casey
and the other, a dog named Finnegan. i liked Finnegan. Casey freaked
me out. that ceramic face, the
haunting eyes... *shudder* in fact most
"person-talks-to-hand-puppets" type shows were
frightening.
Mr. Rogers Neighbourhood
a character named Mr. McFeely! oh c'mon! if that isn't a perv name,
then i don't know what is. while i didn't mind the simple lessons and
soothing manner of Mr. Rogers, it was the neighborhood of make believe
i found unsettling. again...hand puppets. besides, that
Friday was a jerk! any time the train would make it's way to
the make believe world i'd change the channel.
Rock
okay, they had a good theme song, i'll give them that. and thinking
back, i appreciate the carefree hippy lifestyle the fraggles lived.
but there was one point about this show that troubled me. a talking
garbage heap was a God of the fraggle kingdom. fucking. talking.
garbage.
Sesame Street
oh but the worst was from Sesame Street. not the show itself, i
really liked it a lot, especially when they went to factories and
showed you how they made crayons or paper. Kermit's farm reports, the
Count,
the gay couple (Bert and Ernie), Grover, the homeless puppet (Oscar:
of course
i'm a grouch, bitch i live in a fucking trash can!), all of that was
good. so what was it about Sesame Street that scarred me oh so?
Gregory Hines.
to be more specific...Gregory Hines's package. whenever he'd go into
his tap or jazz dancing routine wearing his tight tights, there it
would be. he'd do his little arabesques and demi-entrechats,
but my 4 yr old eyes would be fixated on his massive unit prancing
around. "what the hell is that!? this is not right. i shouldn't be
seeing this." i expect that in a Prince video, not Sesame Street!
am i the only one? didn't children's programming scare you?
those big hairy monsters on the muppets scared the shit out of me.