Random memories for your amusement or annoyance.
Kids’ TV Shows
There is a tv in the breakroom where I work. Usually someone has Fox News on. Needless to say I change that real quick. Lately I have been putting on the Cartoon Network for everyone’s enjoyment. Who doesn’t love the Care Bears?
That got me thinking about the different shows I used to watch. The one that stood out was a weekend show called “Kids Are People Too”. It was an offshoot of the show Wonderama. Kids ran from 1978 to 1982. They had a lot of interesting guests during their short run, One of my favorites is Patti Smith from 1979.
Speaking of kids’ shows, I’m really really really hoping @MatthewCrawley was a Do Bee.
Don’t be a food fussy.
Robin Mann of Romper Room was my Sociology teacher in college. We used to joke that she took attendence with her magic mirror.
http://archives.starbulletin.com/2008/02/04/features/flashback.html
Excellent celeb connection!
Mr Dressup (pal of Mr Rogers who moved to Canada and never left.)
The Friendly Giant
Omg Mr Dressup and Mr Rogers are not the same person!? My mind in blown. I must have conflated them as a kid.
I was surprised they were friends and shared the same interest in kids TV shows.
The Friendly Giant was the shit!
I loved cartoons as a kid (and as a man child.)
Instead of newz at noon, they had cartoons on at noon.
Terrible animation. Silly stories. Didn’t matter.
Ibid. Made in Canada by the same studio. Later episodes done by Ralph Bashki (all weird psychedelic shit that melted my 5 year old mind.)
I loved all of the crazy and weird Sid and Marty Krofft stuff.
I forgot all about those shows, which were super awesome.
How could you forget Lidsville?
If “Mark” looks a little familiar, that’s Butch Patrick, who previous to this played Eddie Munster. I hope he didn’t get into all the psychedelics everyone around him must have been taking.
…truthfully despite my folks not really being fans of the telly…& getting packed off to boarding school for a substantial chunk of each year while still in the single digit age bracket…once I get to thinking about it I remember a lot of kids’ tv that I watched enough of to think of as stuff I liked…so if I started trying to list them I’d be at this longer than I have to spare today…plus I had siblings…& there were re-runs…so I’d be naming things I should have been too old for mixed in with things I shouldn’t have been alive for & it could get confusing…but unlike the delights of things like mazinger z…I seriously doubt that this one made it across the atlantic to a US audience & I always kind of admired having this be the intro to the show you were hoping people would stick around to watch
…it actually was pretty good, too
Mrs. Butcher once sat in on a taping of Wonderama when she was a kid. Her father knew the people running the show.
I had a friend who dated a woman whose father was a producer of “Zoom” up in Boston. She hated it because whenever they needed kids to fill scenes (there were many “rap sessions, if you recall, and backgrounders watching them do things) she was drafted. She said every single cast-kid in every single season was unbearable. She once was seated next to some celebrity with a reputation for being a total asshole, I forget who, and she said that celeb was far more gracious and friendly than any of this lot.
Here’s the original cast:
When I was young enough to be watching Romper Room I most certainly was not a Do Bee. I was the second-to-last youngest in my family and by the time I came along in summer we were just sent out and told not to come home except maybe for lunch. I can’t believe I lived through my pre-adolescence. Although to be fair all the kids were treated that way and all the stay-at-home mothers were an informal Watch Society, so it worked out fine.
Same. Literally. Number 4 of 5 and my mom would banish us from the house as well.
Also,
The New Zoo Revue
My Kindergarten class went to see Bozo the Clown being filmed. I just looked on Wikipedia and it looks like there were about 50 different franchises, so I can only claim to have seen about 2% of “Bozo” if you think of him as some kind of collective creature like slime mold or Portuguese man o’ war.
My kindergarten class went to see the Pittsburgh Bozo.
Hanna-Barbera all the way.
Best cartoon ever. Also best theme song:
Best villains:
Best science fiction universe:
Best sidekick (Avenger, not Bird Boy):
Best love triangle:
Best dog:
Jonny Quest was the coolest cartoon ever. I kinda wished I was Jonny (at least the Korean version.)
It is why I love the Venture Brothers.
A couple that come to mind that I haven’t seen posted yet:
Oh, yeah, the Captain! Bit more edgy than Mr. Rogers, Romper Room, or Sesame Street. Which is on-brand for a military man.
Here’s an interesting tidbit about the Captain:
Keeshan’s grandson, Britton Keeshan, became the youngest person at that time to have climbed the Seven Summits by climbing Mount Everest in May 2004. He carried photographs of his grandfather on that ascent, and buried a photo of the two of them at the summit.[34]
Wow. Keeshan is a pediatric cardiologist as well. Very impressive.
Scooby Doo
Always on board for Scooby-Doo. The original series is best, but some of the more recent revivals have been very good.
As a native yinzer I was, and still am, devoted to Mr. Rogers. Touring the studio as a child and seeing the trolley was one of the highlights of elementary school. A friend of mine ended up working at the studio after graduating college and said Fred Rogers was a lovely man.
I was also a fan of The Music Scene with David Steinberg, anyone else remember that short lived show?
There is a tv in the breakroom where I work.
about 2 weeks ago the powers that be decided that the cantine needed 3 flat screen smart tv’s to be used mostly as bulletin boards for company propaganda
so they had them installed
what they did not do is setup anything to stop anyone with a smart phone and the wifi password (read everyone) casting to device
that first lunch break was glorious chaos and probably caused a mountain of complaints to HR for inapropriate shit on the tvs
In 2016 the city installed these kiosk-like things around town where people could access the internet, charge their phones, and make calls. On the sides there was LCD advertising interspersed with useful info, like nearby tourist attractions, local trivia of interest, and real-time subway train info for the nearest stop. It was, of course, a deBlasio disaster™, one of many.
They’re still around but their offerings have been severely curtailed. Oh well, for some it was fun while it lasted.
By the way the URL is kind of NSFW. Mouse over it before you click and you be the judge. The content is perfectly fine and G rated.
Heh. DeBlasio should have checked with any public librarian. Yes, it will be used for porn. Yes, people will masturbate right out in public. And no, they literally see nothing wrong with doing so.
Reading Rainbow
Under the Umbrella Tree
Sharon, Lois and Bram The Elephant Show