dreaminghope | Childhood pop culture

When I was a little kid, I didn't watch Saturday morning cartoons. My mom didn't want us to watch them, so they weren't ever on in the house. When I was really little, I thought cartoons only played in hotels, because we only watched them when we stayed in one.

I don't feel like I missed anything by not watching cartoons, but I know that the lack of cartoons means I don't have them in common with my peers. So it delights me when I find other childhood pop culture pieces in common with people.

Some random bits of my childhood that some people have never heard of, but others remember with great fondness:

Bunnicula: Books, the whole series. I love the mental image I still have of the cat trying to pound the steak through the bunny's heart.

Where the Wild Things Are: I loved that book!

The Peanut Butter Solution: Movie. I love the reactions of people who have never seen this movie when they hear a plot summary. You see, there's this boy who loses his hair. And he gets this formula to help him grow it again, involving putting peanut butter on his head. And his hair won't stop growing, but it is magical hair. People make paintbrushes out of his hair which paint magical paintings with single strokes and you can walk into them. It is a real movie; other people have seen it!

Waterbabies: The original, classic book. One of my favourites; I used to dream that I was a waterbaby.

Snugglebums: Toys. I don't know if there was a TV show or anything about these, I just remember wanting the toys when I was little. For whatever reason, Mom didn't like them (I think she thought they were ugly), so I made myself a Snugglebum out of a washcloth and some emboidery floss. I don't remember if it was any good (I doubt it could've been; I was about 6), but I loved it.

Tonight's Special: TV show. I liked the mouse.

Other favourite books from childhood that I still love: Heidi (Mom read it to me the first time, in installments over a summer; I've read it more time then I can count myself), Wizard of Oz (the whole series), Beautiful Joe (the first and last chapters still make me cry), All Things Great and Small and all the James Herriot books, and so many more, I'm sure.

I know I'm forgetting so many. I love it when someone mentions some fond memory from their childhood and it reminds me how much I also loved that toy/TV show/movie, etc.

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Today's Special. I had the record, and I have the theme music stuck in my head now!

I loved Waterbabies.. I haven't thought about it for years! I dreamed about it too.

Strangely, except for The Peanut Butter Solution, Beautiful Joe and Snugglebums, our lists would be very similar. I'd add Narnia, Farley Mowat, the scary cartoon version of Watership Down, and The Neverending Story, though.

I used to watch Today's Special before school every day. :)

Oooh, I love the Narnia books! Russ owns the whole set, and I should re-read them.

The Neverending Story was really scary to me the first time I tried to watch it, and I ended up leaving the room. I only saw it all the way through for the first time about two years ago!

yay! someone else who's read Bunnicula! I loooved those books!
I never watched cartoons much either - my mom hated TV, period.

When you mention Bunnicula in a crowd of people of about our age, I find that about 2/3 of the people will look at you like you are a little nuts, and the other 1/3 will start bouncing up and down and saying things like: "And he stuck toothpicks in all the radishes!"

Ooooh....we need to have a Bunnicula party!

Snugglebums were a toy.. I don't think they were a tv show..

I still have a bunch of my kid books. :) Beauty still makes me bawl my eyes out. Bunnicula was great, and charlottes web is still got a special place in my heart.

I don't know if I ever read Beauty - I assume you are talking about Black Beauty - because I missed the stage lots of girls around me went through of being really into horses. But I also loved Charlotte's Web.

A lot of the books I loved were from the library, so I don't own most of them. I've been tempted to start collecting them, but the Oz books alone would take a good shelf or two, and the collection would get out of hand pretty quickly.

nope Beauty is a book by Bill Wallace about a boy who goes to live with his grandpa and learns to ride a horse. I have it still if you want to borrow it.It makes me cry so much.

Sounds good! Please add it to the list of books I'm going to borrow from you. I should wait until after the move though, because otherwise they may end up getting packed in one of my rampages.

Done. I've actually made a private post to remind me what you want to borrow. :)

Thanks! That's so sweet!

Did you ever see the cartoon movie version of "Heidi?" I loved that show when I was small. I used to have nightmares about kobolts, though.

I never saw the cartoon at all, and I saw the live action movie (or mini-series?) after having read the book many times.

I find a lot of classic kids movies (101 Dalmations, Mary Poppins and The Wizard of Oz come to mind) don't have a special place in my memory because they pale in comparison to the book I remember. Like Mary Poppins: she was a much more complex and much weirder character in the books then in the movie.

Hmmm... I'm rambling nostalic again!

The cartoon version of Heidi was pretty cool. I was both a big movie and book kid, so I have affectionate memories of both, depending on which story it is. "Little Mermaid" for instance, I have memories of two different movies and the original story. The first Little Mermaid movie I saw was a Japanese anime version which was much closer to the original and darker than the Disney version. For example, not only does the little mermaid lose her ability to talk after becoming a human, but every time she takes a step it feels like she's stepping on knives. However, since she's in love she decides that this is a fair trade for being near the prince. Oh yeah, and they don't get married at the end. He marries a different princess, and the little mermaid gets turned in to sea foam and dies.

Thought a) Wow, does Disney ever sanitize kids stories. Thought b) fairy tales sure do contain a lot of screwed up messages about love and relationships.

The Little Mermaid: I remember seeing another film version too, long before the Disney version came out. I don't know if it was the same one, because it was so long ago, but it was true to the original fairy tale and she became sea foam. I was kind of disgusted at the Disney's version's end, because it was such a radical departure from the original story, but I don't see how they could've gone from singing lobsters to a dead mermaid.

Disney sure does sanitize, and when they don't do "enough" cleaning up (i.e., with The Black Cauldron), they seem to self-censor too. I just think Disney, and a lot of American culture, doesn't give kids enough credit. Things get dumbed down so much, like when they "Americanized" the Harry Potter books... but that's another rant altogether. :)

I'll have to seek out the animated Heidi - I bet it's really cute, and it was a hoot to see the animated Waterbabies, even if they changed the story a lot.

~hugs her Disney~

I know they sanatize. But I still love a lot of thier movies. :)

Big sap that I am.

I think I saw the cartoon Hedi.. I know I saw the shirley temple version..

I also enjoyed What Katie did and the Secret Garden. I still have many of my kid books and even found some of the series of these big red books with short stories in at VV once and bought a few of them.

OOh! I loved The Secret Garden too!

Childhood pop culture

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