Spoopy? Spoopy.

Apparently, this short from Sesame Street scared a lot of little kids when it aired in 1975:



Though from a certain point of view it’s understandable why this might scare little kids. It’s hard to look at it now and be scared. And even harking back to my childhood, it’s hard to think of this being scary. I saw creatures and patterns galore in the plaster on various bedroom ceilings, and on the light fixtures in said bedrooms. One bedroom in particular was a joy – with the bed positioned just right, you could see Wile E. Coyote chasing the Road Runner.

But scared of this? Not hardly.

Now this. This scared me silly as a kid:



I still get a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach watching it now. So I can understand how the Crack Master and his ilk might have been scary. Still: seeing patterns in cracks and in plaster feels a lot more common to me than operatic oranges . . . .

Then there’s this. THIS, oh my gosh this. SCARED THE BELOVED BEJEEBERS OUT OF ME. Damn train barreling RIGHT OUT OF THE FRICKIN’ TV SCREEN RIGHT AT ME. Right, boys, dismantle that tunnel quick!



Trains barreling out of two-piece puzzles have got to be even more rare than operatic oranges. Still. Brr. NOTE: The “Trains approaching” warning and the warning to stay behind the yellow line did not appear in the original. And I, being a country bumpkin from flyover country, had only experience with distant freight trains to help fill in the gaps in expectations.

Pomp and Circumstance. And Suction Cups.

Sometime in the not-so-distant future, our oldest son will graduate high school. Meaning, among other things, we will hear some version of Edward Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance.” Which means, thanks to my brain’s ability to cling to odd bits of information and imagery, I will be thinking of octopuses.

I blame Sesame Street.



I have no idea why the videographers at the Children’s Television Workshop chose Elgar’s piece to accompany this footage of a weird-looking octopus (oddly, I don’t remember it being an organ version of the music, but clearly that’s what it is), but I remember watching this as a kid and thinking, just exactly how big is this thing and WHY ARE THEY SHOWING US ITS MOUTH OPENING AND CLOSING.

I now realize that is the octopus’ breathing apparatus, and had I seen the actual mouth – that terrible parrot-beaky thing – I would have been more traumatized by this video than I ever was by the Operatic Orange.



Posit: Bugs Bunny did more to help me develop a love (or at least familiarity with) classical music because they chose to present them with non-threatening imagery (including Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny chasing each other with increasingly larger bits of weaponry AND a sentient electric shaver) that Sesame Street did, with their FREAKING singing oranges and their octopuses flapping their breathing tubes and suction cups at me.

Well, except for the alum. The alum freaked me out too. Maybe Bugs Bunny isn’t as innocent as I think.

http://misterfweem.blogspot.com/2017/05/rational-childhood-fears-alum.html

Sesame Street Therapy

A friend of mine is convinced that if people who were mad at each other would just sit down and watch the Muppets for six weeks straight, they'd learn to get a long better. I believe there's thruth in that: Best ways to get to know a person is laugh with them or cry with them. So the next time you're angry at someone, sit them down and watch all the Sesame Street videos in this vein: The Mad Painter.

My favorite Mad Painter interlude came when he painted the Number 8 on the bald man's head. Why the man simply let him paint -- even when he handed him the 8 to hold while he painted -- always befuddled me. I do appreciate, however, the Mad Painter's strict adherence to protocol. Before he begins painting the Number 8, he does remove his swim mask and snorkel, replacing them with his signature bowler hat.

The actor behind the paint brush is Paul Benedict, who it seems did a lot of work in TV and film, but not much in the films I've seen. He does appear as Judge Womack in The Addams Family. He's also credited as "The Zen Buddhist" in that Dick Van Dyke classic, Cold Turkey. And, based on that chin, he could probably do a mean John Kerry.

I'd like to meet him one of these days and say, "Thank you, Mad Painter. You made my childhood a bit more surreal." Because who wouldn't want as a role model a guy who painted numbers on random things?

The more I think about Sesame Street (and who isn't thinking more of S.S. these days, given the headlines) the more I realize its true gift was breaking down that Fourth Wall and talking directly to we children. They, and Mr. Rogers, excelled at that. Thanks.