For a few weeks, I'd been compiling notes about some of the TV shows I grew up with and I've come to a point where a Word document isn't enough to contain it all.
And I figured with some of these series, it'd be cool to use this platform to talk about the impact they had on me, including various inside jokes and quotes I still bring up to this day.
So to give a quick preview:
There are at least a dozen series I'll be going into. Some of which, I'll have to break into separate posts by season just because there's too much.
And all but one are animated... for some weird reason, as a kid, I didn't like watching any live action shows. The one exception has a talking dog as the main character :P
The majority will be Nickelodeon shows and I'll be going through those first. The rest are from PBS.
As for the purpose of this post, there are a bunch of shows I won't be devoting a lot of time to simply because my memory isn't as good as it used to be. And some are series that I wouldn't necessarily consider my favorites... yet certain quotes and references will spring to my mind whenever the opportunity presents itself.
In no particular order:
Kablam
This was a fun series. Henry and June were the hosts that would lead the audience from one cartoon short to the next. Various shenanigans ensue during their segments, which usually ends up with Henry being the butt of the joke. I think this series was cutting edge at the time because the shorts were created using many kinds of animation, from hand-drawn to computer to stop-motion.
No joke, the first time I ever heard the word "fondue" was from the short: Sniz & Fondue. The one cartoon I remember was when they wanted Sniz to learn how to tell time. So they actually scribbled on his forehead "don't tell me time" so nobody would help him and he had to figure it out for himself.
But I'm sure everyone remembers Action League Now and Prometheus and Bob a lot more.
It's kinda funny that my dad isn't really big on any of the shows we watched as kids, but even he remembered both of these segments existing. I think "Action League Now" even got its own show for a bit, but it was short-lived. To this day, I still remember the introduction of the four characters.
And running gags like Bill the Lab Guy muttering deadpan during every dire medical situation that comes up: "There's nothing I can do."
And "Prometheus and Bob" had no dialogue other than the intro and the final screen "End"... but it was brilliant. The alien kept trying to teach the caveman how to operate a wheel or play sports like tennis, but he either wouldn't grasp it or there'd be this random monkey that gets in the way to screw it all up.
Ren & Stimpy
One of the original Nicktoons. To this day, I'm not sure if I even liked it all that much. Some of it was over the top hilarious, but mostly, it was over the top. Usually on the gross and inappropriate side. That's the main reason why I don't feel like spending too much time talking about it. But for all the negatives I could say, the show is a pop culture success because it's memorable.
Aside from "Happy Happy Joy Joy," the ones that come to mind (without going too far into Stimpy donating the fat cells from his butt so Ren could have spectacular pecs or putting nerve endings under pillows for the tooth fairy... it gets a lot worse, trust me) are when the two of them spend the night in the pound and Ren learns about "the big sleep" and when the two of them disguise themselves to be firehouse dogs.
And on their first day, they have to save this huge lady and her menagerie of pets from a burning building. One of them was Mr. Horse, who was a recurring character throughout the series. They did a horrible job breaking his fall, so he winds up dragging himself across the street. Out of nowhere, a reporter comes up to him and asks how he felt about that fall. He then answers with what becomes his signature catchphrase: "No sir, I didn't like it"
The Wild Thornberrys
This show had a cool concept: it followed a family that travels around the world to film their animal TV documentary series. And the younger sister Eliza has the ability to talk to animals. The writing was a little more mature than the shows I was watching at the time so I think a lot of it went over my head. But if I watched it now as an adult, I'd probably get more out of it.
Even then, we still got some good inside jokes out of it.
The one that springs to mind immediately took place in Australia. It was one of those rare times Debbie, Eliza's older sister, got to hang out with other people her own age. Most of them were surfers and they kept calling her Sheila.
Prompting her to ask: Who's Sheila?
Their answer: You are, Sheila. That's what we call girls.
But there comes a point where she has to come to Donnie's rescue, she grabs someone's surfboard and says "Give me that board and don't call me Sheila"... after that, they got the message. They carried her back to camp on the board like she was Cleopatra, chanting her real name.
One of the more poignant moments involved Rebecca, an elephant Nigel Thornberry saved from poachers years earlier. Eliza got the chance to meet her and her herd before she passed away of old age. It was a great circle of life kind of moment because shortly after, her daughter Zito is made the new head of the herd.
Another one we still remember is when they go to Transylvania to do a segment on vampire bats. And they're meeting a Dr. Spinoza and Debbie does a weirdo impression of him, hoping to freak out Eliza. He seems like a kooky dude that might give Bela Legousi a run for his money. It turns out the weirdo was the real doctor's assistant and he has more than a few screws loose.
It also bears repeating that this show was my first time getting acquainted with Tim Curry. Before I saw him in "Rocky Horror Picture Show" or even "Home Alone 2," I knew him as Nigel Thornberry. Smashing!
The Angry Beavers
There were several of these Nicktoon shows where I remember the first season really well and I lost my interest shortly after that.
Norbert and Daggett are brothers that are living out on their own for the first time and dealing with all of the difficulties that come with that. The running gag is that things would always come easy to Norbert without him even having to try. And Daggett tries his hardest to beat him and things never work out his way.
Three episodes come to mind immediately:
"Beaver Fever" where the two of them have a one-hit wonder with a disco song. (Funny enough, we recently got the compilations Pure Disco I & II, so we were listening to a lot of similar music around the time this episode aired). But fame and fortune proves trickier than they thought it'd be. Daggett makes a comment after seeing a recent poll: "yeah, we're bigger than sliced bread." And suddenly enraged sliced bread fans are coming at them with torches and pitchforks. Ultimately the whole thing falls apart because they don't know how to write a second hit song. Easy come, easy go.
"Long in the Teeth"- they previewed this episode like crazy during the behind-the-scenes segments Nickelodeon used to do. Basically, Norbert decides to stop chewing and gets all kinds of attention from the other animals. So Daggett gives in and does it too, but it doesn't come as easily to him. In the end, it gets the best of both of them.
There's even a documentary they watch, telling them that rodents need to chew or else their teeth will eventually pierce through their brains.
"Box Top Beavers"- this is a fun artifact to look back on. Box tops were all the rage in the 90's, where you'd collect them and send them in for toys. These guys took it to the extreme. Daggett would only get the toys from inside the box and got jealous of Norbert, who always got bigger and better toys. So he tells him about the box top thing and Daggett gets on that gravy train.
My sister and I still quote this one to this day.
"Patience... and you'll get that street sweeper."
"It took you so long to collect all those box tops that the street sweeper offer's expired."
So they go to the cereal factory to get the street sweeper, only to wind up in a cereal box.
"Mom, I got beavers again! Ew!"
"Well, you should've been patient and clipped the box tops instead."
Another one I didn't watch a lot of, but got a little into over time. It was about a group of friends that liked to surf, skateboard and do all of those X-Game sports.
One episode involved snowboarding and Reggie made fast friends with another female snowboarder. They find out after hanging out for a bit that she has a prosthetic leg. (It's a bit more commonplace now, but for me, that was the first time I learned that was a thing...so this show was a little ahead of its time in some cases). Then in the race they're competing in, the other girl gets mad at Reggie, thinking she threw the race because she felt sorry for her.It didn't look that way to me at first, but after they did a few instant replays, it was pretty obvious. Ultimately, it taught a really good lesson.
Another that was kinda funny was when Sam, the newest member of the group, designed a video game with his friends as characters. And it made him out to be the protagonist who has Twister for a best friend and taught Reggie everything she knows about sports. And apparently if you mess up Otto's hair, you lose 50 points.
So when his friends play the game themselves, they get a little bent out of shape because it seems like he's trying to rewrite history. Sure, he was the butt of the joke at times so he deserved that satisfaction, but sometimes you can take those things a little far.
***
Going forward with the next few series, I'll probably start each with a post on the overall premise and memorable characters. Then over various seasons, I'll break it down into memorable episodes... and hopefully it won't take a dozen blog posts to get through each show :P
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