What Is And What Should Never Be

OK, so as you can see, it has been over a year since I last wrote on here, and I wish I could tell you that my absence is due to a rich benefactor leaving me with enough money to travel the world in a hot air balloon, or that I have been imprisoned in the Playboy Mansion, forced to satisfy the sexual whims of two score buxom women. Sadly, neither of those happen to be the case. I am merely lazy. I know, I know. Boring, but the truth. Anyway, now that I have confessed that particular sin, let's get to the topic I really want to discuss, and that is things that I loved as a kid, but now scare the absolute shit out of me.

Don't get me wrong. I was certainly not above being terrified of things as a kid. I feared the monster in the closet, every vegetable on my plate, and thanks to Mr. Tobe Hooper, anything remotely having to do with clowns. I had to hide my face when Mr. Jackson transformed into a hairy manbeast with glowing yellow eyes, only to later transform into a zombie. And while I love the Muppets, it took me quite a long time to be able to watch them without thinking of that disturbing scene from American Werewolf in London. Yes, while I was not allowed to see a boob on tv, my parents didn't worry too much that I saw something that included werewolves and decomposing smart-asses.

Somehow, however, a few things slipped past my terror-o-meter, and wedged themselves firmly among the things I loved, snuggling right up next to R2-D2, Winnie the Pooh, and Kwicky Koala. Only now, as an adult, have I been able to see them for what they truly are, horribly disturbing constructs distilled from a heroin addict's fever dream. Let's examine each of them, shall we?

First up is that crazy bitch that lived in the Neighborhood of Make Believe, Lady Elaine Fairchild. I guess when I was a kid, I was unfamiliar with the telltale marking of a wino - ruddy cheeks, soot-covered face, and a gravelly voice clearly the product of way too much tobacco and rubbing alcohol. And what the hell was with her nose? It looked like a small penis dipped in an ink well.

How did one find their way to this "neighborhood" where the wino called home? By riding on a handcart being pumped straight to hell, otherwise known as Trolley. The bell of Trolley, we were told, was meant to signify the passing between the realms of reality and make believe. In actuality, it was a notice to ne'er do wells that fresh meat had arrived in the neighborhood. Lady Elaine had to feed the monkey somehow. And being young and naive, how was one to notice that her brain had clearly been pickled by untold gallons of cheap box wine? I give you the following video as an example.



I'm sure if Fred Roger's death were to have been investigated more closely, this big-nosed lush surely had her cloth covered hands in on the deed. Perhaps she stabbed him in a drunken rage out behind the Neighborhood of Make Believe's equivalent of a Piggly Wiggly, or maybe he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and witnessed King Friday paying her hush money for his shady doings concerning the region of Northwood and their goats.* Whatever the case may be, any time there was trouble in the Neighborhood, you could bet that Lady Elaine was somehow involved.

Next up in my childhood house of horrors are the disturbing visages of giant puppets with soulless eyes that hung out with a dude who very likely moonlighted as a porn actor. The show was called The New Zoo Revue, and as you can see from the following video, whenever these puppets moved, their arms and legs were all akimbo, and their gaping maws flapped open and shut seemingly at random. How someone in a large hippo costume wearing a dress and staring back at me with vacant eyes didn't scare the shit out of me when I was a kid is beyond me. It certainly disturbs me now.




It's a little known fact that this show gave rise to the furry movement that currently makes other fetishes seem normal by comparison. OK, so I just made that up, but I can totally see that happening.

Finally we come to The Letter People. Here was a show about anthropomorphic letters, something that should be relatively harmless, right? Right? Um, no. Looking like H.P. Lovecraft had given birth to demented sock puppets, and then placed them on the hands of vagrants and crack whores, the Letter People are so terrifying that it's truly a wonder I learned any letter of the alphabet. Even more surprising is that this show didn't mold me into someone who boiled cats on a stove or wears their underwear over top of their pants. I leave it to the disembodied voice in the following video to explain to you to nuances of the show. Unfortunately I was unable to embed this video, so you'll have to navigate away for a moment to see it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGjG-nQaCe4

OK, so what the hell is up with Mr. N? What sort of dark room in someone's mind did he step out of? And Mr. T? It appears as if he has a human leg stuck between his front teeth. Clearly flossing is a problem for the dude. I can't believe that when I was in kindergarten I took my naps with 2' tall inflatable versions of these monsters. How these things didn't give me constant nightmares is beyond me.

So there you have it, three things that I used to love as a kid but now scare the shit out of me. They say we often look at the past through rose colored glasses, but in this case that red tint may simply be the blood spilled by a bunch of treacherous puppets, puppets that I used to love.

Transmission out.

*While I have never felt bad about the jokes I make on my blog, I felt it important this time to note that I am fully aware that Mr. Rogers died from the coward we call cancer, and that I do not intend these jokes to trivialize this disease or his remarkable life.