separated at birth

Some days I marvel at the fact that I made it through childhood even though I wasn't allowed to watch The Flintstones and I couldn't have a BB gun and I had to eat make-it-yourself peanut butter. Blechh. Instead, I got to watch TVO. And, for some reason, when I was around the age of five or so, TVO had a number of loopy programs in its children's lineup. I remember being home after school and going up to the TV room at our old house near Bedford Park and in my memory the TV seems really huge and as far as I can recall it was one of those "wooden" ones. Y'know, like in a "wood" frame? And I also really don't remember my Mom or Dad being around when I watched TV. That's probably just my selective memory at work. Mum was probably three feet away from me, making sure I was perfectly content. But for all I can remember she was out boozing it up at the Brunny for all my brain's worth. When I was allowed to watch TV I had to watch specific programs on TVO as I mentioned. Those were not the days of Cartoon Network and CBC Kids and Nickleodeon and whathaveyou. Nope, those were the days of A Few Edumacational Shows For Kids At Very Specific Times Of The Day.

Now the point of all this is that in my memory, a number of the shows I watched seemed really trippy to me. The Polka Dot Door wasn't too disturbing, but the whole Polkaroo thing was a bit nutty. Like, what was the Polkaroo? He had a kind of giraffe-y head, but the "roo" part of his name made it sound like he was part kangaroo. And then he had a sort of bubbly skirt thingy. Strange. I also found The Green Forest kind of spooky. The animals weren't very friendly or nice; the dumb blue jay was always causing trouble, and the voices were shrill. I'm not even going to mention the very special insanity of The Friendly Giant. I loooooved Mr. Dressup, but even that threw me for a loop in terms of Casey. What was up with "him"? I don't know about you, but I always thought of Casey as a girl despite the fact that he was referred to as a "he" on the show. I mean, he had a girl's voice, he had a girly hairdo, and he just seemed more like a girl than a boy. I also never quite got what the relationship between Casey and Mr. Dressup was. It was sort of like Mr. Dressup was Casey's Dad, but then why did Casey have to call Mr. Dressup "Mister"? And why did Casey live in a treehouse outside Mr. Dressup's house? At least on Mr. Rogers the backyard-puppetry supposed lived in a "magical" realm outside of normal existence. Not so for Casey and Finnegan.

However, I have to say that in my (clearly febrile and not particularly trustworthy) memory, the all time weirdest and most unsettling show I ever watched was Jeremy The Bear. I have super ultra vivid memories of Jeremy's adventures underwater, to the moon, around the forest, on the back of a gypsy cart, and so very much more. I can sing all the words to the Jeremy theme song. But. Even now I'm haunted by how freaky the show seemed to me at the time. Like Casey, Jeremy was supposedly a male (bear) but seemed very much like a girl bear with a jerky boy's name. Jeremy had a girl voice, high-pitched and whiny, girly hairdos, and although he occasionally got a "girlfriend" I didn't buy into his gender a-tall. To this day I still can't figure out what the heck Jeremy's adventures were all about. They seemed so random and the puppets seemed really strange. I've had them percolating away in my subconscious for ages, but now thanks to the wonder of My Friend The Internet, I was able to relive some Jeremy moments. Phet and I kicked back on Friday night with a few key YouTube clips and we - literally - blew our own minds. Jeremy really is as weird as we thought it was! If you want to see for yourself, check out this fan site, search YouTube, or google "Colargol". 'Hm,' I can hear you thinking, 'Why should I google Colargol if the bear's name is Jeremy?' Well, turns out that Jeremy was originally produced in France under the name Colargol. In the UK he was known as Barnaby. Fancy that!

After we watched the snippets of episodes we could find, we came to the conclusion that there were some sinister puppet masters at work trying to mould our brains as children. Check out the sinister similarities between "Casey" and "Jeremy" as noted below:

Hnh...Do you see it? No pupils in their fathomless eyes. Just a vacant stare. Sharp little toenail-clipping smiles. Ostensibly jolly behaviour. Orange yarn for hair (what, was there no yellow yarn in the 70s? no brown? no black? were all the wool spinners on strike, leaving nothing left behind for puppeteers than wretched gingery strands?) And that not-yet-a-girl-not-yet-a-boy thingy? And really, looking at Casey in that respect, if he was a boy why the hell did he wear so much rouge on his cheeks? Huh? Not to mention the fact that I think he's dressed as a fairy in the photo above.

I rest my case. Weird stuff was going on in my childhood. Weeeeiiiiirrrrd stuff, man.

[Toronto-22-September-2007]