When
you're a kid, things seem odd. Not necessarily scary, but just strange.
You don't have the experience necessary to process certain things
correctly. So they stay in your head until you reach the age when you
can look back and say, "Oh, that's what that was!" For example, for
years I remember being fascinated with the opening to The Electric
Company which showed the characters disolving into the actors who played
them. When I watch today I realize it's a simple camera trick. Remember
the classic Electric Company? Ah, the good old days.
Here
are five of my biggest WTF moments when I was growing up, five shows
and or episodes which just seemed....weird...and never left my head!
#5."Pinwheel"
Ah,
classic Nickelodeon where have you gone? I have mentioned this before
but it deserves another mention. This little show was on for six
straight hours during the week when I was a kid, when you're a kid, a
show being on all afternoon was a looong time, and I had no idea what I
was looking at whenever I watched it. It had strange puppets and weird
animation, it was just freaky. In reality it was a decent show and they
just re-aired episodes back to back. I did like the closing theme to
this show, it will never go away! and was always happy when it ended at
2pm and Today's Special finally came on.
#4."The Smurfs", Smurfs turn evil!
How
do you take an episode of the Smurfs, the lovable little blue guys, and
make it downright scary? The episode is called "The Purple Smurfs" and
involves a virus making its way among our lovable friends. When Lazy is
bit by a purple fly he contracts a disease which makes him purple, and
evil. The disease spreads like a zombie plague and turns all the Smurfs
into nasty little creatures who make annoying noises. Even Papa Smurf is
not immune, in fact it almost looks like the episode is going to end
with the Smurfs not being cured! But dumb luck wins out and all the
Smurfs are restored to normal. But for awhile there the lovable Smurfs
were downright creepy!
#3 "New Zue Revue"
Words
cannot effectively describe this one. This was a kid's show which was
unintenionally strange. If you ever saw it you know what I mean. It was a
simple show, in a small town lived a bunch of friendly people. Like
most kids show there were costumed puppet characters. That's where the
weirdness kicks in. The full size
characters were Freddie The Frog, Henrietta Hippo, and Charlie the Owl.
I don't know if it was the costumes or the voices, or both, but this
show was just weird and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop
watching. It was a good show, don't get me wrong, just odd. It's hard to
desctibe so check it out!
#2 "The Muppet Show", Muppets turn into chickens!
Man
this haunted my nightmares for years! Roger Miller was the host of this
one which aired in the 3rd season, but that isn't what made this so
odd. There is an outbreak of Cluckitis which turns the Muppets into
chickens! What was with strange illness's on these shows? Anyway, that's
exactly what happens, a Muppet sneezes and turns into a chicken. By the
end everyone is chickens! I don't know why, but this has bugged me for
years, it was always in my head and I wasn't even sure if I had really
seen it or it was some bad dream I had. I guess things just seem
different when your little and I was only 5 or 6. How could Kermit
becoming a chicken not be a tad, odd. By the way in the end Roger Miller
explains the effects are temporary.
#1 "It's Your Move", The Dregs of Humanity
It
says something when you never forget an episode of a short lived TV
series from 1985. Many people think Jason Bateman went from Silver
Spoons to The Hogan Family. Well he actually had a stop along the way,
this corny little show. Jason Bateman was Zack Morris years before
anyone heard of Saved By The Bell. In this episode, Jason Bateman's
character creates a ficitious band for a school concert. How does he do
that? He steals four skeletons from the biology lab and dresses them up!
Then controlled by strings, and disguised by special effects, the
skeletons perform for the school and are a huge success! The band
becomes a sensation, so much so that the only out is for Bateman to
arrange for the band to die in a car accident. Yeah, this was a weird
one. At least the car accident was off screen. To bad the skeletons were
not! I am leaving out a lot but you get the idea. This series was
cancelled after barely a season, but I never forgot this episode.
WTF????
Well there you go. Five strange moments that I never forgot, even at my advanced age
Yeah, I can see how those episodes would freak you ot when you were a little kid. But I have to give you some background on the smurf episode. As you already might know, the cartoon is based on a series of comic books by the Belgian writer Peyo (and it seems to be the only exception from the trend, that all those great comic books from Belgium and France never hit it big on the American market). But the funny thing is that this episode is directly based on a story from one of the comic books, except for that the sick smurfs were black. They had to change that into them becoming purple for the American cartoon, because they were afraid of being accused of racism.
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