I still was listening to LPs as a kid. There wasn't a large selection for me to choose from (that interested me, anyway--I wasn't one much for Dionne Warwick or Roger Whittaker), so there were a select few we kept in constant rotation. Chief among these was the Psalty series, which followed the adventures of a "big... blue... singing... songbook!" While an anthropomorphized hymnal might not seem like the most appealing--or marketable--of children's characters, Psalty and his retinue of spunky children sang a lot of catchy tunes and it was always fun to sing along.
I never knew until recently that there were videos to go with the audio of the Kids' Praise albums-- and it's a darn good thing, too. Psalty appears as a man in gold facepaint with blue Bob Ross-like facial hair, and Charity Churchmouse has flesh-colored prosthetic Dumbo ears and a '50s-style circle skirt and looks like she just ducked out of a low-rent Furry Convention.
The album featuring Charity had one profoundly scary moment for me, when she has a nightmare that the conman Risky Rat is trying to lure her into signing a "con-trap"--I mean "contract," and make her his "slave"--er, that is--his "star." Without being able to see Risky Rat, I was able to conjure up an image of him that was truly terrifying: a kind of cross between Ratigan from The Great Mouse Detective and Warren T. Rat from An American Tail, with a little Jenner from The Secret of NIMH thrown in.
Still, nothing would have been quite as scary as the way Risky Rat is depicted in the video Psalty's Salvation Celebration, in which the whiskers-twirling villain actually tries to prevent children from saving their immortal souls (!!!).
Lesson learned:
Always take a talent agent's promises with a grain of Psalt.
One of the things I've discovered as a parent is that kids' stuff tends to play music--and I use that term loosely. Whether it's a mutant stuffed animal or an infant swing, you can bet that if you turn a knob, squeeze it, jiggle its foot, or whatever, it's going to have the capacity to play a tinny MIDI tune of "If You're Happy and You Know It" or "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" ad infinitum, and you're soon going to start hearing these ditties on a loop in your sleep, maybe even accompanied by dreams that you're driving an ice cream truck... to Hell.
I feel like the makers of these toys are perhaps conducting some kind of covert psychological testing on new parents--something like the Stanford Prison Experiment, where the prisoner-parents cease to remember who they are or why they're there, knowing only that they are hearing "It's a Small World After All" for the five hundredth time and maybe even starting to think they like it. It seems the folks over at Sterling Cooper Fisher Price have become masters of the earworm, selecting only songs more insidiously catchy than "Chili's Baby Back Ribs" and more inane than "MacArthur Park." And while I've already explored the beautiful dark twisted fantasy that is "Rock-a-Bye Baby," I'd be remiss not to mention a few other favorite toddler tunes that have some pretty messed-up messages.
"Alouette"--All about plucking the feathers off a poor lark (Big Bird?), body part by body part. Second only to "Baby Bumblebee" as the theme song of animal torture aficionados and future serial killers.
"Oh My Darling Clementine"--A miner's girlfriend tragically drowns so he consoles himself by getting busy with her little sister instead. With its incestuous overtones, a favorite folksong in West Virginia.
"Hush, Little Baby"--Don't say a word. Because I'm going to buy you a series of inappropriate and ill-thought-out gifts, and when they all inevitably break, or die, I'll throw more money at the problem in hopes that you'll love me. The ballad of the absentee father?
Much in the same vein as "Baby Bumblebee," "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" is a children's song that has built-in hand gestures to reinforce the lyrics. I always found the thumb-to-forefinger climbing movement to be impossibly difficult for some reason; I think that as a toddler I would have likely failed any and all field sobriety tests out of implausibly bad hand-eye coordination. Or perhaps my preschool spiked our juiceboxes to get us to pass out at naptime. Either way, the nuances of the isty-bitsy choreography still elude me.
The lyrics of the song go something like this:
The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout.
Down came the rain, and washed the spider out.
Out came the sun, and dried up all the rain,
And the itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again.
So, the protagonist of the song is a spider, which is a surprising choice given arachnids' bad reputations. The only other exception to the spider-as-antagonist rule that I can think of is Charlotte's Web, which is devastating in its own right as a book that will make you cry when a spider dies, and--here's the kicker--be happy that it laid eggs and had lots of little spider babies! "Hooray," the child reader thinks, "now the barn is full of brown recluse spawn! Now that cool rat will have some new friends to play with! ...Mmm, I bet Wilbur would make a pretty radiant BLT."
The itsy-bitsy spider of the song is an excellent exemplar of the tragic hero. He shows determination and resolve in his quest to climb the water spout, but fails through his own frailty and the cruel intervention of the gods (I mean come on, how convenient was that sudden downpour? I'm looking at you, Zeus). He is brought low through these external forces (Have you ever seen what happens to a wet spider?) and yet continues in his Sisyphean pursuit. The song's preschool-age audience, however, rarely appreciate the enormity of such peripeteia, and continue to laugh and wiggle their fingers in glee.
Lesson learned:
If itsy-bitsy spiders climb up your spout again, 1-800-TERMINIX.
So I will admit, as a child I might have been somewhat... oversensitive. I was also pretty prone to nightmares, and there was no rhyme or reason for what exactly would trigger them. Here I offer a brief roundup of a variety of nightmare source material that doesn't quite each merit its own individual post.
* The front cover of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
It didn't matter that the content inside was relatively tame, this illustration stuck with me and visited my brain in the wee dark hours for years. What's that movement outside my bedroom window? Could it be a giant disembodied smoking clown head? Of course it could.
* "The Red Shoes" cartoon from Fairy Tale Classics (1983)
I had this cartoon on a Beta tape along with anime versions of "Cinderella" and "The Ugly Duckling." As I recall, the girl's red shoes would force her to dance, and because of them she nearly danced herself to death, or at least to complete exhaustion. When we'd go to Stride Rite, I'd shriek at the mere suggestion of buying red shoes. They would not touch my feet. Later, I'd wonder how Dorothy Gale could be so foolhardy; didn't she know those ruby slippers would propel her into a They Shoot Horses, Don't They?-like nightmare scenario faster than she could say "Auntie Em?"
* Spike Jones Best of Spike Jones
Not Spike Jonze, the director of Being John Malkovich, but Spike Jones, the bandleader. We had this album in our car for years, and this face would leer at me from the front seat tape deck every morning on my way to preschool. Just look at those wild, red, beady eyes--doesn't he remind you of Judge Doom in psychopathic toon form? Not to mention how catchy his song "Der Fuehrer's Face" was, although it didn't take me too long to learn that a preschool singing ditties (albeit satirical ones) on the playground tire swing about "der führer" attracted the wrong kind of attention. Thanks for nothing, Mr. Jones.
* The "Study" in the board game Clue. Clue Parker Brothers Detective Game 1972
Surprisingly, I had no problem playing a game predicated on the idea of homicide. Instead, it was the game board itself that gave me the heebie-jeebies. In the version of the game that we owned, the Living Room was represented by a doily, the Hall by an Oriental rug, and the Study--well, looking back I guess it's supposed to be some kind of wood grain, but to my eyes it looked like the Study was on fire. My fear of fire being well-established at this point, I simply couldn't handle the thought of moving my plastic playing piece into that inferno.
* Any "Francis the Talking Mule" movie, but specifically Francis Goes to West Point (1952). The Adventures of Francis the Talking Mule, Vol. 1
Now I don't really understand the appeal of a whole series of films dedicated to a talking mule, but as a kid, I was always drawn to the talking-animal genre. The Shaggy Dog? Loved it. "Mr. Ed?" Of course, of course. And one of my all-time favorites was a little gem called The Cat From Outer Space. So, at some point I saw Francis Goes to West Point, and there's this scene where Francis the Talking Mule sits on a football during the game and deflates it. I'm not sure exactly why this bothered me so much, but I think I was convinced that, having been to football games and witnessed firsthand how unreceptive most fans are to any interruption in play, the spectators would soon descend upon the hapless Francis all Lord of the Flies-style. I couldn't watch any of the movie after that, so I don't know what actually happens, but it did leave me A) not a fan of football and B) terrified of mules. Luckily, mules are relatively easy to avoid in the suburbs.
* This 1987 commercial for the original NES game The Legend of Zelda. The Legend of Zelda
This guy started making regular cameo appearances in my nightmares as soon as I saw this commercial. A man with the cadence of Max Headroom, dressed all in black, shouting nonsensical bad guy names into the darkness? What was this supposed to sell? So when my brother received The Legend of Zelda for Christmas that year, I was almost too scared to see what the actual game would be like. Surprisingly, it had nothing to do with this deranged reject from mime school, and I found that I loved the game (although unfortunately I would never be able to play the sequel).
Lesson learned:
Philip Larkin was right about Mom and Dad, but he should have included all misguided marketing toward kids in there as well.
This song has been around since the late nineteenth century, and has its origins in overt racism, but for some reason it's stuck around for over a hundred years. There's no getting rid of it... much like the eponymous feline itself, I suppose.
I'm pretty sure I saw the cartoon version of the song on Nickelodeon, back in its early days when it used to broadcast a lot of shorts, not to mention a lot of Canadian content. (Remember "You Can't Do That on Television?" Barth terrified me, and why did they have a recurring sketch depicting a child's execution by firing squad? Perhaps that's a post for another time...).
Anyway, the cartoon is essentially about a man's repeated futile attempts to abandon his pet. Mr. Johnson tries dumping the cat deep in the woods, launching him into the air in a hot air balloon, and tying him up in a sack and drowning him at the bottom of the sea. Mr. Johnson's home furnishings and sanity slowly unravel as he continues to try to dispose of the cat--and at one point we learn that there are women tied to the railroad tracks all around his isolated little house. Who is tying these women to the tracks? Our protagonist is clearly a psychopath.
This diagnosis is confirmed when old Mr. Johnson finally tries to explode the cat with about a ton of dynamite. He blows up his house and himself in the process, and his dead body lands on the cat, killing him and leaving the cat's 9 ghost lives to torment Mr. Johnson forever in the afterlife. Thomasina this is not.
Lesson learned:
Adopt your next pet! Or your next pet might just adopt you.
"The Cat Came Back." Dir. Cordell Barker. National Film Board of Canada, 1988.
Watch it on YouTube here.
"Baby Bumblebee" isn't just a song, it's an experience--most young children learn to sing it while mimicking the actions it describes, so it's just like you're doing it yourself. And what are you doing? Well...
I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee;
Won't my mommy be so proud of me?
I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee--
Ouch! It stung me.
Here is the part where you pretend you have just been stung. Feel the pain. Think Uta Hagen; was there ever a time when life really stung you? Tap into that, use those emotions here. Next:
I'm squishing up the baby bumblebee;
Won't my mommy be so proud of me?
I'm squishing up a baby bumblebee--
Ooh! It's yucky.
This is where you tap into your inner sadist and imagine squeeeeeezing the life out of a living being with your bare hands. Imagine that moment... just when its inner light dims from its eyes. Relish the feeling of its life ebbing, guttering, then simply dying out. Ahhh, yes, that's the stuff.
Lesson learned:
Your mother's probably not going to be proud of you after all.
I met Peter Yarrow once, and he was a really nice guy. I bet he gets pretty tired of baby boomers giving him a wink-wink and a nudge-nudge and telling him they "know what 'puffing the magic dragon' is really about." So that's not what I'm addressing here. Besides, are there any children who hear this song for the first time and think, "Why, those lyrics could be construed as a hidden extended metaphor for cannabis use!"
No, I'll tell you what they think when they hear this song for the first time:
Hey, a song about a dragon!
Dragons are awesome.
This dragon is friendly and plays with a kid just like me!
They even scare off pirates! Cool!
Wait--where did Jackie go?
Why is Puff crying?
Why is Puff crying?
...
Why am I crying?
Before I ever really listened to the song's lyrics, I assumed things would turn out really well for Puff and Jackie. After all, Children's Video Library had made a cartoon version in 1978, followed by Puff the Magic Dragon in the Land of Living Lies (1979) and Puff and the Incredible Mr. Nobody (1982). The existence of sequels tends to bode well for beloved characters in movies, right? But the movies just confused me more. In the first one, for example, there's a Jackie Draper and a Jackie Paper, who's like some kind of 2-D alternate self, if I recall correctly.
The movie certainly doesn't end with a depressed dragon with green scales falling like rain. Poor Puff. It's amazing how much pathos can be worked into a few simple lyrics about a magical dragon. Hmmm, maybe I'll feel better about this after a good frolic in some autumn mist.
Lesson learned:
If you never abandon your imaginary friends, you'll need therapy. But if you ever abandon your imaginary friends, they'll need therapy.
Our children's rhyme begins with an unprovoked assault by a roving Lagomorphological sociopath. To wit, "Little Bunny Foo Foo, hoppin' through the forest, scoopin' up the field mice and boppin' 'em on the head!"
The Good Fairy is displeased with this behavior, and she says she will give our boy Foo Foo three chances, and if he doesn't behave, she "will turn [him] into a goon." But what exactly does the threat of becoming a goon entail in this context? What exactly is a goon? Let us turn to the Oxford English Dictionary to find out.
The OED traces the etymology of "goon" to a comic strip character called "Alice the Goon," a giant Amazonian woman with hairy forearms and a flowered hat, featured in Popeye cartoons. It seems unlikely that this is what the Good Fairy is thinking of; wouldn't increased height and powerful forearms only render Foo Foo a more formidable enemy to the field mice?
The most common use of "goon" is to denote "a stolid, dull, or stupid person." But that seems pretty much like the status quo for Foo Foo, doesn't it? Bunny MENSA members probably don't count "bopping field mice on the head" among their hobbies. There is a definition for "goon" that means one who is "hired to terrorize workers," but again, whether the mice are in a union or not, that's pretty much what Foo Foo's already doing, isn't it?
So, if there is no real threat to Foo Foo here, is the Good Fairy suggesting not that he stop his behavior, but that he modify it to be more effective? Would a new verse have Bunny Foo Foo breaking their knees instead? If the mice are in a union, is the Good Fairy a racketeer? And are these the kinds of values we want to teach our children?
Did your parents ever rock you to sleep with this little tune?
Rock-a-bye baby, on the tree top,
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock;
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall.
And down will come baby, cradle, and all.
Then I hate to be the one to break it to you, but your parents wanted to kill you.
With these words, they are saying, "I will put you in your cradle and tie it to the highest tree branch I can find, and when--not if but when--there is a strong gust of wind, you will plummet to the ground." This is why the song is so effective in quieting fussy babies. One also wonders why the verse ends there--would the second chorus be set in traction or the morgue?
Lesson learned:
Nothing works so well to soothe the nerves as a good old-fashioned death threat.
