"The Golden Age of Kid's TV": A Poll

A couple of weeks ago I picked up Meddling Kids--which I thought a ton of fun, but not quite the Scooby-Doo-inspired adventure I wanted it to be. A Facebook friend suggested I check out Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated, which I did--and it completely blew me away. Easily the best cartoon I'd watched in years, it was funny, surprising, wickedly smart, and--especially towards the end--genuinely frightening, all while never ceasing to be, structurally, the same sort of classic Saturday-morning Scooby-Doo show that all us Gen Xers grew up with. As I thanked him and raved on FB about the show, he responded "we live in a Golden Age of kid's television." And that got me thinking: do I agree? Well, maybe. Hence, this blog post.

So here are five cartoons that I have watched--all of them, except one, as an adult with children of my own--and loved. I've loved them because they were never anything other than a cartoon made for kids...while simultaneously being far more narratively sophisticated, artistically accomplished, and emotionally rich than you might expect. So this list excludes cartoon programs that always assumed a primarily teen-age or adult audience (of which there have always been a lot: The Simpsons, Bob's Burgers, Archer, heck, all the way back to The Flintstones), as well as winking, Adult-Swim-style cartoons that make like they're for kids, but of course aren't anything of the sort (The Ren & Stimpy Show or Animaniacs). I'll defend these five kids cartoons as being some of the best ever made, and as all but one of them are products of the past ten years or so, maybe that supports my friend's contention. I know I've missed out on good stuff here (I've only watched a few episodes of the latest incarnation of My Little Pony, for example, though some of our girls have adored it, and I've completely missed Adventure Time and Gravity Falls), but I'm more interested in great cartoon programs of the past that could compete with these (for example, our foster daughter insists that the fact our other kids missed out on SpongeBob SquarePants means they missed out on something essential in their education). Is today a "golden age of kid's television"? What say you all?

In alphabetical order:

Avatar: The Last Airbender was a huge success in our family ("everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked!" became a common slogan around the Fox household for a while), and we were hardly alone; this cartoon's smooth, faux-anime art style, its vocal work, its complicated (but never too complicated to follow or believe) characterizations of a cast of dozens, and its respectful (though always fun) employment of various fantasy and ethnic tropes, all in the service of an epic story of war, sacrifice, and personal discovery--deservedly made it the huge hit it was. Multiple people have told me that its sequel series, The Legend of Korra, was in some ways its superior, but having watched it a bit, I just don't see it. Favorite episode: "Nightmares and Daydreams," not only because it's a thoughtful and funny "getting ready for the final battle" episode, but it also was the one time Appa, Ang's flying bison, talked, and I'd wanted him to talk (like Falkor, preferably) throughout the whole series.

Probably at least some who read this would wonder about the inclusion of The Backyardigans on this list--"that's a show for pre-schoolers!," they might say--but I'm sorry, forget all that. While not employing any real narrative continuity, the self-contained worlds that the creators came up with for this show, episode after episode, were pure genius. Most particularly in the music; every single show featured multiple original songs that made use of a different musical genre: from opera to Memphis soul to swing to Zydeco and everything in between. The stories were gentle and inventive, but it was the tunes that kept me watching along with our younger kids. Favorite episode: "A Giant Problem," because "Nothing's Bigger Than a Giant" is the sort of pop song that most bands would kill to write.

Phineas and Ferb is an obvious choice: terrifically funny, with endless jokes arising from its mix of surreal story-telling, goofball plotting, and frequent excursions to meta-land. But mostly, this is another cartoon series that is built more on its tremendous music than anything else. And not just the music--the vocal cues and references built into how they set up and animated their songs were themselves often drop-dead hilarious. And through it all, there were great moments of genuine emotion (anyone who didn't shed a tear or two at the marvelously upbeat and entirely earned final episode, which brought the gang's summer to its inevitable end, just wasn't paying attention). Favorite episode: really hard to choose, but I'm going to go with "Brain Drain," because of the song "There's a Platypus Controlling Me" is more important than ever during the Trump era, and besides, the brief scene-changing narration "Doofenshmirtz's Ex-Wife's Sports Sedan!" actually put me on the floor laughing.

Checking out The Real Ghostbusters on Saturday mornings 30 years ago--even though I was as a high school senior by then--was revelatory. I mean, sure, I'd seen cartoons that mixed adult plotting with kids-appropriate material before (Johnny Quest, anyone?), but this confounded me. The very conceit of the show--that these were the "real" Ghostbusters, whose lives were then the basis for the fictitious movie made about them--itself cracked me up. More importantly though, the writers of this show (most particularly the famed comic-book and Babylon 5 scribe J. Michael Straczynski, and most particularly for the first couple of seasons) told stories that were often truly, flat-out frightening, employing all sorts of mythology and fairy tales that I recognized from playing Dungeons & Dragons and reading classic literature to create compelling, occasionally actually kind of terrifying, ghosts and monsters. But the wit and the personal dynamics of the five (six, if you count Slimer) characters kept it grounded in cartoon-land, which is a pretty great feat. Favorite episode: "Take Two," a hilarious two-part episode where the Ghostbusters are brought to Hollywood for the premier of the Ghostbusters movie, and they're all pissed to realize that they're being played by comedians.

I'm going to say it: Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated is the best of this whole lot. Until the final episodes of the second season, it never fails to follow the classic Scooby-Doo formula: weird monster, strange clues, convoluted trap, successful reveal. But all while doing so, this show sets up, episode after episode, an ongoing story about people manipulating the gang from behind the scenes, all while their own relationships grow, change, and ultimately become stronger. This is the first Scooby-Doo incarnation that has an actual body count, and villains that are complicated in their motivation and genuinely frightening. But the wacky humor of the franchise remains consistent all the way through...at least until the final, rather desperate episodes, and by that time, you're too hooked to care. Favorite episode: "Come Undone." It's no often that the final episode of a series is actually its best, but the pay-off here--from the Dune reference in the first scene to the twist ending (and the guest-star) that completely took me by surprise--is worth every episode that came before it.

Okay anyone, so what did I miss?

Clearly, Prince Charles was Born to Play Polonius

"No Doubt."

Rest in peace, Mr. Rickman. So many of your performances on stage and screen were wonderful, but my favorite role of yours was Colonel Brandon is Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility. My single favorite line from that movie--indeed, from any Austen adaption I've ever seen--was when Brandon revealed his sad past to Elinor. Mr. Rickman, you drew more sadness and wry wisdom out of this short scene--indeed, from those two words, twice spoken, more humor--than I think any equally skilled stage and film actor ever could. I can't find an embed, but we can watch it here. Look up Mr. Bowie, and have a fine drink with him, will you? Godspeed.

"I Thought He Had One More Regeneration Left in Him"

New Year's Eve Live Music: "Touch of Grey"

A good way to ring out the old year, as we all just keep getting older, and yet life doesn't slow down or stop happening. Happy New Year's, everyone.

Hey, I Got a Christmas Card from Bernie Sanders!

"Stick fast to your banner, stand solid, nor veer / 'Till the cause of the workers renews earth again." Good advice to those of us laboring in the pro-Sanders trenches this Christmas season! (Hat tip: Matt Stannard.)

"It's Just National."

Nothing more need be said. Those who were there, were there, and they know.

Annie Lennox Would Approve, I Believe.

Young, Attractive, Strangely Wealthy White People Sharing Coffee...FOREVER

Remember that mashup which played every single Billy Joel hit all at once? This--every single episode from the first season of Friends played at the same time--is worse. And better. Infinitely worse and better, at the same time.

Well, Technically I Think We Have Until October

Some people will get the joke.

Don't Get Essayists Angry!

Regarding the collapse of The New Republic, of which much has been said, Cynthia Ozick (whose wit is legendary), takes the cake:

The Siliconian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in wireless gold,
Crying Media Company Vertically Integrated!
As all before them they willfully extirpated:
The Back of the Book and the Front and the Middle,
Until all that was left was digital piddle,
And Thought and Word lay dead and cold.

The Ten Least Successful Christmas Specials of All Time

Has it really been exactly six years since I last shared this, one of the greatest holiday creations of All Internet History? Apparently so! Well, fine, here it is again, an oldie-but-goodie from John Scalzi, who wrote it ages ago (like a whole decade ago, or even earlier). In times past I saw it regularly on the internets (that itself is an old in-joke, everyone, remember?), but it's been a while, and something this good shouldn't stay buried forever. Enjoy.


An Algonquin Round Table Christmas (1927)
Alexander Woolcott, Franklin Pierce Adams, George Kaufman, Robert Benchley and Dorothy Parker were the stars of this 1927 NBC Red radio network special, one of the earliest Christmas specials ever performed. Unfortunately the principals, lured to the table for an unusual evening gathering by the promise of free drinks and pirogies, appeared unaware they were live and on the air, avoiding witty seasonal banter to concentrate on trashing absent Round Tabler Edna Ferber’s latest novel, Mother Knows Best, and complaining, in progressively drunken fashion, about their lack of sex lives. Seasonal material of a sort finally appears in the 23rd minute when Dorothy Parker, already on her fifth drink, can be heard to remark, “one more of these and I’ll be sliding down Santa’s chimney.” The feed was cut shortly thereafter. NBC Red’s 1928 holiday special “Christmas with the Fitzgeralds” was similarly unsuccessful.

The Mercury Theater of the Air Presents the Assassination of Saint Nicholas (1939)
Listeners of radio’s Columbia Broadcasting System who tuned in to hear a Christmas Eve rendition of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol were shocked when they heard what appeared to be a newscast from the north pole, reporting that Santa’s Workshop had been overrun in a blitzkrieg by Finnish proxies of the Nazi German government. The newscast, a hoax created by 20-something wunderkind Orson Wells as a seasonal allegory about the spread of fascism in Europe, was so successful that few listeners stayed to listen until the end, when St. Nick emerged from the smoking ruins of his workshop to deliver a rousing call to action against the authoritarian tide and to urge peace on Earth, good will toward men, and expound on the joys of a hot cup of Mercury Theater of Air’s sponsor Campbell’s soup. Instead, tens of thousands of New York City children mobbed the Macy’s Department Store on 34th, long presumed to be Santa’s New York embassy, and sang Christmas carols in wee, sobbing tones. Only a midnight appearance of New York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in full Santa getup quelled the agitated tykes. Welles, now a hunted man on the Eastern seaboard, decamped for Hollywood shortly thereafter.

Ayn Rand’s A Selfish Christmas (1951)
In this hour-long radio drama, Santa struggles with the increasing demands of providing gifts for millions of spoiled, ungrateful brats across the world, until a single elf, in the engineering department of his workshop, convinces Santa to go on strike. The special ends with the entropic collapse of the civilization of takers and the spectacle of children trudging across the bitterly cold, dark tundra to offer Santa cash for his services, acknowledging at last that his genius makes the gifts--and therefore Christmas--possible. Prior to broadcast, Mutual Broadcast System executives raised objections to the radio play, noting that 56 minutes of the hour-long broadcast went to a philosophical manifesto by the elf and of the four remaining minutes, three went to a love scene between Santa and the cold, practical Mrs. Claus that was rendered into radio through the use of grunts and the shattering of several dozen whiskey tumblers. In later letters, Rand sneeringly described these executives as “anti-life.”

The Lost Star Trek Christmas Episode: “A Most Illogical Holiday” (1968)
Mr. Spock, with his pointy ears, is hailed as a messiah on a wintry world where elves toil for a mysterious master, revealed to be Santa just prior to the first commercial break. Santa, enraged, kills Ensign Jones and attacks the Enterprise in his sleigh. As Scotty works to keep the power flowing to the shields, Kirk and Bones infiltrate Santa’s headquarters. With the help of the comely and lonely Mrs. Claus, Kirk is led to the heart of the workshop, where he learns the truth: Santa is himself a pawn to a master computer, whose initial program is based on an ancient book of children’s Christmas tales. Kirk engages the master computer in a battle of wits, demanding the computer explain how it is physically possible for Santa to deliver gifts to all the children in the universe in a single night. The master computer, confronted with this computational anomaly, self-destructs; Santa, freed from mental enslavement, releases the elves and begins a new, democratic society. Back on the ship, Bones and Spock bicker about the meaning of Christmas, an argument which ends when Scotty appears on the bridge with egg nog made with Romulan Ale.

Filmed during the series’ run, this episode was never shown on network television and was offered in syndication only once, in 1975. Star Trek fans hint the episode was later personally destroyed by Gene Roddenberry. Rumor suggests Harlan Ellison may have written the original script; asked about the episode at 1978’s IgunaCon II science fiction convention, however, Ellison described the episode as “a quiescently glistening cherem of pus.”

Bob & Carol & Ted & Santa (1973)
This ABC Christmas special featured Santa as a happy-go-lucky swinger who comically wades into the marital bed of two neurotic 70s couples, and also the music of the Carpenters. It was screened for television critics but shelved by the network when the critics, assembled at ABC’s New York offices, rose as one to strangle the producers at the post-viewing interview. Joel Siegel would later write, “When Santa did his striptease for Carol while Karen Carpenter sang ‘Top of the World’ and peered through an open window, we all looked at each other and knew that we television critics, of all people, had been called upon to defend Western Civilization. We dared not fail.”

A Muppet Christmas with Zbigniew Brzezinski (1978)
A year before their rather more successful Christmas pairing with John Denver, the Muppets joined Carter Administration National Security Advisor Brezezinski for an evening of fun, song, and anticommunist rhetoric. While those who remember the show recall the pairing of Brzezinki and Miss Piggy for a duet of “Winter Wonderland” as winsomely enchanting, the scenes where the NSA head explains the true meaning of Christmas to an assemblage of Muppets dressed as Afghan mujahideen was incongruous and disturbing even then. Washington rumor, unsupported by any Carter administration member, suggests that President Carter had this Christmas special on a repeating loop while he drafted his infamous “Malaise” speech.

The Village People in Can’t Stop the Christmas Music--On Ice! (1980)
Undeterred by the miserable flop of the movie Can’t Stop the Music!, last place television network NBC aired this special, in which music group the Village People mobilize to save Christmas after Santa Claus (Paul Lynde) experiences a hernia. Thus follows several musical sequences--on ice!--where the Village People move Santa’s Workshop to Christopher Street, enlist their friends to become elves with an adapted version of their hit “In The Navy,” and draft film co-star Bruce Jenner to become the new Santa in a sequence which involves stripping the 1976 gold medal decathlon winner to his shorts, shaving and oiling his chest, and outfitting him in fur-trimmed red briefs and crimson leathers to a disco version of “Come O Ye Faithful.” Peggy Fleming, Shields and Yarnell, and Lorna Luft co-star.

Interestingly, there is no reliable data regarding the ratings for this show, as the Nielsen diaries for this week were accidentally consumed by fire. Show producers estimate that one in ten Americans tuned in to at least part of the show, but more conservative estimates place the audience at no more than two or three percent, tops.

A Canadian Christmas with David Cronenberg (1986)
Faced with Canadian content requirements but no new programming, the Canadian Broadcasting Company turned to Canadian director David Cronenberg, hot off his success with Scanners and The Fly, to fill the seasonal gap. In this 90-minute event, Santa (Michael Ironside) makes an emergency landing in the Northwest Territories, where he is exposed to a previously unknown virus after being attacked by a violent moose. The virus causes Santa to develop both a large, tooth-bearing orifice in his belly and a lustful hunger for human flesh, which he sates by graphically devouring Canadian celebrities Bryan Adams, Dan Ackroyd, and Gordie Howe on national television. Music by Neil Young.

Noam Chomsky: Deconstructing Christmas (1998)
This PBS/WGBH special featured linguist and social commentator Chomsky sitting at a desk, explaining how the development of the commercial Christmas season directly relates to the loss of individual freedoms in the United States and the subjugation of indigenous people in southeast Asia. Despite a rave review by Z magazine, musical guest Zach de la Rocha, and the concession by Chomsky to wear a seasonal hat for a younger demographic appeal, this is known to be the least requested Christmas special ever made.

Christmas with the Nuge (2002)
Spurred by the success of The Osbournes on sister network MTV, cable network VH1 contracted zany hard rocker Ted Nugent to help create a “reality” Christmas special. Nugent responded with a special that features the Motor City Madman bowhunting, and then making jerky from, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree, all specially flown in to Nugent’s Michigan compound for the occasion. In the second half of the hour-long special, Nugent heckles vegetarian Night Ranger/Damn Yankees bassist Jack Blades into consuming three strips of dove jerky. Fearing the inevitable PETA protest, and boycotts from Moby and Pam Anderson, VH1 never aired the special, which is available solely by special order at the Nuge Store on TedNugent.com.

I swear, something like ten years on, that line about "the shattering of several dozen whiskey tumblers" still cracks me up.

Jimmy Durante, New Deal Economist

Via Erik Loomis on Lawyers, Guns & Money, who is always (re)discovering new and wonderful evidences of the way a very different (and, from my point of view, in many ways entirely better) sort of politics once co-existed with popular culture. (Here's another great one, if the foregoing wasn't enough.)

WHERE THE HECK WAS THE CAMERA?!?!

OK Go has taken the music video to another whole level more than a few times in their career, but this...this is a quantum leap like nothing I've seen before. What with the occasional speed-up and slow-down of the video I there has to have been some animating and editing in there somewhere, but still...wow.

The Cone of Shame Just Took On an Entirely New Meaning

(Via Accordion Guy, taken from this collection of rejected New Yorker cartoons.)

"I Just Started the Paleo Diet Yesterday, and I’m Wondering If There’s a Way to Make This Without The Ingredients.”

Via Samuel Brown, via The Toast, comes "All The Comments on Every Recipe Blog." Enjoy.

“I didn’t have any eggs, so I replaced them with a banana-chia-flaxseed pulse. It turned out terrible; this recipe is terrible.”

“I don’t have any of these ingredients at home. Could you rewrite this based on the food I do have in my house? I’m not going to tell you what food I have. You have to guess.”

“I don’t eat white flour, so I tried making it with raw almonds that I’d activated by chewing them with my mouth open to receive direct sunlight, and it turned out terrible. This recipe is terrible.”

“Could you please give the metric weight measurements, and sometime in the next twenty minutes; I’m making this for a dinner party and my guests are already here.”

“i dont have an oven, can i still make this? please reply immediately”

“Does anyone know if you can make this ahead of time and freeze it?”

“Have you thought about making a sugar-free version of this?”

“Can you give us a calorie breakdown for this?”

“I followed this to the letter, except I substituted walnuts and tofu for the skirt steak, ditched the cheese entirely, and replaced the starch with a turnip salad. Turned out great. My seven-year-old boys have never seen a dessert and I’ve convinced them that walnut-and-turnip salad is 'cake.' Thanks for the recipe!”

“I’m having a lot of trouble signing up for your newsletter. Can you please assist?”

“a warning that if you cook this at 275°F for three hours instead of at 400°F for twenty-five minutes its completely ruined. do you have any suggestions?”

“I didn’t have buttermilk, so I just poured baking soda into a container of raspberry yogurt. It tasted terrible.”

“I love this recipe! I added garlic powder, Italian seasoning, a few flakes of nutritional yeast, half a bottle of kombucha, za’atar, dried onion, and biscuit mix to mine. Great idea!”

“Due to dietary restrictions, I am only able to eat Yatzhee dice. I made the necessary substitutions, and it turned out great.”

“If you use olive oil for any recipe that’s cooked over 450°F, the oil will denature and you will get cancer. This post is irresponsible. You should only use grapeseed oil you’ve pressed yourself in a very cold room.”

“[600-word description of what they ate today] so this will make a great addition!”

“I just started Paleo yesterday, and I’m wondering if there’s a way to make this without the ingredients.”

“I was all out of cake flour, so I transfigured my hands into puffer fish, which worked pretty well.”

“Have you considered making a version of this margherita pizza for your readers who are trying to avoid gluten, dairy and nightshades? What if I shoved a roll of basil leaves in my mouth, do you think that would taste good?”

“this was a very good post for your recipe you made, i made a similar recipe over at my blog last month, please consider linking back.”

“I’m actually a supertaster, so I can’t eat anything that isn’t licking the salt off the top of saltines; will this recipe work for me?”

“heal your body through food”

“If you don’t soak the seeds for at least fourteen hours before using, the phytic acid will give you cancer. Just thought you should know.”

"This Bald Chick; What's With Her Head?"

The news of the death of Jan Hooks, a delightfully funny woman whose tenure on Saturday Night Live and Primetime Glick gave me many a laugh, put me in mind of this skit, which I think has to be one of the SNL's best. It's obviously mostly a Phil Hartman routine, but Hook's slow burn as Sinead O'Connor is delightful. RIP.

No. #Seven is My Favorite

(Hat tip: Nick Zukin)

I'm Pretty Certain Week Two is Actually the Name of a Band

Stolen without apology from the Twitter feed of Kieran Healy, one of the greatest (and wisest) academic wits of the whole blogosphere. As he introduces it, "If my imaginary Soc 101 is not to your taste, consider taking Soc 710: Social Theory Through Complaining, instead."

Five Favorite Comedy Concerts

Last night, Melissa and I went back and (like probably many thousands of people) watched again Robin Williams's classic comedy concert, "A Night at the Met" (watch parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 right here). It just cracked us up, as well as making us nostalgic--Melissa hadn't remembered where the London cop joke ("Stop! Or I'll say 'stop' again!") had come from, and I was delighted to be reminded of the similarity between Caspar Weinberger and Bela Lugosi. Everyone admits--as I said in my post yesterday--that Williams at his best had something on stage, doing stand-up comedy, that was only rarely realized through all his other acting roles. I think that's true of many other performers as well--whether they succeeded or not in finding a way to turn their comedy into something that worked in other media (as an actor, a talking head, or whatever), their live, on-stage shows are where their brilliance is most easily viewed.

So, with that, because everyone loves lists, five comedy concerts that I truly love. (This was a hard choice, actually. Besides "Night at the Met," there's so much good stuff from Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor, Steven Wright, and many more. On a different day, I might choose other concerts. But for today, I'll stand by these.)

Steve Martin, "Live at the Universal Amphitheater" (1979): Only available on a rare video put out in 1984--or, fortunately, on YouTube. Martin's full, mature, final stand-up set, before he gave up live comedy entirely. (Watch both parts, and forgive the occasional lapses in transfer quality.)





Bill Cosby, "Himself" (1983): Stop lying to yourself. You had this album, or your parents did (probably on tape cassette), and you listened to it in the car, and it made you laugh like crazy. The bits about talking to the toilet bowl still do, today.



Eddie Izzard, "Dressed to Kill" (1998): I show the bit about the Church of England in my classes occasionally. It works.



Robin Williams, "Live on Broadway" (2002): I actually think this show, his big return to stand-up after having taken a break from it some 15 years earlier, is even better than "A Night at the Met." He seemed more in control of his demons, more able to use his desperation, somehow. And besides, it has the bit on golf, which ought to go down somewhere as one of the funniest five minutes in all human history.



Ellen DeGeneres, "Here and Now" (2003): Ellen DeGeneres isn't everyone's cup of tea--not dangerous enough, too bourgeois!--but I remember watching this show with Melissa, and we marveled at just how smart it was. Everyone on this list was, in their day, capable of writing really smart jokes, but here her entire set of Seinfeld-ish observational comedy is revealed at the end as a set-up for a final punch line, and that's just brilliant.