Didja ever wonder ...

Tonight, the girls and I ate dinner at the local IHOP - and I may have found the greatest ever meal for a lasting sugar high ... Formerly, when I needed to get much work done, it was a pecan waffle from Waffle House. But tonight, we are definitely enjoying a sugar buzz from a mound of stuffed French Toast, silver dollar pancakes and the banana caramel French Toast. Tres Yummy (said with a very Southern French accent).

Anyway, during dinner, we began talking about the shows that we used to watch that aren't around anymore. My friends, I confess, I have sat through many a Nickelodeon hour mesmerized by the pretty colors and movement on the screen. One of my favorite shows, which is no longer on, is "AAAHH! Real Monsters". Weird for those of you who have never seen it, but these monsters went to school to learn how to be gross and scare people - and as I remember, they entered "our" world through the toilet or something like that. My favorite character was Krumm - who apparently smelled, had hairy armpits and carried his eyeballs in his hands. How bizarro that I would find him appealing ...

Sitting there, and being very much a child of the '70's, I said one of those glib, "reckon what kind of drugs the creators were doing to come up with that group of monsters?" Come on folks. You can't tell me that a market study of demographics or a lot of psychological scientific research went into the creation of these types of shows. Rugrats, maybe. Spongebob Squarepants, maaaybe. There must have been some serious bouncing off the walls to create these types of monsters! (probably after some French Toast with whipped cream on the top.)

To which my kids began reciting other weird shows which displayed a WAY outside the box creativity ... all of which I love ... like the Tellytubbies. When Robin was little, I would sit with her through Teletubbies every time it came on. Many mornings of cocoa krispies and Tellytubbies. What was up with those folks and how did they even GUESS that kids would like and relate to some creature named "Po"???

And for that matter - what about Sesame Street? Robin has always been wary of the Cookie Monster, even when we pointed out that he ate COOKIES, not little girls. She still doesn't like him much. But really, is Oscar the Grouch really just a caricature of somebody's uncle? And those aardvark pigs ... you know the ones that sing "manamana" ... click on this link and you'll be singing this song for and HATING me for DAYS: Manamana

So ... being on a tremendous sugar buzz at this time, I began wondering about the mothers of the creators of these weirdly wild critters. Do you think as kids the animators drew on the walls and had imaginary friends? Do you reckon that the creators pulled from their nightmares and "fluffed" up the monsters for a G rating? Do you think they did well in 10th grade French or 5th grade geography? Were any of them cheerleaders? Were they on the basketball team or in the chess club???? Did their mothers despair of ever being able to go about in polite society with their kids? Come on now, do you think their moms proudly called all her friends when their son/daughter wrote home to say that they were going to draw hairy armpit monsters or they landed the voice of Elmo??

Do you think their moms encouraged the doodling instead of the Algebra II? By the way, I DO know the mother of someone who ended up in animation (Barb) and I'm quite sure that at their house it was Doodling AND Albegra II ..

I'm hopeful that the creative outlets that I allow my kids will someday be fruitful and just thinking that perhaps the wild and wacky things that we see in our kids which may make us crazy will one day be their ticket to Hollywood ... through the toilet, no doubt!