Name That Trauma :: Reader Bigwig on the Face in the Cauliflower

Aunt and Unc;

This is why this site continues to amaze me; in that, not only have I seen the common traumas that we seem to have all shared, but now and again, I see the "obscure; this could only be something I would remember" type. It's uncanny, actually.

I never knew the name of the song, Angie Baby. What I remembered was a cartoon video to a song, but it contradicted itself in that music videos didn't come out for at least another 15 years. It was very repetitive, and about a girl who turned down a radio and shrunk some guy, who was never seen again.

And lo and behold, there it is. I knew it from the first five seconds, honestly.

My traumas, and I've written quite a few now, were never the blood and gore related ones, since I don't think we ever gravitated towards that kind of fare. They were always the "uneasiness from within a familiar niche" type, much like this innocuous cartoon, that, even though bound by nature to its friendly kid fodder media, churned out something unsettling.

Nowadays, I would think all bets are off, as far more gruesome and shocking cartoons can be seen any given day.

But since now the gauntlet has been dropped, I'm going to throw out my last challenge if you care to dredge this one up, or see if any others know what I'm talking about. It's probably the silliest one yet, but it's old, and hard to find. And if this one gets a hit, and someone can verify it, I will regard this as the Mecca of all sites, and retire from my submissions thoroughly satisfied, and eternally grateful.

This comes from the TONY ORLANDO AND DAWN days…and is from a variety show of the early ‘70s, probably somewhat musical, and probably comedy. My first choice is the SMOTHERS BROTHERS, although it may be LAUGH-IN or one of those. It was on at night.

There is a skit where someone is singing a ditty about some guy, who at least for part of the song, is in a grocery store. Maybe the guy is henpecked, or feels guilty of something…it was more for adults I would wager. You don't see the singer, just the guy acting out the song. There is a laugh-track, or a studio audience somehow present.

Anyway, he's shopping for groceries, thinking about whatever the song is about, and the singer delivers the line (paraphrased) until he saw his mother's face in the cauliflower…

The camera zooms in a head of cauliflower, and they (in ‘70s style) superimpose two eyes and a set of lips, which sings the rest of the song in a nagging awful voice. The super-imposing isn't good, and wobbles around, and the eyes and lips kind of move around as it sings. I don't think the eyes and mouth were from the same super-imposing…since they didn't line up to each other, making it even worse.

It looked hideous. I'm guessing 1970 on this one. I was no older than 4 or 5.

Bigwig

UNK SEZ: BIgwig, I may be wrong but something tells me that this trauma may be lost in the sands of time forever; but think of it this way, if you were watching a seventies variety program and the most traumatic thing you saw was a talking cabbage, then you my friend got off easy…