It's been a while since I've contributed here, but I have a great traumafession to share.
When I was in junior high school, HBO frequently aired their "Video Jukebox" program. One of the videos they would sometimes show was "Demon Alcohol" by The Kinks.
That video scared me! I had never yet at that point tried alcohol, and I was afraid to, thanks to all of the after school specials and educational propaganda they fed us during our health class. Yet watching this video, with Demon Alcohol's sinister laughter scared me that I would somehow become an alcoholic.
The video scared me of what might become of me if I ever dared to drink. On an ironic note, the health teacher I had with the anti-alcohol scare tactics later worked in a liquor store after retiring from teaching. Also ironically, I might have to watch this video sometime while enjoying a Guinness (in moderation, of course)!
Cheers (and fears),
Dustin in Minnesota
This is an awesome traumafession Dustin! I have never seen this cartoon before but I get ya! Looking back it seems almost all the animation back then was creepy and vaguely psychedelic.
For example anything from the TV show "Vegetable Soup" is horrifying….
Thank you, Lancifer.
And yes, animation from the '70s certainly was creepy. It's almost as if anyone working on children's programming hated children!
Either that, or they knew someday we'd fondly think back as to how scared we were and then try to buy it on video.
They were either brilliant visionaries or demented sociopaths.
Nice…
I used to love sneaking a glimpse of 'Video Jukebox whenever I could as a kid… a few times a year they would have a free HBO weekend… this was a few years before we got MTV.
I also remember blowing my mind seeing the Greg Khin – Jeopardy video hehe
Also I remember the music video program Radio 1990 from USA network did a mini-special on Horror themed music videos… showing clips from Billie Idol – Dancing with Myself and a few others predating Thriller… would be great to hunt that down.
Unk,
I have often wondered who thought it was a good idea to make so much animation from my childhood bizarre and psychedelic. All I wanted was some normal "Fat Albert"-style cartoons but everywhere I turned there was instead some strange experimental format ("let's use garbage instead of paint!") and/or gibbering, freakish characters ("Kids won't be able to tell if we ship production to Albania!"). Hanna Barbera cartoons were schlock but I usually went with "The Herculoids" over whatever some MFA intern at PBS was serving up that week. And don't even get me started on the Sid and Marty Krofft school of children's entertainment ("Trust me, kids love nothing more than the psychedelic adventures of some monstrous hobos!").
I'm not sure that Dustin's video was intentionally aimed at kids, but if not, then who the heck was it for? No adult is going to waste time watching some poorly animated cartoon featuring a Kinks B-side.
Maybe it was aimed at kids as a deterrent. If it had been aimed at adults, they might have used R. Crumb as an animator to at least make things more interesting.
Copy that on the Kroffts. Creepy stuff, yet we ate it up. Literally, if you consider McDonald's, whose McDonaldland characters were obviously inspired by Pufnstuf.
Dustin,
I may have been alone in this, but I steered well clear of the Kroffts and their idea of "children's entertainment". When anything from PufNStuf through Lidsville to Land of the Lost came on, I flipped the channel. If I really wanted to watch some hairy trogs with 50-pack-a-day guttural voices I could just look out the window.
I honestly don't recall the McDonaldland stuff too much until I got older – we went to a regional burger chain called "Burger Chef" which featured a pre-"happy meal" kids setup called a "fun meal". It was like a clam-shell cardboard tray with illustrations and puzzles – I loved them.
It also reminds me of this nightmare….
Unk,
Wow – that one deserved a post of its own. Let's take a look at this example of "kid's entertainment". Seriously people – you have to see this:
0:01 – "Fine Arts Films" – ruh roh.
0:20 – throbbing penis – good start guys!
0:30 – hippie chick mutates into radio?
0:56 – Elton John – always scary.
1:41 – Peeping Tom murder sequence begins. Are we supposed to be rooting for Angie?
2:27 – Cannibalism.
2:38 – "Boy Disappears"! Who were they making this for????
2:46 – No remorse for cannibalistic murder…
Vegetable Soup! When I have friends over my partner has never met before, I sing this song until she literally has to hit me in the face to get me to stop: