Weird or just plain messed up kids shows you grew up watching

I was born in 1977 but I remember watching the Bugaloos, H.R. Pufnstuf, Land of the Lost and Sigmund the Sea Monster, I don't remember whatever this is though.

[quote]Okay, I'll admit that Sid & Marty Krofft produced some wacky TV shows but the Bugaloos takes the cake. I mean, a rock band that consists of four insects with British accents?

The Hodge Podge Lodge lady seemed like your crazy granola lesbian aunt.

The Smurfs.

H. R. Pufnstuf terrified me when i was a kid.

You haven't been terrified until you've seen a young Mario Cantone camp it up every week for three years in front of a group of tweens. Steampipe Alley, every Sunday morning on Channel 9 NY.

Captain Kangaroo and Sally Starr

R3 The Hodge Podge Lodge was trippy and hippy and so otherworldly (for me) I still think about it sometimes, as in "Was there ever such a place?"

Sony and Cher. I found that confusing.

Hey, there!

You Can't Do That on Television!

Romper Room. That seemed like not such a fun place to be for kids. Why televise it?

I was a kid in the 70s. We just took those Sid & Marty Krofft shows in stride. They were normal to us, just like animated shows about the Brady Bunch and the Jackson Five. They only look freakish in hindsight, now that we have a wider historical perspective.

Captain Kangaroo gave me nightmares.

Fat Albert probably wouldn't go over so well today.

It was a great time to be a kid - there was still a utopian sense of liberalism and it permeated children’s TV. All love, peace and liberalism. Then we grew up and got slapped with the reality of Reagan and the misery of conservatism - teaching us people really weren’t kind and good like we were told as kids,

R16 You poor thing.

Slim Goodbody at R1 creeped me out as a young boy. I just knew he was gay, but I didn’t even know what the hell that was.

Apparently he wasn’t gay though…just a flamboyant Jewish man.

Those Zoom kids seemed overly proud of their zip code.

Slim Goodbody did an assembly at my school in CT 1977. In his bodysuit, kinda creepy

The New Zoo Revue, the frog used to creep me out.

I always got Rochard Simmons and Slim Goodbody mixed up. I thought they were the same person

Remember Easy Reader? I'm not saying there was anything wrong with Easy Reader. I'm just saying he was quite a character.

No, I never heard of him.

Family Ties

Full House

Eight is Enough

The Fresh Prince of Belair

I confused Slim Goodbody with Richard Simmons too! I always hated Slim Goodbody. He was so smug.

[quote]The New Zoo Revue, the frog used to creep me out.

The hippo freaked me out, R21.

[quote]No, I never heard of him.

Yeah, me neither.

R15 For you.

Diver Dan

Being abducted by aliens would be traumatic enough, but imagine how awful it would be if the aliens in questionwere Jim Nabors and Ruth Buzzi!

Did they anally probe Alice Playten?

Cow and Chicken

Do you think the guy in the anatomy body suit was Jewish?

I thought Dark Shadows was a reality show. I began to experiment with black magic and cast some very effective spells. I got scared and stopped.

R31, thanks for the link. I used to watch that show when it was shown as Unidentified Flying Oddballs.

Didn't Captain Kangaroo get busted for a bunch of DUIs or something similar? I always preferred Mr. Green Jeans.

The Bugaloos, I didn’t really like or watch them, they made me deeply uncomfortable as did the Banana Spilts, I never could figure out what the hell they were all about!

[quote] [R31], thanks for the link. I used to watch that show when it was shown as Unidentified Flying Oddballs.

Are you thinking of the 1979 Disney movie Unidentified Flying Oddball? Because The Lost Saucer was only known as The Lost Saucer.

r20, he came to my school in upstate NY somewhere around 1982-1984. I remember it wasn't as easy to see his "bump" like it was on TV.

R37, I guess, but I could have sworn I heard an Unidentified Flying Oddballs theme song every Saturday. I've never seen that movie. Weird how my mind moved titles around.

I'd be willing to bet Superchick did the entire band. She gave off major whore vibes.

Are you thinking of The Oddball Couple? That was on the same season as The Lost Saucer, but it was a cartoon version of The Odd Couple starring a dog and cat.

The Oddball Couple

After School Specials were always a deliciously campy delight.

I loved The Krofft Supershow at r40. It didn't make a whole lot of sense (it was filmed at The Wonderful World of Sid & Marty Krofft in the lobby of the Peachtree Hotel in Atlanta, of all places--which has long since been dismantled), and I watched it because of my huge love of "Electra Woman and DynaGirl" (starring DL legend Deirdre Hall) and because I was hot for Michael Lembeck who played Captian Kool, and who then went on to play Julie's husband Max on "One Day at a Time" (where he was even hotter), and then eventually as a silver daddy directed many episodes of "Friends."

Like his father Harvey Lembeck, who played many a leather-jacketed comic villain in the "Beach Party" movies, Michael Lembeck had a thick Brooklyn accent, and it's hilarious to hear him narrate the upcoming segment of the show at r40: "Then, next, on 'Doctah Shrinkah"..... Shtay tyoooned!"

Unfortunately most of the other Krofft Supershow segments were very dull. "Doctor Shrinker" seemed to exploit the elderly former drug addict Jay Robinson (who played a memorably unhinged Caligula in "The Rube") and poor Billy Barty, and was neither marvelous nor funny nor exciting, while "The Wonder Bug" was incredibly boring.

ABC Afterschool Specials were so amazing. Here's Maureen McCormack having lost all her childhood charm as Marcia Brady, hilariously overacting in "When, Jenny, When?" as the high school tramp who gives it away for free.

Jimmy JJ Walker makes me want to bust my TV screen out. I wish he would stick some ' DYNOMITE' up his ugly ass.

Bozo the Clown. Thread closed.

Barney the Dinosaur used to make my daughter cringe, lolol. I bought her a Barney lunch box just to mess with her one time. She has never forgotten it either.

The Mighty Heroes

Diaper Man? Seriously? I thought Tornado Man was cool and for some reason Rope Man was really sexy. Maybe because he was a sailor

Reruns of Batman, because I had such a boner for Robin, & he was always tied up & writhing so seductively.

Same with Lost in Space, I always wanted the two hot male leads to lose the chicks & family in space so they could get it on together.

[quote]It was a great time to be a kid - there was still a utopian sense of liberalism and it permeated children’s TV. All love, peace and liberalism. Then we grew up and got slapped with the reality of Reagan and the misery of conservatism - teaching us people really weren’t kind and good like we were told as kids.

I'm not exactly sure when this is supposed to be, but we didn't all grow up in the same era. When I grew up there were the two Kennedy assassinations and MLK assassination, the Vietnam war on TV every night, Kent State, the Manson murders, race riots, Nixon/Watergate - I would have had to have been blind to think all people were kind and good.

The Banana Splits.

"I thought Dark Shadows was a reality show. I began to experiment with black magic and cast some very effective spells. I got scared and stopped."

Dark Shadows wasn't a kids show.

Have you ever seen Dark Shadows? No adult could stand it. It's worse than any Krofft show.

What was the show with the twin jewish ( girl & guy ). Something about adventures in space idk

Space 1999?

DON'T YOU TALK SHIT ABOUT CAPTAIN KANGAROO. Not in MY presence, buddy.

And then there was this dude…

Ren & Stimpy

Space: 1999 - Dragons Domain.

Seared into my brain at 7 years of age

On PBS I remember a show that starred a young Jason Bateman called Math Country, and another starring a creepy nerdy grasshopper puppet about writing, and he would repeat something that sounded like Palabra Jot throughout the episode, then there was the frog puppet who was always putting himself in dangerous situations where he got hurt, I think it was a kid's safety program but even as a kid it seemed mean and fucked up.

Space: 1999 - Mission of the Darians

This shat me up good and proper as a young’un!

Answering R1 the image is of Mike Lookinland in "Lidsville."

Fred & Fay

2 In The Seat part 3

The Bloodhound Gang on 3-2-1 Contact. Who hires kids to work as detectives?

R28 - yeah, I grew up with "The Electric Company" in the early '70s. Pure psychedelics!

I loved "Lidsville", too.

The 1970s were trippy - no doubt about it!

10,000 Darlenes

[quote]Answering [R1] the image is of Mike Lookinland in "Lidsville."

Thanks, R64. I looked it up and the Brady Kids were on an episode of Lidsville but it looks like Mark was played by Butch Patrick.

[quote] It was a great time to be a kid - there was still a utopian sense of liberalism and it permeated children’s TV. All love, peace and liberalism. Then we grew up and got slapped with the reality of Reagan and the misery of conservatism - teaching us people really weren’t kind and good like we were told as kids,

You're assuming we're all the same age as you, which isn't true.

Butch Patrick also played Eddie on "The Munsters."

Daphne's Cartoon Castle

The Hudson Brothers Show

Davey & Goliath

Lidsville

Run, Joe, Run!

Jack LaLanne (in all his half-unzipped, muscular jumpsuit glory, too) :D

REN AND STIMPY! Although I"m not sure if that really counts as a kids show.

No, r41. I'm thinking of Ruth and Jim in the live action show, but maybe the title of your suggestion got stuck in my head? I've never seen that cartoon series- was it any good?

Jonny Quest

[quote]DON'T YOU TALK SHIT ABOUT CAPTAIN KANGAROO. Not in MY presence, buddy.

Mr. Green Jeans? Bunny Rabbit? That you?

Gumby and Pokey…so fucked-up! Art Clokey, the guy who came up with them was a friend of my parents. The whole thing was conceived while he was tripping on acid, and it looked that way.

R72 Thank you

Davey and Goliath

[quote]Davey and Goliath

Also a product of Art Clokey. But this time he was tripping on Holy Water.

Pokey's last name is...Clokey?

Clutch Cargo

Betty Boop cartoons...

The Baby

"The [Cold War] Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends"

Little Marcy

Three's Company

The Brady Bunch

Mr. Roger's Neighborhood was excrutiatingly slow and creepy as hell.

I loved Slim Goodbody as a child. I would've given my spleen and one undescended testicle for that bodysuit to wear on Halloween. I liked this show, too. Partially because Jeff reminded me of Slim, and I used to think the opening was really cool. Malls, Muppets, funky clothes. What's not to like?

Vegetable Soup

I liked "The Great Space Coaster," which was kind of a Sid and Marty Krofft knock-off. Remember Gary Gnu and Goriddle Gorilla?

All of the Saturday morning cartoons! Was there even one that had friends beside Chip and Dale? Every other cartoon was about hurting or killing.

Elmer Fudd always trying to hunt wabbits

Wiley E Coyote and the Road Runner

Dastardly and Muttley

The Adventures of Penelope Pit Stop - Note: we had a restaurant around the corner from our house called The Pit Stop. It was decorated like a checkered flag. They made long oval hamburgers that were absolutely delicious! They had some kind of special sauce but it was nothing like McDonald's.

Top Cat

Beanie and Cecil

[quote]They had some kind of special sauce but it was nothing like McDonald's.

You don't want to know what was in either.

R98 Is that the kids show that these two will have have after they hit rock bottom?

The Kids from C. A. P. E. R.

I can still sing the theme song.

Beanie and Cecil was a kids cartoon series about a kid and his sea monster. I had the stuffed Cecil doll where you pulled a cord and it "spoke".

Your hotlink was DOA. How different was Cecil from Sigmund?

R101 I’ve written on this board many times about my deep love and first crush being Doomsday, so I wasn’t going to bring it up yet again to tire others out, but I’m glad you did.

I win.

Mulligan Stew, that weird show about a band of kids singing about nutrition.

R103 Video (not with original music):

Dolls...

I watched cartoons in the early '70s. Once I looked through all the TV series listed in the IMDB for those years. These are a few of the shows I watched back then (not all cartoons):

Courtship of Eddie’s Father

Sinbad, Jr.

Speed Racer

Tennessee Tuxedo

George of the Jungle

Wacky Races

The Banana Splits Adventure Hour

The Dudley-Do-Right Show

Dastardly and Muttley

Underdog

The Roman Holidays

New Zoo Revue

Inch High, Private Eye

Goober and the Ghost Chasers

Wally Gator

McKeever and the Colonel

Hong Kong Phooey

The Big Blue Marble

The Groovie Goolies

Anyone else remember some of these?

I remember wacky races because of Penelope Pitstop. As well as Banana Splits and Speed Racer. Another favorite. Where's that pack of aqua gum.

Na na the vegetable

Na na the vegetable

Na na the vegetable

Eat yourself a bowl of vegetable soup 🍜

The Hilarious House of Frightenstien!

"The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley" (featuring the voice of Martin Short) was a show that *should* have been more weird and messed up, and would have been better for it. I don't think the Saturday morning cartoons-style animation really worked.

It should have been like a weirder/more Canadian/more inexplicably perverse "Pee-Wee's Playhouse." I would have been a fan for life.

My siblings and I enjoyed hate-watching "Kids Incorporated" back in the day, featuring pre-Fergie Stacy Ferguson as an annoying child actress and "Toy Soldiers" one-hit wonder Martika (sometimes billed as Marta Marrero). It was so corny and lame, but innocent good fun.

In "Santa Clause Is Comin' to Town", Jessica's extremely large mammary glands made me uncomfortable as a child.

Billy Van and the HOUSE OF FRIGHTENSTIEN! I remember how trippy this was. Wasn't Wolfman Jack a part of it and the only song he played was Jumpin' Jack Flash? NUTS!

R115 Your discomfort was nothing compared to her lower back pain for life carrying around those bazumbaas.

Na na the vegetable

Na na the vegetable

Na na the vegetable

Eat yourself a bowl of vegetable soup 🍜

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