the effect of 1980s-era animated features on the human hippocampus

I don’t actually study brain function, but if I did, I think it would be awfully interesting to focus on how memories are made and kept. Even with all of the scientific knowledge we have acquired over the last 100 years, memory is still somewhat of a mystery, and a fascinating one at that.

However, you, dear reader, might be more disturbed than fascinated if you knew exactly how often bits and pieces of cartoons I watched throughout the ‘80s, ‘90s & ‘00s pop into my brain. I mean, people get why you might occasionally spout off dialog from Seinfeld, Friends or Community, but do they feel the same about 101 Dalmatians [“You fools! You-you-you…you idiots!”], Lion King [“They call me Mr. Pig!”] or even, heaven help me, The Yum-Yums [“Avoid the sewer gator! Avoid the sewer rats!”]? I don’t think so. But hey, at least I entertain myself.

In any case, I’m wondering if anyone else out there will recognize the short, simple exchange I have with myself EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I walk out the door and realize it’s a nice, bright day:

Character 1: The sun is shining and the snow is gone!

Crowd: Yeah, the snow is gone!

Character 1: And it’s a beautiful day!

Crowd: A beautiful day! Beautiful, beautiful!

Any guesses?

If you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about,  scroll down aways and you can watch the clip from this well-beloved animated feature for yourself.

1

You can either click here to go directly to the relevant scene in another window, or play the video below but scroll ahead to 6 minutes, 53 seconds.

ANY CHARACTER HERE

That’s right, long before there were bronies there were little girls who watched The My Little Pony Movie with obsessive devotion. (Funny side note, a few months ago I looked the movie up on IMDB for some reason and was startled to realize how many stars were in it that I didn’t recognize at age 5. Danny DeVito earns my respect for being a great Grundle King.)

I can’t say I’m proud to be able to quote children’s programming that’s 25 years old, but I can always cross my fingers that this “skill” will come in handy on a game show someday. (Remember me if you get the chance to phone a friend!)

the fuzziest conversationalist

I’m going to go out on a limb here and declare Teddy Ruxpin the coolest toy of the 80′s.  Before the weirdness of Furbies or Robot Dogs, there existed this awesome talking alien bear on a quest.

In case you don’t remember him too clearly, here’s the Wikipedia description of dear old Ted:

Teddy Ruxpin is an animatronic talking bear which was created by Ken Forsse with later assistance by Larry Larsen and John Davies. He was first produced in 1985 by toy manufacturer Worlds of Wonder.^[2] Teddy would move his mouth and eyes as he read stories via a standard cassette tape deck built into his back.^[3] There was also a companion toy named Grubby which connected to Teddy via a cable; this allowed the two some (minimal) interaction. As well, there were several other non-animatronic companion toys and characters such as the bird-like Fobs, a hand puppet with a sock-like, extendable neck, the larger Wooly What’s-It hand puppet, 3 interchangeable Anything puppets, a Tweeg puppet, and an L.B. Bounder puppet. ^[4]

I don’t know if I ever had a working specimen of T. Ruxpin, but I did have one of his book and cassette stories about cloning. That bear was ahead of his time in all sorts of ways!

I love how the kid’s eyes pop open in this commercial when Teddy asks him a question. He doesn’t look all that “fine” to me, especially considering how he’s hanging out in the dark with two creepy old dudes and an animatronic bear, but I guess I shouldn’t quibble. It was the 80′s, after all, which I believe means that children’s programming was allowed to be moderately terrifying.

way out where the dandelions grow…

DVDs were obviously a brilliant innovation in comparison to VHS cassette tapes, but they do have one significant drawback in that they often don’t allow you to fast-forward past the opening commercials.  However, there will forever exist in my heart one commercial that should never be sped through: the Pizza Hut little league baseball spot from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie.  I haven’t seen TMNT on DVD or Blu-ray but I hope if my tape ever wears out that I can find one with this sweet and simple promo on it:

eureeka!

I used to have a Eureeka’s Castle lap tray.

Looking back, this seems a bit odd, since my parents have never had cable, and it was a Nickelodeon show. Yet, I remember watching it a few times when I was very small – at the babysitter’s, maybe? – and regretting that I couldn’t do the same all the time at home.  The puppets were just so cute!  And funny, too.  Watching the show opening again on YouTube just made me smile.

On an unrelated note, at some point I got a rabbit as a pet and my Eureeka tray became a bunny poop receptacle to make cleaning under the cage easier. Life is full of such odd twists and turns…

gak – there’s a reason it rhymes with yack

Nickelodeon’s Gak was the most pointless toy ever created.  At least with Play-Doh you could copy pictures from the funnies, or turn it into a bouncy ball.  The only thing Gak did that was even remotely worthwhile was to make funny noises.  But somehow we still thought it was fun to play with.  I suppose there will always be a place in the world for something that will make farting sounds and potentially horrify prissy grown-ups.