PBS Kids was influential

crackmaster

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 19, 2012
Messages
249
Reaction score
47
I suspect that because I grew up on PBS Kids, I'm really smart (even though I'm not good at most video games.) Sure, I also grew up on some Nick Jr. and regular Nick, but it was PBS that influenced me the most (just look at my cast for Mobius Redrawn. The only talent that DOESN'T come from voice actors my age are Sesame Street voice actors.) So today I'm gonna go over the shows I remember from PBS and how they influenced me.

Warning that some of these might be marked as "made for kids" by COPPA, so you can't comment. I know. It sucks.

Starting out with Sesame Street...
My absolute favorite show on this list. I've been watching it since childhood and so has my mom and autistic brother. I mainly love the cartoons, and have been loving them since I was 7 and obsessed with "Felines" and Cecille. Then when I was 12, I first saw Ken Brown and Lisa Crafts' "AT," and that was when I realized I loved the cartoons. I've got Dorothy Moskowitz and Scott Getchell in my cast for Mobius Redrawn, and when I get money, I intend to get some of the Muppeteers and humans to provide voice work for the series as well. Thank you, Sesame Street, you've served me well.

Next is a show I didn't care for much when I watched it, but now love too...
My second favorite show on this list. Many people from Sesame Street worked on this show too, even though it's not made by Sesame Workshop and rather Sirius Thinking and WGBH. I suspect this show is the reason I'm such a good speller nowadays. And believe me when I said I always wanted to go to the library when I was like 10. My favorite sketches from this show are the Sam Spud sketches, and Espio the Chameleon from Mobius Redrawn owes a lot to him. Also? The "Pecos Bill" song reminds me of the "Rocko, the Wallaby of the West" song from Rocko's Modern Life. Wonder if it were intentional or not...

Here's a show I NEVER cared for in my youth, but indirectly inspired me...
My autistic brother LOVES/D this show, but I never did. When I was 7, I used to watch "Barney's On Fire" on YouTube and laugh for hours on end. Then, when I was 12, I discovered a game called BarneySplat!, in which you sabotaged the show. I eventually met the creator of that game, Austin Seraphin, and he introduced me to a site called Bananavision, which is audio TV for blind people. I help out on that site now, getting stuff for Bec off MySpleen and even recording my own bumpers. So because of my hatred of Barney, I now help out with audio TV. Another thing... I might get the actress who played Baby Bop to voice a character in Mobius Redrawn. Riff became Amethyst, so why not?

Here's a show I wasn't around for when it was on PBS, but I had a VHS tape of...
I initially didn't like this show, but around 11 or 12 I began to like it. Now I don't like it anymore, but I'm not going to say the reason why (I tried posting about it before, but it got deleted.) Maybe I could talk about it in PMs, but I'm not going to take that risk. Anyway, this show didn't really have much influence on me. The only American voice actor on here was Lily Tomlin, the rest were all Canadian. My autistic brother loved this show, by the way.

Back on topic with shows I like, there's...
When you think about it, most stuff I liked when I was a kid had anthropomorphic animals. Sonic, Garfield, Arthur, heck even SpongeBob. I loved this show and quoted many of the moments. ("GO TO THE TITLE CARD!") My favorite character was D.W. and I always wanted to watch an episode of Mary Moo Cow. This show is as old as my autistic brother and my best friend, and they too loved this show.

Here's a show many hated, but I actually somewhat liked...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZCgbGgA-_8
Yes, those multicolor British freaks. I never thought much of them when I was little, but when I was 7/8, I used to laugh for hours at them, watching classic videos like "Teletubby Tumbles," "Laa-Laa Soon Follows," and even watched a WW2 parody of them aired on a Danish satire program. I also had this program put out by the Teletubbies company themselves called "Desktop Tubbies," where the Teletubbies would appear on your desktop. Simpler times.

Here's one I remember watching, but never thought much of...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWwIyKOCrd8
Nothing really to say about this one, but I watched it. I'm sure you guys have better memories of it then I do.

Here's one I loved when I was 7...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToWuQSpROw0
I actually never saw any episodes of it, but I would read up on it all the time. My mom also watched this show, because she showed my middle brother an episode once. In recent years, history was made when Neil Cicierega used the theme song in his track "Best" off his Mouth Silence album.

Here's one I watched some of, but never really cared for...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wfQ2KnCMJY
My brother and mom watched way more of this than I did. In recent years, I thought this series of being ReBoot with math, down to expies of Megabyte, Hack, and Slash. My best friend liked this show when she was on her computer virus kick brought on by Swayzak from Toonami in late 2002, but she realized it teached math (something she wasn't good at.)

This one I LOVED too...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQY2zzDO8eQ
I never really watched much of the show, but I would go on the website all the time and listen to the audio podcasts ("Naptime for Drowsy Buddy Boo, no... Make a Wish, Sleepy Fish? You went to the baby section, not the boogie section!") and play that one voicemail game all the time. My favorite character was Charlene, the poodle next door, even though we never saw her speak. One episode I remember seeing was when they went to Disney World and rode Expedition Everest. Also, I loved Blossom Van Yum Yum.

I adored this one as well...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKMP_VBcSgU
I would go on the website and watch the clips all the time. My favorites were one from "Angelina's Sleepover" where they were singing a song about "dancing in the moonlight," and the "Friendship is Forever" song. My mom actually taped "Angelina's Sleepover" for me once because she knew I liked the song. I got the Angelina books and an Angelina doll because of this show, which have since been lost to time.

I remember this show, but I never saw a lot of it, but my friend remembers it well, so she asked me to put it here...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlq9Fg_pvVI
I remember this edited Noddy book cover I saw on the Net called "The Magic Powder" (bet you can guess what the titular powder was replaced with) and now whenever I think of this show, I think of the ending to the Jam short "Shrunken Car," which I am not going to post here because it contains language. But it also contains the best trip-hop group of all time, so...

Here's one I remember watching as a kid...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qXWka71tKQ
Yes, the Canadian puppet show everyone says ripped off Henson. I didn't care for it, but my family liked it. The one episode I can remember is the one where they all tried on monster masks, and one of the characters says this: "I have a monster under my bed. He gives me ice cream." LOL!

This is one I didn't think of much back then, and don't think of much now...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJwS1mfj6j4
I used to watch this in reruns on WLIW 21. This wasn't an official PBS show, it was just distributed by American Public Television. The one thing I give it credit for is that Alyson Court (who played Loonette) voiced Jubilee on the X-Men and translated Mega Man X5 (her husband was a Guns 'n Roses fan, that's why she gave the Mavericks all the Guns 'n Roses names.) And I love the "Picky Eaters" song.

Here's one I only remember vaguely from my early childhood, but played a part in my later childhood...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZSM_6c8Auk
One day, my science teacher was out and I find a classmate of mine watching this on an iPad. He says it's "Talking asteroids, talking planets, talking hilarios!" We ended up watching it for the entire period, and when my teacher came back, she said we gave ourselves a 20 minute science lesson about planets. Me and that classmate would watch it for the next few weeks, but we ended up forgetting about it. Fast forward to last year, I have a delayed opening from school, and WNYC is the only channel that's working. After a show with Tim and Eric levels of acting, guess what comes on next? The Zula Patrol! The theme song (which the videos me and my classmate watched cut out) became stuck in my head the entire ride to school, and I would frequently use it when crushing on Joivan Wade from Doom Patrol (yeah, don't judge me, I had horrible tastes in men then.) Right now, I think this show is eerily similar to The Last Flight of the Champion (see the thread "The Worst CGI Kids' Films in Recent Memory") and my best friend also remembers it and often made fun of it because the Toonami CGI was lightyears better than what they were using.

Another one from my childhood I didn't think of fondly until now...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKD_LQlXQTE
Yes, the reboot of the 1971 show without Spider-Man. My middle brother used to watch this show, but the one thing that I remember it for is the Jack Bowser sketches. When I was 7, the dog creeped me out. But now, as a Metal Gear Solid fan, I find it hilarious that it's a spoof of Jack Bauer, who was played by Kiefer Sutherland, which is why I refer to Jack Bowser as "Kiefer Sutherhound." And his voice (Tyler Bunsch provided it) is strangely hot, in a Scott Getchell sort of situation. One YouTube commenter thinks it sounds like Shadow the Hedgehog. I agree. That's why I'm gonna hire Bunsch to voice Shadow's dad in Mobius Redrawn using his Jack Bowser voice.

Here's one I loved as a teenager...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unW4GOJw4ro
I saw some of this as a kid, and the one thing I remember from it was that they sang a Spice Girls song. When I was 13, I looked that part up and became obsessed with it, memorizing the kids' dance and performing it every time I heard the song. Not only did I get into the Spice Girls, I got into the first season of ZOOM and tried the ZOOM Alongs, recipes, and games many times. I never got into any of the other seasons, even if the second season had Zoe and Alisa. The first season was the best. To this day, I still wonder why they were dancing to the Spice Girls. I think it was part of a dance contest in between tapings. That's what I read Zoe liked to do on the ZOOM website. I wonder what other songs they danced to?

That's all the PBS shows I remember. Feel free to share memories of what shows you watched as a kid in the replies.
 
Last edited:

Any Del

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 30, 2016
Messages
2,625
Reaction score
1,872
1998. I grew up with that. Nowadays I think it's just annoying, and the 2017 version doesn't help.
Would you prefer the 2016 re edits over the new one any day or no? I agree I could care less about the 2017 version.
 

CoolGuy1013

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 20, 2019
Messages
1,013
Reaction score
527
I don’t honestly know. If you’ve read my reviews, you’d know my thoughts on the 2016 re-edits. However, I’ve yet to review an episode with the new EW. And when I do, it probably won’t be pretty…
 

crackmaster

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 19, 2012
Messages
249
Reaction score
47
I've been downloading PBS Kids/PTV Park stuff because it was my childhood. And because Mobius Redrawn was inspired by PBS AND Cartoon Network, I'm going to make fanmade bumpers for it showing what if it was on those channels.
 

fuzzygobo

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 11, 2004
Messages
4,880
Reaction score
5,069
It’s funny how some things never changed. Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, Electric Company and Zoom (their original 70s versions, not the millennial remakes) all that was my childhood. There wasn’t much happening on any other station.
Fuzzy History 101. Back in the 70s, before cable, New York City only had SEVEN channels. That was it.
CBS, NBC, ABC, WOR (news, sports, and old movies).
WNEW (decades later became Fox)
WPIX (in the 90s became WB11).

The last two only showed old HB cartoons like Yogi Bear and The Flintstones.
There was no Cartoon Network, no Nickelodeon, no Disney plus. So PBS was pretty much it. And it was plenty.
 
Top