PBS Kids was influential

[mariolover]

I grew up on Sesame Street, Barney, The Magic School Bus, Zoom, Fetch! With Ruff Ruffman, Teletubbies, and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

 

[mariolover]

I forgot to mention, I also grew up on WordGirl and The Berenstain Bears.

 

[LittleJerry92]

I haven't seen the new version, but I never liked the old one, either.

To be honest, as a kid when it first premiered, I could tolerate it at first, but then it just got annoying and repetitive seeing it as the last segment put in just for the sake of filler.

 

[mariolover]

Does anyone else remember this one? It is so weird but I liked it when I was little for some reason:

(Not an official PBS Kids show. It was distributed to select PBS stations through American Public Television. Maybe it’s still running. I don’t know if their contract has expired yet or not.)

 

[mariolover]

Here is another one I grew up with:

And also this Zoboomafoo spin-off (and of course I also grew up with Zoboomafoo itself):

I definitely remember watching Wishbone as a little kid:

Also, I MIGHT have very vague memories of the show below, but I can’t confirm I even watched it. If I did, it was probably on one of my parents’ recorded tapes as I would be too young to remember watching it on PBS while it was still airing:

 

[mariolover]

I remember most of these too

 

[crackmaster]

I grew up on Sesame Street, Barney, The Magic School Bus, Zoom, Fetch! With Ruff Ruffman, Teletubbies, and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

Didn't the Magic School Bus air on a non-PBS station by then?

 

[Flaky Pudding]

What a coincidence. That’s pretty much a summary of my experience with BTL too.

My experience with BTL is somewhat similar. I used to like it as a kid, there were certain skits I enjoyed at least. But for the most part, the majority of the show kind of creeped me out back then. Arty Smartypants, Heath the Thesaurus, Sam Spud, Click the Mouse, The Announcer Bunny, The Vowelles, and even the lion puppets themselves were a bit scary to me at the time (especially the mother lion for some reason, the other ones weren't nearly as off putting). The only two things I really enjoyed on BTL were the cartoons and the monkeys. The two pigeons weren't all that bad either, I remember laughing at some of their skits from time to time as well.

It wasn't until my teenage years when I was going through my creepypasta phase where I encountered a lost episode creepypasta about Between the Lions. For some reason that story renewed my interest in the show and made me want to give it another chance. Once I pulled up an episode on YouTube, I just couldn't stop laughing. All the pop culture parodies and the generally absurdist, borderline Pythonesque tone of the show's humor is much more entertaining to me now then it was back then. When it comes to childhood shows that I love even more as an adult, Between The Lions and Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends are always the main two that come to mind.

 

[CoolGuy1013]

Wow. Guess I’m not the only one who loved the show more as they grew older. Never knew I had company.

 

[Flaky Pudding]

Wow. Guess I’m not the only one who loved the show more as they grew older. Never knew I had company.

I think it's because of a lot of the jokes on the show were geared more towards parents. I remember both my mom and dad absolutely loving the show, even more than I did when I was little. Now that I'm older I understand the humor a lot more and can appreciate it for the clever writing.

A perfect example of that is the Silent E sketch which I remember liking as a kid, but now as an adult I think the part where he says,

"You have the right to remain silent!" is so much funnier now that I get the wordplay there. Such a brilliant pun would have quite understandably flown right over my head back when I was in their target demographic.