aprilstarchild (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
aprilstarchild) wrote2015-09-10 05:01 pm
aprilstarchild) wrote2015-09-10 05:01 pm
The most surreal experience of my entire life
--happened just a few months ago.
While talking with Seamus one night about what the cable channel Nickelodeon was like when we were kids, I suddenly realized that the intro to You Can't Do That on Television was an homage to Monty Python. Like, not even a subtle one, either.
I was alarmed at myself for just then figuring that out, and posted it to facebook, wherein me and a high school friend started reminiscing about really early Nickelodeon.
For years after it first went on the air (and my dad started stealing cable, because that was a thing you could do with a cable box and a knowledge of circuit boards), Nickelodeon's morning programming was a show called Pinwheel, which they showed up to five hours at a time. Pinwheel was a variety show with a mix of live-action and animation, much like Sesame Street, but unlike Sesame Street, most of it had little-to-no educational value.* Also unlike Sesame Street, the animated shorts were from all over the world.**
So my friend and I are chatting about Pinwheel and some of the bits we liked best and she mentions "bunny in a suitcase." Eh? I don't remember that. So I looked it up on youtube.
And thus followed the most surreal experience I've ever had.
It was the most intense deja-vu, except not from a dream. Because I had completely forgotten this existed, until I watched it, and then I remembered every second of it. I especially remembered the intro--the suitcase falling closed on him, him stretching, the telescope, the way he climbed one of the rooftop air vents--that one in particular because as a kid I didn't know what it was.
I even remember Pinwheel showing this one, specifically, with the rain and wind and the painting.
And yet I had not thought of it once in close to three decades.
Brains are weird. Memories are even weirder.
I watched almost all of them on youtube within a few days after that. I also went looking for a short animation that I do remember from Pinwheel about Room Noodles. I know I didn't make it up because my dad remembers it too. It was hand-animated (in pastels or colored pencils***) and was about huge noodles that floated in your room when it was dark and bumped into things, and were the sources of odd noises in your room at night. I must have looked for an hour, and all I could find was an ancient forum post god-knows-where of someone else who remembered Room Noodles and couldn't find it either. Harumph.
*My mother, years later: "I'm surprised that show didn't make you stupid."
**The Wikipedia entry for Pinwheel has a pretty comprehensive list. The Bunny in a Suitcase, aka A Kockásfülű nyúl (The Rabbit with Checkered Ears), was Hungarian.
***This one is totally different but is animated in a similar style, is from the Film Board of Canada, and is quite charming: The Sweater
While talking with Seamus one night about what the cable channel Nickelodeon was like when we were kids, I suddenly realized that the intro to You Can't Do That on Television was an homage to Monty Python. Like, not even a subtle one, either.
I was alarmed at myself for just then figuring that out, and posted it to facebook, wherein me and a high school friend started reminiscing about really early Nickelodeon.
For years after it first went on the air (and my dad started stealing cable, because that was a thing you could do with a cable box and a knowledge of circuit boards), Nickelodeon's morning programming was a show called Pinwheel, which they showed up to five hours at a time. Pinwheel was a variety show with a mix of live-action and animation, much like Sesame Street, but unlike Sesame Street, most of it had little-to-no educational value.* Also unlike Sesame Street, the animated shorts were from all over the world.**
So my friend and I are chatting about Pinwheel and some of the bits we liked best and she mentions "bunny in a suitcase." Eh? I don't remember that. So I looked it up on youtube.
And thus followed the most surreal experience I've ever had.
It was the most intense deja-vu, except not from a dream. Because I had completely forgotten this existed, until I watched it, and then I remembered every second of it. I especially remembered the intro--the suitcase falling closed on him, him stretching, the telescope, the way he climbed one of the rooftop air vents--that one in particular because as a kid I didn't know what it was.
I even remember Pinwheel showing this one, specifically, with the rain and wind and the painting.
And yet I had not thought of it once in close to three decades.
Brains are weird. Memories are even weirder.
I watched almost all of them on youtube within a few days after that. I also went looking for a short animation that I do remember from Pinwheel about Room Noodles. I know I didn't make it up because my dad remembers it too. It was hand-animated (in pastels or colored pencils***) and was about huge noodles that floated in your room when it was dark and bumped into things, and were the sources of odd noises in your room at night. I must have looked for an hour, and all I could find was an ancient forum post god-knows-where of someone else who remembered Room Noodles and couldn't find it either. Harumph.
*My mother, years later: "I'm surprised that show didn't make you stupid."
**The Wikipedia entry for Pinwheel has a pretty comprehensive list. The Bunny in a Suitcase, aka A Kockásfülű nyúl (The Rabbit with Checkered Ears), was Hungarian.
***This one is totally different but is animated in a similar style, is from the Film Board of Canada, and is quite charming: The Sweater