The Contests at Cowlick

There's something really special about books that manage to survive childhood. Children can't help but interact with the things they love. Unlike adults, they don't shelve precious items. They won't put them aside and store them - they will love them. Which is it's own form of abuse, especially when said object is a book.

I don't remember when I learned that I would eventually regret scribbling on my book-bound friends' faces or that favorite pages can't be torn out and cuddled, but learn that lesson I finally did. The Contests at Cowlick were spared my most primal form of loving, and now the book is braving another generation of children on our family's bookshelf. I admit, I have reservations about passing on my beloved childhood favorites to my own kids. But at the end of the day, I accept that new copies can (almost) always be found, if the old don't survive. And thank goodness for that, because I love reading The Contests at Cowlick to my kids as much, if not more, than I loved having it read to me.

The premise of the book is simple: a young boy saves his town from a band of vicious bandits through sheer courage and wit. Any story that pits a kid against bandits is bound to be popular. And this one throws in a bunch of fun dialogue, bad grammar, rude words and literal yelping and hollering. My son's eyes widened when he first heard me growl, "Shut up!" from the page, and he laughed out loud when I followed that up with a loud, "Waaaaaeeeeeeeeooooohhh!"

The Contests at Cowlick presents a classic good kid/bad guy story without a moralistic epilogue or complicated world view. It's just plain fun. And that gets a huge A++++ from me. I wasn't able to find many images of the book to post, but someone's grandma was nice enough to have a reading ready to go on YouTube. Awww.

Honeycomb Cereal

Perhaps the greatest testimony I can give to the awesomeness of Honeycomb cereal is this: I didn't add sugar to it. For a largely unsupervised child, that's the equivalent of a five-star Zagat rating. Honeycomb was just pure goodness. And it was huge: 1" in diameter. I'm not sure why that mattered. Maybe it was riding on the "bigger is better" mentality of the Cold War arms race. Whatever the reason, it worked for me. I'll admit that, at some point during my elementary school years, I fell prey to the cereals that were hawked by my favorite cartoon characters - Smurfberries, for one. And I even tried a box of Mary Lou Retton Wheaties (which was an utter disappointment). But nothing - no matter who endorsed it - ever gave me the satisfaction of plain, honest Honeycombs.

Honeycomb was such a favorite that it didn't even need to bribe me with A-list spokespeople or bottom-of-the-box prizes. Honeycomb got by on size and honey taste alone. The good kids/bad guy dynamic of cereal marketing is requisite, of course, but I give them full credit for developing the most awesome cereal rivalry of all time: nerd robots versus Viking bikers.


Honeycomb is still around, of course, unlike Smurfberries. Unfortunately, marketing has taken a huge dive. The cereal is now hawked by a crack-addled, miscreant freakazoid who can't find more worthy adversaries than uptight librarians or purse snatchers.


I find the new marketing of Honeycomb really disappointing. It used to be about size; now it's about vapid consumption. In that sense, however, Honeycomb commercials are like documentaries of American zeitgeist. We're always at war with someone or something, be it Soviets or drugs or poverty. Cereal commercials reflect these conflicts and encourage patriotism: Eat cereal! Fight rabbits! Of course, there's a huge, gaping hole in that logic. But my ideology doesn't question the awesomeness of robots or cereal, and I'm not going to open that door by too deeply unpacking cereal rivalries. Just take cereal commercials as a statement about American conflicts in general: they make no sense, they accomplish nothing, and they'll never stop. But this deals with the topic far better than I ever could.


I won't apologize for being a child of the Reagan era. It was awesome, after all. But that's quite a lot to dissect early in the morning... Oh! Look! Andre the Giant!

Strawberry Shortcake

I wish I knew what happened to my Strawberry Shortcake toys. While my SS love was short-lived, I have fond memories of a gaggle of big-headed dolls and a giant, wheeled strawberry for them to tool around in - all of which was scented in the most awful, plastic tainted, fake fruit scent imaginable.

I loved Strawberry Shortcake for one reason: she was a redhead. I'm a redhead, and I can attest to the annoyance of being flooded with blondes and brunettes in the doll department. Strawberry was, finally, a heroine who looked like me, albeit disproportional and faintly pink. Plus, she was named after a favorite dessert. Double win!

The love ended there, though. When it came to playtime, Strawberry was such an entity unto herself that she just didn't fit in. She was too short for the Barbie world and too big-headed for the dollhouse folk. Wherever she went she stood out like a sort thumb. And, being a proportion purist, I didn't accept her differences. The poor girl was trapped in her giant strawberry chariot with only Huckleberry Pie to keep her company (and he was no catch - the hat was a total deal breaker).

The modern manifestation of these characters is vastly different. Rather than running with the theme of quaint, county dessert people, today's Strawberry, Huckleberry, Angel Food and Orange Blossom are kind of... cool looking. But, thanks to a preschool aged niece, I've had the opportunity to watch the show, which is anything but cool. Instead, the franchise has gone the way of the Care Bears, delivering sappy, insipid moral messages mixed with horrible music and various excuses for baking. Oh, and a villain. Who's also a baker.

It seems like there's a lot of cool Strawberry Shortcake stuff to buy, though, which really is the point. I may always think wistfully of my giant, strawberry car, but at the end of the day I don't much miss Strawberry herself. I still like the dessert, though.

The Bugaloos

I can thank Sid and Marty Krofft for keeping me off drugs during my adolescence. Their work filled my head with strange and disturbing images at an impressionable age, and for many years I was unable to substantiate what I'd seen as fact or fiction. In high school, when friends offered me drugs, I had no problem saying, "Nooooo, thank you!" I didn't necessarily know what tripping felt like, but I had enough flashbacks in my head and I didn't want any more.

In college, I met a few kindred souls who were suffering from the same Sid and Marty Krofft psychosis. Just what had we seen? How much of it was real? We formed a small support group (aka, cluster of smokers) to discuss our experiences. In time a name emerged: The Bugaloos.

Or, as I should say in my Benita Bizarre voice, "The BUG-a-Loos!"



It was such a relief to learn that the flying people and bee thing and the scary person with feathers on her head were not just figments of my imagination. My unease hasn't exactly been quelled by a reintroduction to the show, however. The Krofft's have gone on record declaring that drugs never influenced their creations and yet... the only other explanation I can think of for The Bugaloos is that the Kroffts, during the show's creation, were restricted the bargain bin of a drag queen marquee's going out of business sale. How else can one explain a villian, covered in feathers, who keeps a Third Reich rat for a butler, drives a shoe that wears sunglasses and lives in a jukebox? Or heroes who live inside flowers and speak only in 1970's slang to plants from the Bronx?

The plot of the show hinges on Benita Bizarre's (the feathered villian) desire to become a rock n' roll sensation. This goal is often furthered by kidnapping some innocent and either strapping them into a horrible machine or using them to lure the Bugaloos into a trap. But if this show teaches us anything, it's that you can't outwit fairy people and good help is hard to find.




I could probably write for hours about The Bugaloos. It's a weird show with weird characters in weird settings and weird story lines. But the theme song is damn catchy, and I will always be grateful for the message that I derived even as a very young child: stay off drugs. Seriously.

Wonka Candy

Ever since I started riding my pink power puff bike to the Mr. Food to blow my allowance on sugar I've been opposed to Wonka candy. In theory, anyway; I still bought the stuff, knowing nothing of boycotts or the power of the dollar. Hell, for a dollar I could buy three entire boxes of Nerds - one in each flavor. Righteous, yes?

Here's my problem: no candy can live up to the name of Wonka. It can't be done. Not even with an alliance between NASA, Lindt, Lady Gaga and Cirque du Soleil will the snozberries ever really taste like snozberries.¹ It's overly ambitious merchandizing and it's getting worse. Today's boxes of Wonka candy bear the tagline "Food your imagination!" I'd be less annoyed by the verbing of 'food' if this stuff actually qualified as food. But it doesn't. It's brightly colored sugar nuggets.

It is, however, brightly colored sugar nuggets of joy. For all my objections to Wonka candy's marketing, I love the candy. So they can pretty much call it anything they'd like.

LIK-M-AID Fun Dip
Remember that scene in Ratatouille when the evil food critic, Ego, is rushed back to sweet scenes of childhood through one bite of veggie casserole? Fun Dip does that for me. As soon as I get my hands on a compartmentalized bag I'm back in my beloved Minnie Mouse swimsuit, at the pool, with my mom and all is right with the world.

Runts
I love Runts. They are the ultimate tool in the childhood arsenal of anti-dentists weaponry. And they're shaped like fruit! There's nothing that matches the gratification of eating a banana that is not only cavity-causing, it's literally tooth breaking. They're like little, Benedict Arnolds. Take that, dentists! We've got your apple right here.

Nerds
What I like best about Nerds is the implication that by eating them, we accept them, and are hence being better people. There's no bullying of these nerds. There's only love and mastication. Actually, the mastication isn't necessary - if you suck on them they will just melt. And now my nerd analogy is grossing me out a little. Ew.

Spree
Spree remind me of old, classic carnival rides - in a good way. They're sleek and shiny and fun. And they have gluttony right in the name, but in such a sneaky way that it's easily mistaken for a declaration of joy, such as "whee!" or "heeee!" or... okay, I'm already stretching that thin.

Laffy Taffy
I think what this taffy is laughing about is the popularity it enjoys among younger generations who increasingly eschew traditional salt water taffy. With their manageable size, decreased likelihood of taking up permanent residence in one's teeth, and brighter colors, Laffy Taffy is a huge improvement over its beach counterpart. Personally, I'm always amazed that I can eat the stuff in one sitting; a single stick of traditional taffy will still be on my to do list until next year's beach vacation.

Pixy Stix
If there is any candy giving parents everywhere the middle finger it's Pixy Stix. Not only are these uncut sugar in a tube, they're misspelled and impossible to reference in the singular. It's candy with a gang mentality. "We will f*** you up!" A+++





¹Upon checking urbandictionary.com to check my spelling of snozberry I learned that it is a euphemism for 'penis.' This is the second time today that 'penis' has factored into one of my posts. Damn it, this world is sick.

The Jetsons

Lately, Peanut has been obsessed with the idea of flying cars. He sees this as the prime solution to traffic jams and the interminable fifteen minutes through which he must suffer to get from school to home to television. I decided he might like The Jetsons (because, really, what else is worth noting about the show other than the flying cars?) but I was wrong. He hated it. I hated it. My husband hated it.

To be sure, we watched the 1990 movie which was undoubtedly worse than the show ever was. No schtick that plays well in a 22 minute format translates well into a 1 hour 22 minute format - especially when the main gags of the material include doggie treadmills, pills for food, and machines that brush one's teeth. Putting all that aside, The Jetsons has not aged well. And it's not the technology: it's the outrageously marginalized gender roles.

The Main Characters

Judy
She's your typical boy crazy teenage girl, swooning at the faintest hint of attention from an attractive male and simply dying of grief when he goes away. Presumably she attends school, but there's no mention of activities or friendships - unless, of course, said friends are part of a gossip chain that feeds her the latest on her boy crush.

Elroy
For the life of me, I can't figure out how old this kid is supposed to be. He's in footie pajamas, but plays a sport that involves riding a small, surfboard-like object over a gaping space pit to certain death. He's a whiz kid, too, and is seemingly the brains of the family. Which isn't actually saying much: that bar is set way low. There is ample evidence that the one who really has all it figured out is the dog.

Jane
She likes shopping, gossiping on the videophone, and shopping. She's mortified to be caught without wearing her face - a cute, idiot phrase for wearing makeup, but perfectly at ease with swiping her husband's wallet. The movie makes a half-assed attempt to cast her as a volunteer organizer for a recycling program, but beyond that she's all housewife. Assuming, of course, that housewives do nothing but watch soaps and give themselves spa treatments.

George
It's a wonder George doesn't have an aneurysm from financial worry. In addition to his wife daily running off to the mall, he's constantly at risk of being unemployed because, being a man, he's stupid and lazy. It takes the combined efforts of Jane, a computer and the maid to so much as wake him in the morning. He's supposed to be the lovable, central character to the family - but he seems to waiver between laziness at work and antisocial behavior at home. As most men do.

Everyone Else

Granted, many shows on tv today are still working off these stereotypes - and are popular, to boot. What strikes me as especially offensive about The Jetsons, however, is the lengths to which it goes to preserve gender bias. In the world of The Jetsons, even female robots are relegated to the roles of housewives, maids and secretaries, while their male counterparts are simple jocks, paper pushers and blue collar workers.

Rosie the tubby old maid of a maid	Gertrude the hot (in a robotic way) secretary	A neighboring housewife of the Jetsons
Robot football player, complete with "dumb jock" facial expression	George's co-worker - this guy is, literally, a filing cainet	Sprocket factory foreman

The plot of The Jetsons revolves around one of two things: gags about futuristic machinery and highly gendered hijinks. The only character who shows any frustration with her role is Rosie the maid. She's irascible in the way that tv maids are supposed to be irascible, but no more. This is a kid's show, after all, so it's only right that she's brought into the show with just a touch of sexual harassment: "She's eager, isn't she?" But h-o-m-e-l-y.



I suppose it should be ironic that a show about the future is so drastically void of the social progress we've achieved since Betty Boop first booped her boops. But Hanna-Barbera isn't known for groundbreaking social commentary (unless a caveman channeling the spirit of The Honeymooners because his wife overcooked his t-rex t-bone is commentary). Maybe this is why one of their own action heroes later pursued a career in civil litigation.

It's a good day when I can reference Harvey Birdman.

The Counting Pinball Machine

I don't know a single person who won't start singing along, or at least bobbing their head, if someone breaks out into "Onetwothreefourfive, sixseveneightnineten - eleventwelve." Not only is the song still awesome, the animation is still just as unpredictable and creative. As a child it might have seemed a little less so - what's to say elephants and knights aren't common features in pinball machines? As an adult it just makes me wonder how the hell to catch such a train of thought.... it must be fantastic.