I'm not sure how much of an impact the Rugrats franchise had on me personally, but I was crazy about it for a while. My favorite parts were always the fantasy sequences, when the characters would use their imaginations and go on trippy adventures.
But the biggest impact it had on my life came from this single moment in The Rugrats Movie.
While the babies are wandering around lost in the forest, Chuckie mentions some of the things that he misses from his home- including something his dad made for him: Toasted baloney "sammiches".
The way he described it made it sound absolutely delicious- "Mmmm, and they're so crunchy..." he says, to which Tommy responds, "Stop it, Chuckie! You're makin' me hungry!"
Ever since then, we both have been toasting our bread when we make sandwiches. Of course, it was only baloney and mayonnaise on white bread at first, but I'm telling you: we have toasted EVERY SINGLE SANDWICH we have ever eaten since then. I've only had it untoasted once or twice, and for reasons I can't quite recall- I think it was because I didn't have a choice. Of course, I'm not including sandwiches we've ordered at restaurants- I'm only referring to sandwiches we've made at home.
Thing is is that we've come to prefer it crunchy, as opposed to chewy when the bread is in an unaltered state. I dunno, it seems to be more "bread-like" when its toasted- it's like the slight charring brings out its flavor. Of course, we've gone beyond white bread (although it's still one of our favorites), and now we use buttermilk bread, potato bread, and sourdough, and we use so many different condiments, spreads, cheeses, deli meats and whatnot that I don't really have a favorite kind.
In recent years I've taken a liking to sweet and savory combinations, so mixing jellies and jams with meat has become something we enjoy. It seems to open a whole new world of options, having little hindrances of what we put on a sandwich anymore.
So when I eat a toasted sandwich, every now and then I think of how a single moment in a movie I haven't watched in years made a huge change in my taste for food. Normally these sort of things inspire me artistically or even spiritually, but in this case it's gastronomically.
UPDATE: So after a visit to my Grandma's house, and not wanting to use a toaster oven that was hard to reach, I've developed a taste for untoasted sandwiches with white bread. Go figure...
Showing posts with label Artifacts of our Childhood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Artifacts of our Childhood. Show all posts
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Monday, December 7, 2009
Artifacts of our Childhood- The Saga of Baby Divine
This one's probably the most bizarre celebrity-written children's book ever- to be specific, it's by Bette Midler.
The strange, slightly nauseating bright colors and glossy light and shadow of the illustrations, not to mention it having a baby dressed like a Las Vegas prostitute for a main character kind of creeped me out as a kid. I don't remember ever reading it, nor when we got it. We just kind of gazed at the surreal depictions of kid-friendly trashiness a few times, etching it onto our brains whether we liked it or not, and sort of dismissed it as a mildly disturbing dream printed on paper.
As it turns out, there's a perfectly good reason for the slightly creepy illustrations: they were done by a certain Todd Schorr, known for his paintings that are classified as "pop surrealism"- which, in his case, is a crossover between Dalí-esque surrealism and a plethora of Golden Age cartoons and advertising art.
Now, when a guy doing a children's book also does paintings like this:
http://www.toddschorr.com/Paintings/image20.html
...you can kind of see why it would seem creepy to us as kids, despite the dramatically lesser amount of details and the lack of anything blatantly frightening in Baby Divine's illustrations.
Years later- just a few weeks ago, in fact- we finally got around to reading it. The story is fairy tale-like, with some elements of Sleeping Beauty (in the form of three eager has-been divas giving Baby Divine gifts), and an epic journey filled with thinly-veiled metaphors for Bette Midler's philosophy of life.
Now I really wish I HAD read it way back when, because it teaches lessons that took me twenty years to figure out.
The strange, slightly nauseating bright colors and glossy light and shadow of the illustrations, not to mention it having a baby dressed like a Las Vegas prostitute for a main character kind of creeped me out as a kid. I don't remember ever reading it, nor when we got it. We just kind of gazed at the surreal depictions of kid-friendly trashiness a few times, etching it onto our brains whether we liked it or not, and sort of dismissed it as a mildly disturbing dream printed on paper.
As it turns out, there's a perfectly good reason for the slightly creepy illustrations: they were done by a certain Todd Schorr, known for his paintings that are classified as "pop surrealism"- which, in his case, is a crossover between Dalí-esque surrealism and a plethora of Golden Age cartoons and advertising art.
Now, when a guy doing a children's book also does paintings like this:
http://www.toddschorr.com/Paintings/image20.html
...you can kind of see why it would seem creepy to us as kids, despite the dramatically lesser amount of details and the lack of anything blatantly frightening in Baby Divine's illustrations.
Years later- just a few weeks ago, in fact- we finally got around to reading it. The story is fairy tale-like, with some elements of Sleeping Beauty (in the form of three eager has-been divas giving Baby Divine gifts), and an epic journey filled with thinly-veiled metaphors for Bette Midler's philosophy of life.
Now I really wish I HAD read it way back when, because it teaches lessons that took me twenty years to figure out.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Artifacts of our Childhood #4: Mad Monster Party
This is an example of something we saw as a kid, but since it only happened once before so many years ago, we wondered if it was all a dream.
It was around Halloween time, and for some reason we were in a bookstore, most likely Borders. I'm assuming that it was a special occasion of some sort, since they were playing Mad Monster Party on a TV screen in front of the CD/DVD section. Now that I think about it, I don't think I knew what a DVD was at the time, and Mad Monster Party was probably still only on video.
Anyway, a bunch of kids were sitting around in chairs or maybe on the floor in front of the screen, and we probably went "Oooh, cartoons!" and joined them. What played was this bizarre and kinda creepy stop-motion animated thingy, with a bunch of monsters including Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (whose transformation was particularly memorable to me), a werewolf, a vampire, and many others. The only things I could remember were the opening sequence- and I don't remember any music- the monsters arriving at the party, and a big explosion at the end that the main character compared to the 4th of July, who turned out to be a robot (SPOILERS!!).
My impressionable imagination etched these nightmarish images onto my brain, and I carried them with me for many years, not knowing what on earth they were. As I said, I thought I may have dreamt it after a while...
So imagine my excitement when we figured out what the heck it was a couple years ago. In fact, the images in my heads practically haunted me, so I sort of became obsessed with getting the DVD.
Turns out it's not quite as creepy as I remember- I certainly haven't gotten the same feeling when I watch it yet- but it certainly is even more bizarre and kooky than I ever expected.
Mad Monster Party was made by Rankin-Bass, the same people who brought you Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Mad Monster Party is probably the most popular of Rankin-Bass' excruciatingly rare Halloween and/or horror-themed works, especially since it influenced Tim Burton's classic Nightmare Before Christmas. It's a horror-comedy, starring Boris Karloff and Phyllis Diller, and some people impersonating Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, and Jimmy Stewart. It would seem that Rankin-Bass wanted to do something more snappy and hip, so they hired writers and artists who worked for Mad magazine (hence the word "Mad" in the title). The film was released in theaters in 1967.
This sort of macabre movie monster crossover was popular in the '60s, starting with The Addams Family and going on to The Munsters. Dracula, the Wolf Man, Frankenstein's Monster had pretty much become clowns in the eyes of the public, and Mad Monster Party threw in every other iconic monster, including parodies of Igor (which, as far as I can tell, is the first instance of a Peter Lorre impression filling in for that type), the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Invisible Man, the Mummy, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and King Kong (called "It" here).
The dialogue is filled with macabre gags and puns, and while they're not quite as subtle as Disney's Haunted Mansion, they're certainly a lot more clever than Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School.
In the end, watching it sort of feels like a bizarre macabre freakout, and while the jokes are lot of fun, and ending is pretty grim when you think about it, I'm not so sure if it's as sophisticated as more famous horror-comedies. Nevertheless, it feels good to finally see it again after all these years, even though it's not quite how I remember it.
Now if I could only figure out what that dialogue-less stop motion short I saw in elementary school about a couple of guys bringing a tiny Frankenstein monster to life with a drop of blood or potion and gradually growing him into a giant was...
It was around Halloween time, and for some reason we were in a bookstore, most likely Borders. I'm assuming that it was a special occasion of some sort, since they were playing Mad Monster Party on a TV screen in front of the CD/DVD section. Now that I think about it, I don't think I knew what a DVD was at the time, and Mad Monster Party was probably still only on video.
Anyway, a bunch of kids were sitting around in chairs or maybe on the floor in front of the screen, and we probably went "Oooh, cartoons!" and joined them. What played was this bizarre and kinda creepy stop-motion animated thingy, with a bunch of monsters including Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (whose transformation was particularly memorable to me), a werewolf, a vampire, and many others. The only things I could remember were the opening sequence- and I don't remember any music- the monsters arriving at the party, and a big explosion at the end that the main character compared to the 4th of July, who turned out to be a robot (SPOILERS!!).
My impressionable imagination etched these nightmarish images onto my brain, and I carried them with me for many years, not knowing what on earth they were. As I said, I thought I may have dreamt it after a while...
So imagine my excitement when we figured out what the heck it was a couple years ago. In fact, the images in my heads practically haunted me, so I sort of became obsessed with getting the DVD.
Turns out it's not quite as creepy as I remember- I certainly haven't gotten the same feeling when I watch it yet- but it certainly is even more bizarre and kooky than I ever expected.
Mad Monster Party was made by Rankin-Bass, the same people who brought you Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Mad Monster Party is probably the most popular of Rankin-Bass' excruciatingly rare Halloween and/or horror-themed works, especially since it influenced Tim Burton's classic Nightmare Before Christmas. It's a horror-comedy, starring Boris Karloff and Phyllis Diller, and some people impersonating Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, and Jimmy Stewart. It would seem that Rankin-Bass wanted to do something more snappy and hip, so they hired writers and artists who worked for Mad magazine (hence the word "Mad" in the title). The film was released in theaters in 1967.
This sort of macabre movie monster crossover was popular in the '60s, starting with The Addams Family and going on to The Munsters. Dracula, the Wolf Man, Frankenstein's Monster had pretty much become clowns in the eyes of the public, and Mad Monster Party threw in every other iconic monster, including parodies of Igor (which, as far as I can tell, is the first instance of a Peter Lorre impression filling in for that type), the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Invisible Man, the Mummy, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and King Kong (called "It" here).
The dialogue is filled with macabre gags and puns, and while they're not quite as subtle as Disney's Haunted Mansion, they're certainly a lot more clever than Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School.
In the end, watching it sort of feels like a bizarre macabre freakout, and while the jokes are lot of fun, and ending is pretty grim when you think about it, I'm not so sure if it's as sophisticated as more famous horror-comedies. Nevertheless, it feels good to finally see it again after all these years, even though it's not quite how I remember it.
Now if I could only figure out what that dialogue-less stop motion short I saw in elementary school about a couple of guys bringing a tiny Frankenstein monster to life with a drop of blood or potion and gradually growing him into a giant was...
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Artifacts of our Childhood #3: Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue!
Sometimes there are things we remember so vaguely that we don't know what it was, and suspect that it was a dream. Screwy, mixed-up, fragmented, and definitely foggy images float in our brain, occasionally bubbling to the surface of our conscious mind. Sometimes the embers flicker on randomly, invoking the general reaction "Well, THAT just came rushing back to me!", or the flickers are so dim that we can't be convinced that we actually saw it.
In this case, I remember seeing it, I remember a few moments of it, the general message, and some characters. I'm talking, of course, about a certain anti-drug animated special called Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue!, which I watched one day in elementary school. My memories of it are slim: I remember that Miss Piggy, Kermit, and maybe Gonzo were in it, in their Muppet Babies forms, traveling through someone's drug-ravaged brain in a mine cart. For some reason I remember the brain being dusty, full of cobwebs and grossness, but it turns out that that wasn't the case. There was also Slimer of Ghostbusters fame, who I recognized from a green-colored variant of the Hi-C juice box drink. I never watched The Real Ghostbusters, although I may have seen some episodes some time afterward- nevertheless, I didn't make the connection between him and the movie. I'm not sure if I had seen it yet at the time.
Most likely, anyone who is unfamiliar with this cartoon and reads this will think: "Wait a minute... The Muppets and The Ghostbusters? What kind of messed up cartoon did you watch?" I tell you what kind: an anti-drug messed up cartoon. Yes folks, somehow or another all these copyright holders agreed to have their cartoon stars used in an anti-drug special, in which they rescue some kid from using drugs- hence the title. Apparently helping kids say no was a just enough cause to have this sort of crossover happen. There was a time when liberals ruled children's entertainment, and fighting against pollution, drug abuse, prejudice and even sexual harassment was the name of the game in most of the brightly-colored and cutesy cartoons of the time. I often look at the sort of cartoons other kids were watching in the late '80s and early '90s, and feel grateful that I was watching Disney and Steven Spielberg productions instead.
In this case, I remember seeing it, I remember a few moments of it, the general message, and some characters. I'm talking, of course, about a certain anti-drug animated special called Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue!, which I watched one day in elementary school. My memories of it are slim: I remember that Miss Piggy, Kermit, and maybe Gonzo were in it, in their Muppet Babies forms, traveling through someone's drug-ravaged brain in a mine cart. For some reason I remember the brain being dusty, full of cobwebs and grossness, but it turns out that that wasn't the case. There was also Slimer of Ghostbusters fame, who I recognized from a green-colored variant of the Hi-C juice box drink. I never watched The Real Ghostbusters, although I may have seen some episodes some time afterward- nevertheless, I didn't make the connection between him and the movie. I'm not sure if I had seen it yet at the time.
Most likely, anyone who is unfamiliar with this cartoon and reads this will think: "Wait a minute... The Muppets and The Ghostbusters? What kind of messed up cartoon did you watch?" I tell you what kind: an anti-drug messed up cartoon. Yes folks, somehow or another all these copyright holders agreed to have their cartoon stars used in an anti-drug special, in which they rescue some kid from using drugs- hence the title. Apparently helping kids say no was a just enough cause to have this sort of crossover happen. There was a time when liberals ruled children's entertainment, and fighting against pollution, drug abuse, prejudice and even sexual harassment was the name of the game in most of the brightly-colored and cutesy cartoons of the time. I often look at the sort of cartoons other kids were watching in the late '80s and early '90s, and feel grateful that I was watching Disney and Steven Spielberg productions instead.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Artifacts of our Childhood #2: The Sword in the Stone
Mr. Mime, Criswell, whatever-you-want-to-call-me here.
I really don't remember this film too well, as I haven't seen it in full in years. But recently one of the characters was reintroduced to me, and the particular scene the character appears in came flooding back to me, and I realized something rather peculiar about the scene that made me rethink the film. I rewatched it online just now to make sure I was remembering it correctly. And sure enough, I came to the same conclusion: the movie didn't end the way it should have.
"But whatsyername," you think, "didn't Arthur pull the sword outta the rock and become king? That's what's supposed to happen!" And you'd be right, that is what's supposed to happen, but Disney somehow made it so that I didn't want it to play out that way.
Think of the film's plot as a figure walking down a path. It walks straight along, never veering, its destination always in mind. It reaches a fork in the road and sees a new, pleasant-looking path heading towards the left. It decides to take a short detour. After all, it's only a little distraction, something entertaining to lighten the mood, how can it hurt? It's sure to turn back to the main road eventually.
It's all fun until the plot realizes that this new path is leading towards something entirely different from its original destination. It looks around and sees the original path to its right and quickly leaps back. But before it continues on its way it stops and turns wistfully back at the alternate path, and wishes it could go back. It would have been better if it had kept going the other direction. But no, it has to stay true to the source material, so it sadly waves the other story goodbye, presses on, and never looks back.
Don't know what I'm going on about? See for yourself:
I really don't remember this film too well, as I haven't seen it in full in years. But recently one of the characters was reintroduced to me, and the particular scene the character appears in came flooding back to me, and I realized something rather peculiar about the scene that made me rethink the film. I rewatched it online just now to make sure I was remembering it correctly. And sure enough, I came to the same conclusion: the movie didn't end the way it should have.
"But whatsyername," you think, "didn't Arthur pull the sword outta the rock and become king? That's what's supposed to happen!" And you'd be right, that is what's supposed to happen, but Disney somehow made it so that I didn't want it to play out that way.
Think of the film's plot as a figure walking down a path. It walks straight along, never veering, its destination always in mind. It reaches a fork in the road and sees a new, pleasant-looking path heading towards the left. It decides to take a short detour. After all, it's only a little distraction, something entertaining to lighten the mood, how can it hurt? It's sure to turn back to the main road eventually.
It's all fun until the plot realizes that this new path is leading towards something entirely different from its original destination. It looks around and sees the original path to its right and quickly leaps back. But before it continues on its way it stops and turns wistfully back at the alternate path, and wishes it could go back. It would have been better if it had kept going the other direction. But no, it has to stay true to the source material, so it sadly waves the other story goodbye, presses on, and never looks back.
Don't know what I'm going on about? See for yourself:
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Artifacts of our Childhood #1: The Secret of NIMH
In recent years, it has been my goal to restore as many of my memories from my early childhood to my early teens (or, from kindergarten to middle school). What this primarily means is that there were a LOT of cartoons I saw on television, on home video tapes, and occasionally in theaters- as well as a good deal of comic books, children's books, food, and various locations I would often visit.
Why is this? Well, like anyone who's had more than small talk with me would know, my two seemingly eternal years in middle school were a hellhouse of terrors. I'm sure many of you fellow nerds can relate. I was lucky to escape into Christian homeschool for the third year of middle school and the entirety of high school, and my life has been improving ever since. Nevertheless, those miserable days in middle school had a lasting effect on the both of us- besides the emotional and psychological scarring, I mean. In particular for me, the one known as Typhlosion or Fatal hilarity, all that desperation and gloom and bitterness and most of all my focus on surviving made me forget a lot of things.
What I mainly forgot was the things I liked as a kid- what I watched on TV mostly. I realized what a shame this was soon after graduating high school, because not only did these things make me happy as a kid, they shaped my imagination and therefore my artistic development, and even shaped my worldview and philosophy. It was no accident that my mom had me watch Leave it to Beaver. My memories of these things had become fuzzy, and so I had inadvertently detached myself from what influenced, informed, and practically created my art style. So I'm now determined to restore my memories by seeing these things once more by buying DVDs, whether they were official or not, and watching online videos of them. Luckily most of what I read has remained in our home.
Oddly enough, most of my art from before high school was centered around our obsessions at the time, such as Calvin & Hobbes, Pokémon, and Harry Potter. Most of the time these cartoons and movies didn't directly inspire my art until recently, and it's difficult to infer such things in our early work. Sometimes a cartoon wouldn't influence me at all, and only now do you see it effect my art in any way! Still, what went on in my head was closely tied to it all.
Other memories involved experiences rather than popular media, like restaurants. In fact, most of my happy memories that didn't involve television involved food instead. For instance, out of sheer coincidence, my brother and I just bought some ice cream from an actual slow-moving ice cream truck. I didn't get one of those bubblegum-eyed franchise character bars, but it was still something I don't think I've done since public school.
Now that I've blathered on about what motivates these articles, and I've said pretty much the same thing to many people several times now, I suppose I really should get on with it now. Shall we actually discuss the title subject? What say you?
Why is this? Well, like anyone who's had more than small talk with me would know, my two seemingly eternal years in middle school were a hellhouse of terrors. I'm sure many of you fellow nerds can relate. I was lucky to escape into Christian homeschool for the third year of middle school and the entirety of high school, and my life has been improving ever since. Nevertheless, those miserable days in middle school had a lasting effect on the both of us- besides the emotional and psychological scarring, I mean. In particular for me, the one known as Typhlosion or Fatal hilarity, all that desperation and gloom and bitterness and most of all my focus on surviving made me forget a lot of things.
What I mainly forgot was the things I liked as a kid- what I watched on TV mostly. I realized what a shame this was soon after graduating high school, because not only did these things make me happy as a kid, they shaped my imagination and therefore my artistic development, and even shaped my worldview and philosophy. It was no accident that my mom had me watch Leave it to Beaver. My memories of these things had become fuzzy, and so I had inadvertently detached myself from what influenced, informed, and practically created my art style. So I'm now determined to restore my memories by seeing these things once more by buying DVDs, whether they were official or not, and watching online videos of them. Luckily most of what I read has remained in our home.
Oddly enough, most of my art from before high school was centered around our obsessions at the time, such as Calvin & Hobbes, Pokémon, and Harry Potter. Most of the time these cartoons and movies didn't directly inspire my art until recently, and it's difficult to infer such things in our early work. Sometimes a cartoon wouldn't influence me at all, and only now do you see it effect my art in any way! Still, what went on in my head was closely tied to it all.
Other memories involved experiences rather than popular media, like restaurants. In fact, most of my happy memories that didn't involve television involved food instead. For instance, out of sheer coincidence, my brother and I just bought some ice cream from an actual slow-moving ice cream truck. I didn't get one of those bubblegum-eyed franchise character bars, but it was still something I don't think I've done since public school.
Now that I've blathered on about what motivates these articles, and I've said pretty much the same thing to many people several times now, I suppose I really should get on with it now. Shall we actually discuss the title subject? What say you?
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