I have always been the type of person who frightens easily. After thinking about it for awhile, I realized that among the most scary influences of my younger years were some of the children's television shows I used to watch. Does anyone else out there remember:
1. Froggy the gremlin from Andy's gang - and I was pretty creeped out by Andy Devine, probably even more so than I was by Froggy. Andy Devine and Froggy the Gremlin
2. Clarabell from Howdy Doody - I know that fear of clowns is not all that unusual, but Clarabell was spooky for a lot of reasons. First off, in spite of having a really extreme and somewhat bizarre case of male pattern baldness, nobody seemed bothered by the fact that Clarabell certainly sounded like it should have been a girl's name. Additionally, since I already knew about Helen Keller and the existence of sign language, Clarabell's reliance on bicycle horns and a seltzer bottles as his primary means of communication conveyed to me a truly serious level of dysfunction.
3. Farmer Gray cartoons were crudely drawn and animated and the musical theme that introduced them had a mean and nasty quality to it. Undoubtedly the inspiration for the Simpsons "Itchy and Scratchy Show",the world inhabited by Farmer Gray and an unnamed cat and mouse often revolved around the gratuitous physical cruelty that these three characters inflicted on one another. Theirs was a world in which the laws of biology and physics were both inconsistent and strangely flexible. Furthermore, the fact that these shows were broadcast in the early dawn pretty much guaranteed that kids would be watching these cartoons without adult supervision; the tacit understanding in many households was that the reason these cartoons existed was to give kids something to do so their parents could get a little extra sleep. Parenting books such as they were at the time were not yet suggesting that parents watch TV with their kids and discuss the the content of what the kids were being exposed to. In fairness to the adults, it probably would not have crossed anyone's mind at the time that these cartoons promulgated violence.
4. The Mickey Mouse Club - Jimmie Dodd could sing and play musical instruments but there was always something a little dubious about that big guy Roy who seemed kind of short on talent and just a little too dopey wearing his mouseketeer hat. Maybe Roy was to Jimmie as Bub was to Steven Douglas in My Three Sons.
(Okay, I feel a little bad about this one.)
On the plus side, I do remember some wonderful television from my younger years. Fifty plus years later, I can still remember lyrics and dialog from the wonderful children shows of Sandy Becker, a brilliant but underappreciated performer who was successful because he never underestimated the intelligence of his young audience.
There was also The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, a smartly funny cartoon series that featured the antics of Boris and Natasha, two very unscary Russian spies. Watching this show, one could be certain that the Ruskies were never going to win any wars they might might start with the United States. And yes, I do admit to having a little bit of a crush on Sherman, the bookish cartoon boy who, along with his pet dog Peabody, narrated the slyly clever "fractured fairy tales."
