# Famous people/works you were exposed to in a kiddie context **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 27, 2009, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-people-works-you-were-exposed-to-in-a-kiddie-context/507931 "2009-08-27T17:56:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2009, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-people-works-you-were-exposed-to-in-a-kiddie-context/507931/21 "2009-08-28T02:46:43Z")
> [@Stauderhorse](#): > > (And I only just figured out from Wikipedia that James Earl Jones was the guy with the dog in _The Sandlot_. My mind is officially blown.) I forgot he was in that! I first knew Denis Leary as the stepdad in Sandlot, but I forgot he was in that…only to be reminded when I watched him get roasted. It was also kind of weird when I first discovered that Bog Saget was dirty and not, in terms of his real personality, the corny Danny Tanner or host of Funniest Home Videos. He was raunch personified! ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2009, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-people-works-you-were-exposed-to-in-a-kiddie-context/507931/22 "2009-08-28T06:23:40Z")
We never got _I Love Lucy_ in New Zealand, at least not while I was growing up in the 70s, but we did have her later show, _Here’s Lucy_. So I couldn’t figure out what all the Americans were talking about when they referred to the former show, as I thought they were talking of the latter. And I also didn’t know why she was such a famous and popular actress when she was so damned irritating. Anyway, I love [this animation](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0RQK3xsim4). ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2009, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-people-works-you-were-exposed-to-in-a-kiddie-context/507931/23 "2009-08-28T11:37:54Z")
My first Carlin exposure was Rufus, in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2009, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-people-works-you-were-exposed-to-in-a-kiddie-context/507931/24 "2009-08-28T13:05:40Z")
> [@Drain\_Bead](#): > > My first Carlin exposure was Rufus, in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Same here. I was actually suprised to find out some years later just how raunchy his stand-up act was. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2009, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-people-works-you-were-exposed-to-in-a-kiddie-context/507931/25 "2009-08-28T13:06:56Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > I forgot he was in that! > > I first knew Denis Leary as the stepdad in Sandlot, but I forgot he was in that…only to be reminded when I watched him get roasted. > > It was also kind of weird when I first discovered that Bog Saget was dirty and not, in terms of his real personality, the corny Danny Tanner or host of Funniest Home Videos. He was raunch personified! Yeah, I have to wonder having seen his act, how \*did \* he get cast on Full House. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2009, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-people-works-you-were-exposed-to-in-a-kiddie-context/507931/26 "2009-08-28T13:27:21Z")
Probably many of us first encountered Shel Silverstein as a kids’ author, and only later learned (or not) of his adult career as a songwriter, playwright, etc. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2009, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-people-works-you-were-exposed-to-in-a-kiddie-context/507931/27 "2009-08-28T13:48:49Z")
When I was a kid, circa 1964, I was over a friends house playing. My friends parents had two people over for drinks. They were Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. They were funny, very nice people. I had no idea that they were famous until many years later. ---
**Author:** ![Goblin\_Queen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4da419/32.png) [@Goblin\_Queen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Goblin_Queen)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2009, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-people-works-you-were-exposed-to-in-a-kiddie-context/507931/28 "2009-08-28T16:49:02Z")
However much of a kids’ movie it was or wasn’t, I first saw David Bowie in _Labyrinth_, when I was about five or so. What a way to start a 16-year obsession! There’s also Tim Curry, who I first heard in _Fern Gully_ and first saw in _Muppet Treasure Island_. Yeah, my jaw dropped the first time I saw _The Rocky Horror Picture Show_. If I could find a third example, I could maybe even come up with a theory that starts with Muppets and ends with bisexual space aliens… ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2009, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-people-works-you-were-exposed-to-in-a-kiddie-context/507931/29 "2009-08-28T16:50:33Z")
> [@Goblin\_Queen](#): > > However much of a kids’ movie it was or wasn’t, I first saw David Bowie in _Labyrinth_, when I was about five or so. What a way to start a 16-year obsession! > > There’s also Tim Curry, who I first heard in _Fern Gully_ and first saw in _Muppet Treasure Island_. Yeah, my jaw dropped the first time I saw _The Rocky Horror Picture Show_. I saw him in Annie but I don’t think it really registered as him. Actually I saw a lot of famous people in Annie–Anne Reinking, Bernadette Peters, and Carol Burnett. I don’t think I realized how famous any of t hem were for quite a few years. For a while, Bebe Neuwirth was just Frasier’s wife on Cheers. Okay, that’s not kiddie, really… ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2009, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-people-works-you-were-exposed-to-in-a-kiddie-context/507931/30 "2009-08-28T17:19:34Z")
> [@missred](#): > > I was introduced to caricatures of stars from the forties and some classical works from the old Warner Bros. cartoons. > > The only other ones I can think of are Woody Allen and Joan Worley from a program I seem to recall as _Bananas_. Jo Anne Worley? I saw her in The Mad Show Off Broadway before she was in Laugh-In. I also recently saw her in a play in San Jose. Woody Allen had a movie called Bananas, but I don’t remember Worley in it. Howard Cosell, yes. I’m way too old for most of the things here, but I saw a lot of Warner Brothers cartoons in the '50s on TV, and I also got a good shot of '40s celebrities and vaudeville jokes on them. Vaudeville jokes bet recycled a lot - we’re re-watching The Muppet Show, which is full of them, as was **You Can’t Do That on Television** which I watched with my kids on the early, classical, days of Nickelodeon. ---
**Author:** ![missred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/missred/32/14096_2.png) [@missred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missred)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2009, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-people-works-you-were-exposed-to-in-a-kiddie-context/507931/31 "2009-08-28T18:50:07Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Jo Anne Worley? I saw her in The Mad Show Off Broadway before she was in Laugh-In. I also recently saw her in a play in San Jose. Woody Allen had a movie called Bananas, but I don’t remember Worley in it. Howard Cosell, yes. > > \< Actually, it wasn’t the movie. It was an afternoon TV program for kids that had her and Woody Allen doing narration and schtick between cartoons and shorts featuring how things were made. It aired in the late sixties and early seventies. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2009, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-people-works-you-were-exposed-to-in-a-kiddie-context/507931/32 "2009-08-28T19:07:00Z")
> [@missred](#): > > Actually, it wasn’t the movie. It was an afternoon TV program for kids that had her and Woody Allen doing narration and schtick between cartoons and shorts featuring how things were made. It aired in the late sixties and early seventies. [Hot Dog!](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065301/) [Opening and closing sequences for the show on YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onhhZIPplIY). ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2009, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-people-works-you-were-exposed-to-in-a-kiddie-context/507931/33 "2009-08-28T19:47:04Z")
When I was five, my mom gave me a book on the painter Velasquez (IIRC, it was part of a series of paperback books on famous artists geared toward children) and I carried it with me everywhere. I very vividly remember dreaming about [Las Meninas](http://www.ac-grenoble.fr/disciplines/espagnol/img/cuadros/velazquez/velazquez_meninas.jpg) – I didn’t understand what was going on in the painting, but gathered from the young girls’ dresses that it was a painting of a birthday party, so I dreamt I was invited to the party. Velasquez and the other old Spanish masters are still my favorite artists…no coincidence, I’m sure. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2009, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-people-works-you-were-exposed-to-in-a-kiddie-context/507931/34 "2009-08-28T21:10:25Z")
> [@Covered\_In\_Bees](#): > > Wait! George Carlin was Mr. Conductor? Holy shit! :eek: Ever seen _Theodore Tugboat_? The Harbourmaster is Denny Doherty. ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2009, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-people-works-you-were-exposed-to-in-a-kiddie-context/507931/35 "2009-08-28T21:14:03Z")
Hamlet and Bizet simultaneously on **Gilligan’s Island** (which was originally a primetime series but was definitely considered kiddie fare by the time I saw it). On the guest star tip, The Flinstones had a number of celebrity and/or celebrity impersonator voice actors - Ann-Margret and Alfred Hitchcock come to mind. ---
**Author:** ![missred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/missred/32/14096_2.png) [@missred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missred)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2009, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-people-works-you-were-exposed-to-in-a-kiddie-context/507931/36 "2009-08-29T04:21:25Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > [Hot Dog!](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065301/) > > [Opening and closing sequences for the show on YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onhhZIPplIY). That’s it! I don’t know why I remembered it as Bananas. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2009, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-people-works-you-were-exposed-to-in-a-kiddie-context/507931/37 "2009-08-29T04:31:19Z")
> [@TWDuke](#): > > Hamlet and Bizet simultaneously on **Gilligan’s Island** (which was originally a primetime series but was definitely considered kiddie fare by the time I saw it). Yes! I used to watch reruns of Gilligan as a kid and now whenever I hear Toreador, a little part of me starts to sing, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be…” ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2009, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-people-works-you-were-exposed-to-in-a-kiddie-context/507931/38 "2009-08-29T05:57:45Z")
My father had a large collection of Spike Jones records. For those who don’t know, Jones took a song and added…elements, like whistles, grunts. He did “Holiday for Strings” with various members of his band singing, “Ha ha ha ha, ha ha ha ha,” and nobody playing any instruments at all (it’s a holiday, get it?) and that kind of stuff. Sort of the Mad Magazine version of the songs. But for me, this was the first time I’d ever heard the songs. So as far as I was concerned, it was the straight version. It was like hearing Weird Al’s version of “Another One Rides the Bus” years before hearing the real version of “Another One Bites the Dust.” Some of the songs were clearly there to be laughed at (“Water Lou (Drip Drip Drip)” but others were crazy versions of popular swing-era songs like “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” and “That Old Black Magic.” Yes, other people did “Begin the Beguine,” and oddly enough, they got through the song without howling. Sure surprised me. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2009, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-people-works-you-were-exposed-to-in-a-kiddie-context/507931/39 "2009-08-29T16:19:57Z")
> [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#): > > Sort of the Mad Magazine version of the songs. Which reminds me of all the movies I was first introduced to through Mad. > [@](#): > > Yes, other people did “Begin the Beguine,” and oddly enough, they got through the song without howling. Sure surprised me. Kinda like hearing Sousa’s “Liberty Bell March” _not_ punctuated by Monty Python’s raspberry? ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2009, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-people-works-you-were-exposed-to-in-a-kiddie-context/507931/40 "2009-08-29T21:29:47Z")
On kids’ 45 rpm records: Jimmy Stewart narrating a dramatization of “Winnie the Pooh”. The Weavers singing “Train to the Zoo”. As background music to various stories: Haydn’s “Surprise” Symphony, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, Schubert’s incidental music to _Rosamunde_, Rossini overtures. Kids’ 78 rpm records: the badinerie from Bach’s Orchestral Suite in B Minor, Rameau’s _Le Tambourin_ (showing the difference between performing it on a harpsichord and a piano). And of course, a lot of the music in _Fantasia_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-people-works-you-were-exposed-to-in-a-kiddie-context/507931.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-people-works-you-were-exposed-to-in-a-kiddie-context/507931.md?page=3)