Wonders of Science…Simplified – circa 1942 science book. Parts of it are hopelessly outdated now (the times of the geologic eras are completely off), but some of it is history that never changes (one page shows the construction of about 20 different types of electrical batteries. Three other pages show different methods of television broadcasting – from 1942!) And the book is pretty obviously a British production, although it’s printed in the US and never says this is the case (The spelling is frequently British, and the illustration style is definitely the kind they used then in Britain) Seventh Voyage of Sinbad – one of Harryhausen’s best films.
Though I grew up listening to David Seville and the Chipmunks, I don’t think I could make it through an entire album these days. Give me Free to Be… any day.
Thirding (or fourthing or nthing) the Anne series by L.M. Montgomery; also adding–and I bet you ten bucks nobody will remember these–Eureka’s Castle and Ghostwriter.
Muppets
Facts of Life
Sesame Street
Charlie Brown Specials
Charlotte’s Web on TV
The annual showing of Wizard of Oz
Dr. Seuss
I Love Lucy
The book Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs.
Scrooge McDuck, who, at last count, had 473 mazillion, 223 scarillion, 983 impossibillion dollars at his disposal, was fond of saying “I like to jump in my money vault and swim around in my money, like a dolphin.”
I do! I watched both of those shows when I was young. In fact, I almost mentioned Ghostwriter in the scary TV thread. There was a 2-part episode of Ghostwriter in which a purple slimy monster was chasing the kids. That was so scary! Everywhere they went, there he was. And it was like, if his slime touched you, you were frozen FOREVER.
Eureka’s Castle. I mostly remember the opening to it. That giant winding up the castle and the theme song. Well, that and those orange and purple otters (?) who loved PB&J. Those shows were neat.
A friend of mine is in a band called Busy World, and a group of us went to see him perform at a coffee shop a couple of weeks ago. He mentioned that if you Google “Busy World”, the first sites returned are Richard Scarry. This got me and another friend talking about Richard Scarry’s books. “Hey do you remember Huckle Cat?” “What about Lowly Worm?” “Yeah, Lowly drives an apple car!” All of which got us some very weird looks from the rest of our friends. I got home that night and dug out my Richard Scarry books. The first one I got was for my 4th birthday in 1975. There was an inscription on the title page. The cover is missing. I started leafing through it and was propelled back to my childhood instantly. I have 3 of the books and I went through all of them, and I must say, I still find them as compelling as I did when I was a kid. I practically wore those books to pieces. I realize now that much of what I learned about how the world works, and my interest for how things work came from those books. I’m so glad my Mom saved them for me.
I’ll second The Hobbit cartoon. I still find myself singing that song in the shower (I have a baritone voice…the dogs look at me like I’m nuts):
Fifteen Birds, in five fir trees…
Their feathers were fanned
By the fiery breeze…
What funny little birds,
They have no wings…
Oh, what shall we do
With the funny little things?
I’ll still re-read the *Dark Is Rising * sequence by Susan Cooper once every two years or so.
I still think of my mom whenever Sloop John B off of *Pet Sounds * comes on the radio. We used to sing along to that album and to *The Kingston Trio * (I remember *Lemon Tree * most of all) on our crappy little record player, with albums from the library.