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Saturday Morning Conspiracies

212 Comments

The entire time I was growing up, I heard tales of how Saturday morning cartoons were the instruments of Satan to warp young minds into a worship of the occult and practice of witchcraft. People like this guy told us that everything from He-Man to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were really part of a global conspiracy to enslave the nation’s children in between ads for breakfast cereal. Sneaky.

Of course, the real problem with these claims of satanic subterfuge is that the vast majority of a generation of cartoon watchers eventually grew up into more or less responsible adults who were curiously non-satanic. One would think that if Old Nick was afoot in our subconscious there would be a whole lot more ritual sacrifice, demon possession, and general witch-like cackling going on. Heck, to hear some folks talk, by this time you’d expect a pentagram to have replaced the stars on the American Flag. A quick look around, however, shows that instead of the really cool sins we were promised, it’s pretty much just the same old lust of the flesh, lust of the eye, and pride of life that we’ve always seen.

But maybe the conspiracy theorists will be proven right after all. Perhaps our entire society is composed of sleeper agents who harbor dormant demons unaware and some fateful day when a yet unwritten Miley Cyrus song plays on the radio, a veritable Satanic army of cartoon watchers will spring to life, wreaking havoc, sacrificing small animals, and possibly even bringing back disco. The word “nightmare” doesn’t begin to cover it.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go deal with my daughter who has been watching Scooby Doo all morning and is now levitating our cat.

Update: Jordan Poss has provided me with some excerpts from the book Turmoil in the Toybox (PDF 4MB) by Phil Phillips which describes some of the various cartoons and toys are of the devil.

212 thoughts on “Saturday Morning Conspiracies”

  2. Classic. This deserves post of the year recognition.

    I remember being told by the lady who ran the lunch room at my Christian school, that I could not bring in a pocket, digital version of Double Dragon, since the devil is a dragon, and hence it was like bringing Satan into the lunch room. Never mind the fact that the lunch room was already filed with little demons running around. 😈

  3. since I grew up on cartoon, Scooby was my favorite too, I never feared them, Santa and Disney like I heard I should over and over again! As common with most of the ranting-they never had any proof to convince me of the wacky “convictions” they spewed.

  4. Classic Scooby Doo or rubbish Scooby Doo with Scrappy? Scrappy is the work of satan, along with late era Tom and Jerry and the whole of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 🙂

    1. Scooby definately jumped the shark when scrappy came along. I had to quit watching “those meddling kids” then.

  5. I grew up on those cartoons, or watched them during college. Wait a minute, that would explain some things, ❓ like how I became a fundie? 😈 :mrgreen:

  6. No conspiracies were responsible for cartoons being banned for me when I was a child. They were simply too violent; evidently, seeing one animated character whack another on the head would make me turn out to be a big bully – or so my parents thought. 🙄

  7. Smurfs! Evil. Not just cartoons but Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers. Dr. Seuss. It goes all the way back to Captain Kangaroo…I guess Mr. Green Jeans was too flamboyant for them or something. 🙄

    1. @elfdream Let’s see if I can remember…I was told “we do not watch Smurfs because Gargoyle is Satan and Rev. Sun Yungmoon(sp?) was a Satanist and he owns the company Revlon and he also was somehow responsible for the Smurfs cartoon??

      My logic is fuzzy…but that shouldn’t REALLY matter should it?

      Anybody remember this conspiracy theory? 🙄

      1. I just remember at 9 or 10 years old arguing with my parents (and ignoring their prohibitions), and thinking to myself “I sure hope adulthood doesn’t come with a big dose of stupid”). Turns out I’m just related to people with no ability to think for themselves about anything. 🙂

        1. You weren’t far wrong. A whole lot of adults do have a big dose of stupid. They are also quite proud of it.

    2. Also, remember Care Bears and Teddy Ruxpin? Both satanic. And one-world religion promoting.

      1. @Sims…awwww Teddy Ruxpin. Unfulfilled. Denied. No Teddy Ruxpin Presbygirl. 🙁

      2. Teddy Ruxpin could be satanic… if you made your own tape of satanic dialog for him to recite.

    3. We weren’t allowed to watch Smurfs after an episode where they were making a potion and chanting something to Beelzebub. That is kinda creepy. 😕

    5. What kind of a spiritually constipated burden-binding child-hating control freak does a preacher have to be to say that about Mister Rogers?

      1. One who thinks Presbyterians are tools of the Devil? Fred Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister.

      2. Not only was Fred Rogers a Presbyterian, but he promoted learning. Dangerous stuff.

      3. On the sunday after Mister Rogers died, my brother’s sunday school teacher at our former IFB church announced that he was glad Mister Rogers was dead because he was a wishy-washy christian. No lies.

        2. Better than saying Mr Rogers is in hell. I’d be surprised if that wasn’t said in a fundy Sunday School somewhere.

    1. @Charlie…Bionic, tetronic, sounds…..”Transformers….more than meets the eye” And then the military sounding voice of a commander saying “G.I. Joe Great American Hero, and Knowing is half the battle”.

      Good memories, makes me think of my “little brother” and Saturday mornings. Our parents did let my brother watch those two cartoons. Although I do remember my mother making us turn off a couple of the episodes with Snake Eyes. 😉

    2. I loved the original GI Joe. Infact I have a Cobra Commander bobblehead on my desk at work.

  9. I remember hearing talk how Isis (pagan Egyptian goddess) and Smurfs were awful, but can’t remember specifics on the Smurfs. Anyone remember.

    I’ve introduced my boys to the wonders of Bugs Bunny. No childhood is complete without classic Warner Brothers cartoons.

      1. I think it went like this: Gargamel was a wizard. Even though he was the evil character, the very fact that children would be entertained by watching him try to concoct spells was considered wrong. Also “Gargamel” is similiar to “Gilgamel” which apparantly is the name of a demon. And he had a cat that some considered his familiar.

    2. I heard they were supposed to be a coven. And that when they had their town meetings they sat around a pentagram, and … I don’t remember the specifics but Papa Smurf was the leader of the coven and … well, just to be on the safe side, I never let my kids watch it. (They still turned out ok without it but also think I am pretty silly now that they are old)

      1. LOL! The stoners have a better understanding of smurfs and more coherent conspiracy theory than the fundies!

  11. I think the best evidence of the pervasive satanic influence of cartoons is that now they can be watched around the clock, not just on Saturday mornings, thus indoctrinating larger numbers of impressionalbe minds in a shorter amount of time.

    Forget classic cartoons, have you seen Oswald or Little Bear? They’re so awful I have to leave the room (don’t judge me for not turning it off, sometimes I need a certain motormouth to give me a break 😕 ) and I’m sure that’s when the actual not-so-subliminal messages start.

    1. I actually heard one fundy argue that since the family in Little Bear observe Winter Solstice instead of Christmas, that proved they were Wiccans.

      1. LMAO! They’re BEARS, not humans!!! HUMANS celebrate Christmas. If I were a bear, I’d celebrate the Solstices too!

      2. Since the Bible must be read literally, all of the time, so must every other work of art.

        Sometimes I think they read the Bible literally because they have no imaginations.

        1. not always literally…remember “wine” means “grape juice” except when they refer to “wine” and drunkards…then that literally means “wine”…ugh

    2. Sarah, my kids are on the tail end of Nick Jr, and Oswald and Little Bear are two of the better offerings. I’m just dreading the day when SpongeBob is all over my tv. He’s not evil, just really annoying.

  12. ARRGHHH!!! I’m not sure whether my parents read this material or Dave Benoit, but they were convinced demons were causing bad dreams, and that all these toys/shows were having negative influences on my brother and me (seems like it was mostly my toys that got thrown away). Not that I’m bitter or anything, but all my favorite toys were thrown away when I was 4 or 5 – Rainbow Bright, my smurf, care bears, etc. I think I had a troll thrown out too, and we suddenly weren’t allowed to watch certain cartoons Saturday morning. 😥

  13. My son is 30 and is still mad at me that I never let him watch He Man (Masters of the Universe) (They pulled out that sord and said “By the Power of Graystoke!”) And by golly, we don’t want to use ANY power that isn’t of gid. Well, anyway, there were a lot of others we didn’t watch back then for similarly silly reasons. But now (younger son) we don’t watch most of them because they aren’t good. Most of what he likes is aname and I just don’t get it. (but I allow a lot more now. Another thing my older son thinks is unfair, but he is glad to see me coming to the light of reason in these areas.)

    1. Greyskull. By the power of Greyskull. I just went to my friends house to watch He-man!

      1. My mother (totally non Fundy) didn’t like me watching Topcat because of the ‘dreadful American accents’. I had to watch it at my neighbours house…

        1. Top Cat! Another of my old favorites.
          I don’t quite remember what I liked so much about it now, except that it featured cats, and I had a pet cat.

  14. Hrm, let me try and remember the banned cartoons in my house…

    Smurfs: Evil. No explanation why except I think I remember something about magic.

    Scooby Doo: Evil because of magic and witchcraft.

    Nija Turtles: Evil, but no explanation why.

    Power Rangers: Evil, but once again no reason why.

    Super Man, Spider Man, ETC: All evil as well.

    My mother has very gender strict ideas and I think the real reason she never let me watch those shows was because they were “boy” shows. She never let me play with toy guns either. Even water guns were banned, but along comes my brother he had tons and tons of toy guns.

    1. The Scooby Doo thing frustrates me because it WASN’T magic! It was always somebody in a costume or something, like Nancy Drew. It was always fake.

    2. Are you two talking classic Scooby Doo Where Are You? or are you talking ones like later Cartoons like The 13 Ghosts of Schoby Doo(featuring the voice of Vincent Price). Movies like Ghoul School and The werewolf, and Scooby Doo on Zombie Island,Witches Ghost(90’s early 2000’s)?

    3. I think the original Scooby Doo cartoons were OK. My mom said I used to love them when I was a baby. Its my understanding that eventually they moved from being grumpy old men bad guys to actual ghosts, aliens, witches, etc. But I have no idea if that is actually true since I’ve never watched any of the new ones.

      Power Rangers I can sorta see as I think it was considered a violent show in its time, even by secular sources. I still watched bits of it when I had the chance.

      1. My parents aren’t fundy, but they wouldn’t let me watch Power Rangers when I was little… they thought it was too violent. Little did they know that I’d sneak downstairs in the morning when they were asleep to watch it. 😈

  15. Are you guys blind or something? Why do you think we have a black Muslim who is not even American in the White House?

    The Smurfs did it.

    1. Whew, I thought I totally missed the show with Donald Duck wearing Hot Pants. Must have been during Disco Duck years, which sadly I wasn’t allowed to watch.

  18. Definitely is a 2011 best of post.

    It really didn’t matter what cartoons I liked, someone would always come up with a way to tell them it should be banned, and they would just do it without the least amount of thought. I’d of course yell at them for being dumb, and just ignore it. To this day my family doesn’t know why on most subjects I don’t want or ask for advice from or want the advice they offer in spite of not being asked. Mom at least does have the good sense on some things to admit she doesn’t know when people are lying about stuff, but it doesn’t stop her from coming up with bad ideas about those. Gotta love ’em….

    1. SFL: If you’re having fun, and you’re not doing something I like, you must be in sin.

  19. I’m lucky my son, who is ten, has had little interest in catoons other than the old G.I. Joe. Since he was two years old, his favorite thing to watch is the History Channel. He really loves anything with R. Lee Ermey.

    Real life is much better than made-up drivel.

    2. My wife would love it if our son (two weeks old) would end up preferring the History Channel to cartoons.

      1. While I did enjoy cartoons when I was little, my absolute favorites were shows like the news, 20/20, and America’s Most Wanted. I still love watching crime shows… as someone who has a degree in Communication Studies, I find them fascinating in that respect.

  20. Great post! When I was younger, my grandma got on a rant about Transformers. Her reasoning went along these lines: The robots changed shape to become something else. This is deception, and therefore is sin. Also, robots don’t have souls, so they would have to be of Satan.
    I don’t know how she felt about the other shows of the time. If she were alive today, and saw some of the shows on Adult Swim, she’d likely burn the TV.

    1. Dude My mom had thoughts along those lines too! I never knew there was a cartoon series at the time but I remember seeing the toys and thinking it was so cool that a car could turn into a robot.

      My mom said that there were Decepticons and that came from deception and therefore it was bad. As a young child, maybe around 6-7, I suspected that the Decepticons were probably the bad guys. Turns out I was right. I’m going to have to bring this up when I go visit next time. 👿

    2. Decepticons. They didn’t even try to hide the fact that they were of Satan and still eager young kids were fooled into watching such an evil show! Tsk Tsk.

      I’m sure it’s why prisons are full today.

  21. In “Turmoil in the Toybox” (see link above), Phil Phillips explains why the Care Bears are evil:
    Because they teach “Humanistic principles.”
    And which Humanistic principles would those be?
    “… the Care Bears teach the children to express their feelings, especially those of love, to others.”

    Oh, horrors!

    2. Yes, I had that book. I don’t think I ever took it too seriously.

      If I remember correctly, all popular toys are associated with evil. Apparantly children need to return to the 1950s and play with Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs, and BB guns.

  22. Our MOG told us that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were “new age”. That was one of his favorite sermon illustrations.

    1. Is there a post about that? “New Age”?

      I remember so many mentions of that while growing up, but does it really have a definition? Or is it like the definition of porn: I know it when I see it.

      1. I think it is an “I know it when I see it” type of deal. I can tell you some things I think are New Age, but I can’t give a definition that clearly distinguishes New Age from non-New Age.

  23. Look, many of these cartoons are crappy programs.
    They are lazily and poorly written, badly drawn, and sloppily produced on the cheap.

    And the superheroes in the drawing above have muscles that don’t even exist in reality. Just count the muscles on their arms and shoulders.

    But Satanistic propaganda?
    Nah.

  24. I’ve seen condemnations of both Pokemon and Bakugans as being evil and satanic. The people who write this stuff are clearly not parents. They’ve never had Legos mysteriously propagate through every room in the house and into every car. They’ve never stepped barefoot on a Lego piece hidden in the carpet. I like to call them “Satan’s little toenail clippings”.

    3. My then 9yo son (just turned 10) saved up for an entire year to buy the Lego Death Star, cost him $400. I think it will take him all summer to build, but he loves it. I hope it’s one of those things he keeps for his entire life. He worked hard for it.

  25. Just watched the first minute of that clown in the 80s setting up whoever the Evangelist was to come bash cartoons & music.

    I can’t help but wonder if that guy felt dirty about himself after doing a show like that. I know I would if I’d built a career on trying to scare people & lie. I’m sure he screened before hand to find someone to ask on camera if they had “Masters of the Universe” toys & why, and immediately on her saying she had them asked “Aren’t you afraid…”.

    Why on earth would anyone be afraid of a toy?

      2. Barney is definitely possessed by the Devil—or possibly the Elder Gods. He’s capable of driving a perfectly reasonable adult to madness in minutes.

        1. My former fundy husband’s first time visiting my more liberal church got a huge kick out of my church putting Barney on a spit on carrying it through the church. I think it was for a safari themed VBS. My kids have never watched Barney, it’s by far the scariest show I’ve seen 😈

  26. Fundythink abounds in Turmoil in the Toybox:

    “The occult images found in the Care Bear series are extremely subtle. On the surface, the Care Bears teach the children to express their feelings, especially those of love, to others. At first, these sound like very good ideas, but, the are Humanistic principles, which are in contradiction to God’s teaching.”

    In other words, loving others is occult and against God’s teachings! 🙄

    They also commit the usual fundy-fail of condemning something they evidently do not understand. They seem to think that Humanism, with its rejection of the supernatural, is fomenting the occult. 🙄

    I wonder, do people who write books like these not show them to other people before they are published? This book does not pass the straight-face test.

    1. Fear. Fear this. Fear that. In fact, you can’t be too careful, so fear everything. Fear is the abiding passion and motivation.

      Fear of hell.
      Fear of God.
      Fear of the Devil.
      Fear of the body.
      Fear of sex.
      Fear of women.
      Fear of pants on women.
      Fear of change.
      Fear of humanity.

      Fear of knowledge.
      Fear of education.
      Fear of science.
      Fear of brown people.
      Fear of government.
      Fear of demons.
      Fear of witches.

      Fear of humanists.
      Fear of Communists.
      Fear of Muslims.

      When you have that much toxicity from fear you can’t help but spread it around.

  27. Sponge Bob is DEFINATELY demonic! I get possesed with an uncontrolable urge to go and stomp on my kitchen sponge every time my grandkids have it on! 😈 😈 :mrgreen:

  28. You can see a common theme in the issues these Fundies have taken with “worldy” cartoons: magic in its relation to the occult.

    OK – so if all magic can be considered occult-like, then we can neither discuss Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, nor the Tooth Fairy. Really, children can never make-believe they have any super powers at all.

    When I got saved in my Fundy church, I grappled with the idea of “Santa Claus”. How was it that the Germans hiding the Jews in WWII were supposed to tell the Nazis they were hiding Jews when questioned … but I can tell my kid a fat man travels the whole world in one night dropping off toys made by little people.

    Yet another example of why I left fundamentalism – extreme hypocrisy.

    1. My super-serious parents didn’t allow the Easter Bunny, Santa, or the Tooth Fairy at our house. My mom wouldn’t even use wrapping paper if Santa’s picture was on it. We never had pictures sitting on Santa’s lap. We observed Christmas and had presents and a manger scene, but no tree. And as for TV cartoons, they weren’t an issue, because my parents didn’t get us a TV until I was in high school!

  29. The ultimate Satanic cartoon had to be Catdog. An unholy alliance between an evil cat and one of man’s best friend.

    *sigh*
    When you’re told from the Pulpit that TV is evil and we spend too much time watching the tool of Satan and we need to discern more carefully what appears to be evil…. well, I dare say that there are many in the IFB who are more knowledgable about witchcraft than many of its practitioners are.

  30. I stared at the picture for a few minutes and now my soul is missing. 😥 Thanks a lot Darrell. 😉

    If you look at that picture long enough it turns into the face of Bob Saget. I always knew he was evil.

  31. My son was 2 and flipped out and ran into the hallway while watching Dora. I asked what was wrong – “A bad lady” – turns out it was a witch. We had never even talked about witches so it wasn’t our doing. I don’t think cartoons are without power or influence. I just don’t think you have to see Satan in everything.

    1. He must have seen the same episode as my daughter – she described the ‘bad lady’, turned it off, and never watched Dora again.

  32. Ah, I see Voltron and Thundercats in there, both of which have been recently dusted off, updated, and are now being shown to a new audience of impressionable young minds. The Ninja Turtles have gone through several different series over the years, and I’d be very happy if Battle of the Planets (known as “Gatchaman” in Japan) would do the same.

    Fundies try to take all the innocent fun out of life, and replace it with cheap, knock-off junk. (Among the many odd songs making up my husband’s hash CD last night: Bananaman. Rip off George of the Jungle why don’t you, Patch?)

  33. Sigh. Pretty sure my parents had that book back in the day. Sigh. (TV watching was almost non-existent in our home after a certain age–I believe I was around 6. Oh, “Mr. Rogers” was sometimes allowed, and then when I was older I could watch “Little House on the Prairie” reruns.)

    Can I mention how horrible it is to be in a social situation and find yourself completely stupid in regards to culture.

    1. Can I mention how horrible it is to be in a social situation and find yourself completely stupid in regards to culture.

      I may have to do a post on that upcoming…

      1. Actually, I now have all sorts of entertaining evenings with my ladies group at my “community” church as I explain what it was like to go to a “Culotte” school, live by Fundy rules, etc.

        Fortunately, I can turn those “awkward” conversations around and everyone gets a good laugh at all the weird rules of IFB-dom.

        1. I always blamed it on being a missionary’s kid. “I don’t know because I was in Albania!”

      2. I am missing several years from the mid 80’s when I was deep in Fundy Land (one of the rejected names for Disneyland, btw). This is when I was at HAC and then at Lancaster Baptist Church (very fundy).

        As far as poular culture goes, I am not up on my Hair Bands, 80’s TV (Miami Vice, Dukes of Hazzard. etc), and 80’s movies. (Maybe I didn’t really miss too much after all!)

      3. I still get laughed at. I faked my way through the 80s not knowing any of the popular music or groups. People still stare at me in unbeliefe when they mention any legendary group or songs from the 80s and I have no idea what they were talking about. I thought Alice Cooper was a magician.
        Yeah…

      4. I would love to see a post on that topic. 🙂 I ask my husband, a public school, non-fundy kid, for insight into popular culture all the time. I think I purposefully chose a husband outside of my ‘circle’ to bring more balance and knowledge to my life. I hate feeling ignorant. :/

    2. Little House!!!!

      That show is the just absolutely most blunt, painfully simplistic unbearable drivel ever! My mom LOVES IT! I’ll never forget some episode where they had the mean old hag on there literally dressed in green and doing this pointy finger thing. If memory serves she may have been holding a broom, or had one in the background. It just was PAINFULLY obvious they were painting her as Wicked Witch, and mom didn’t have a clue till I mocked it as such.

      Ah, the Little House memories…

    3. A large portion of my childhood went awol because of being isolated through all these rules, sorry, superstitions.

  35. This is very familiar to me. It’s also one of the (many) times I’ve seen blatant hypocrisy among fundy adults. It seems like any cartoon in the 80’s was satanic, or just sinful. I can remember the Smurfs and He-Man specifically. However, it was almost a “do as I say, not as I do” situation, because so many people at church, and school watched this stuff. Even the pastor’s kids watched it, and he preached about how evil this stuff was from the pulpit. I guess they were allowed to watch when daddy was doing “research” for his sermons, right?

    I just broke the “no watching” rules anyway, and turned the sound down on the TV so my parents & sister didn’t know what I was watching. I loved all of those 80’s shows, and I certainly had no desire to worship the devil, or even practice spells. Eventually, my parents realized it was futile to ban everything and even they started to watch other shows that were “taboo”, like “The Simpsons” and “Married with Children”.

    Growing up fundy…a world of blatant contradictions!

  36. My mother was very strict about what we were and were not allowed to watch, thanks to this and other books on pop culture and the occult.

    Scooby Doo was evil and scary, as were the Smurfs. We were allowed to have My Little Pony but none of the unicorns or pegasus ones. Transformers were evil robots (never quite got that) and don’t get my mother started on He-Man or She-Ra and their satanic powers.

    We were allowed Cabbage Patch Kids because my siblings and I were all adopted and my parents thought it would help us understand the concept better.

    Our church preached against Halloween, Santa Claus, and the Easter Bunny, too. Many of my classmates at our fundy school didn’t have TVs in their homes. My mother threatened us repeatedly with the removal of the tube but my father wouldn’t let her throw it out (football and baseball). My mom’s solution was the “token system” in which each child was given an allotment of 14 poker chips, each of which represented a 1/2 hour of tv. Tokens were handed out on Sunday night and had to last the week. If we ran out before Saturday morning cartoons, we had to stay in our bedrooms reading.

    1. That’s actually pretty brilliant! I like the token idea for movie/gaming privileges!

    2. Yes, the token system sounds like a good idea to me.

      Separating “My Little Pony” toys into good ones and wicked ones seems a bit much.

      1. I liked unicorns and rainbows, but wasn’t allowed to collect either one because of them being “New Age.” Of course, it was amusing to get to BJU and find out that one of the girls’ societies had “Unicorns” as their mascot. (I didn’t join.)

        2. Um, no rainbows? It’s God’s covenant to us. I understand the gay community has taken it as their symbol, but it doesn’t change the meaning that God gave us. I love rainbows, my 7 year olds room is decorated in rainbows and camels. I debated decorating the babies room in rainbows as well, but she’s getting strawberries.

        3. The Bible talks about dancing and drinking wine and raising hands in prayer too, but fundies avoid all those because of people they don’t like because of associations so I’m not surprised when they give up the rainbow too. They shouldn’t though. They’re just so worried about failing to “avoid all appearance of evil”.

    3. My mother was successful in throwing out the TV. But my dad had his man cave in the unattached garage and had a little TV there so he could watch sports. It’s still there and my mom is the only one in the family that doesn’t know it’s there because she never goes in there. It’s a big joke in the family. He even has a big anntenae coming out of the garage cammoflaged by some trees.

      1. I think I’m developing a man crush on your dad! If you haven’t seen it, you need to go buy/rent/netflix “Whip It” with Ellen Page TODAY! The secret TV in the mancave for sports will have you rolling on the floor!

  37. Fundys should support saturday morning cartoons for the following reasons.

    1. The heathen bus kids will be at home watching TV when the holy bus workers show up.
    2. The church could take out TV ads for the bus ministry.
    3. The cartoons are not on Sunday when the church bus shows up.
    4. It is easier to convince the heathen bus kids that they are in sin.

  38. Oh, I have to add, I watched a lot of Monty Python, Blackadder, and Are You Being Served as a kid, too. Those shows are all British and rather risque, if not blatantly “immoral” at times. Because, however, my parents couldn’t understand the British accent and had no idea what the characters were saying, I got away with it. I will never forget the first time I saw The Ministry of Silly Walks. It still brings a tear to my eye :mrgreen:

    1. I’m amazed at how well Monty Python has aged. Those shows were made in the early 1970s, and they just seem to get funnier with each passing year.

      For people my age, you just need to mention the Spanish Inquisition, the Ministry of Silly Walks, the dead parrot, the Cheese Shop, or any of dozens of other such motifs, to crack us up all over again.

      2. NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!

        I went and rewatched that on youtube yesterday and a few other clips. I don’t think I had seen the ministry of silly walks before. Good stuff!

      3. “If you hadn’t nailed ‘im to the perch e’d be pushin’ up daises!!”

  41. Love the pix of the Thundercats dude on there. My family was unFundy for the first six years of my life, so I (gulp) watched Thundercats, He Man, Smurfs, and all manner of other evil shows until we learned they were bad. It was really fun when I was at Fundy U to mention one of those shows and watch my roommates go into twitches.

  42. What may I ask is Strawbubuh buhbuhbberry Shortcake doing lumped into that photo? She can’t possibly be satanic? Can someone explain?

    1. IDK what it was, but I know for a fact that I let the fundies preaching against JEM trick me into watching some episodes as a 12yo. I was deeply offended not at the “horrible glorification of rock star life style” or whatever the fundies criticized. I was pissed they reverse phych’ed me into watching a GIRL CARTOON! BLEH! Who likes girls shows/cartoons! 🙂

      1. Ok ok you just hadda go there with JEM. I was too old by the time that was on to be intrigued but my younger sisters liked it.
        JEM was kinda punk, you could still retain your masculinity after having watched, no?

        Strawberry Shortcake OTOH is just prissy! 🙂

        1. Fortunately I never had anyone preach against Strawberry Shortcake. I still consider JEM to be a shameful TV admission from me. 🙂

  43. What about Josie and the Pussycats? Were those chicks hot or what while in those costumes? And what cute tails they had? 😀

  44. …to those “preachers” against cartoons I only have one thing to say-
    SMURF YOU!

  45. As a child of the late 50s I found the 80s cartoons (my childrens, era) totally disgusting. I mean, they took Yogi Bear, Oggi Doggie and Doggie Daddy. Snagle Puss, ect. , each great stand alone cartoons and put them in the same REALLY lame cartoon. Not to mention no Johnny Quest or the great live action My Friend Flicka, Sky King, and Roy Rogers.

    1. Oh, I was a huge fan of Johnny Quest back in the day.

      I can’t really watch it now (it was pretty racist, for one thing), but it played a huge part in my fantasy life for a while.

  46. I remember Turmoil in the Toybox. My parents owned both the first and second one. It scared the pants off me. Literally. I had to put my pants back on.

  48. As a young 3rd grader at Hyles Elementary, I was made to cover my Star Wars Empire Strikes Back lunch box with contact paper.

    1. Horrors! I so wanted a cool lunchbox like all the other kids. I would sit and stare at them all at lunch time and covet. Being good Christians, my parents shunned anything popular or in fashion. I got a brown tupperware lunchbox or plain brown bags. Now, I sport a lunch box collection in my kitchen, shadows of a childhood denied.

  49. “some excerpts from the book Turmoil in the Toybox (PDF 4MB) by Phil Phillips”

    What is George W. Bush doing in that toybox with a gun? In a green jumpsuit, no less?

  50. I can remember when my parents got into the fundy cult. Suddenly, all the toys they had given me, all the cartoons I liked, and all the books I read were sinful. My parents and teachers made me feel ashamed for having them.

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