Except that one afternoon.....
when I heard a blood-curtling, somebody-is-torturing my child kind of scream coming from the living room. I ran out, my heart racing, to find little Zane hiding beneath his pillow and, through his sobs, repeating "I don't like Corny! I don't like Corny!"
Corny? What? Huh? I looked over at the television and saw that Mr. Rogers was visiting the Neighborhood of Make Believe, where one of the residents just happened to be Cornflake Especially (AKA "Corny"--the 'thing' on Mr. Rogers right hand).
You have to admit he IS a bit creepy, no?Zane, now 11, will laugh at that story today... but in that kind of laugh that says--"yeah, that was hilarious, but you STILL better not make me look at that puppet!"
Anyway,
with that being my history, I about rolled off my chair when I came across a poem about Corny this week. Enjoy.....
II. I'M A MAN WHO MANUFACTURES
I'm some sort of gopher or mole.
Cornflake Especially.
A Midwestern Conglomerate.
A puppet. A magnate.
I own a factory.
I make chairs.
I look a bit like Jimmy Carter, but it's the 70's, so it's easy to say that.
I'm a man who manufactures chairs. And everywheres.
There's a song about it.
I fight with community members (puppets) who are not productive:
the owl, the witch-lady, the king.
I may have fought with the king.
It's hard to be a post-industrial capitalist in a rather sloppy monarchy,
everyone named after the days of the week....
~Arielle Greenberg
Do you gals have a favorite Neighborhood of Make Believe memory (or as Henrietta Pussycat would say: meow, meow favorite meow, meow memory)?
28 comments:
I LOVED when Purple Panda would come from outer space for a visit, and I liked watching the way Lady Averline would do her hair and wear her peasant dresses. I liked Daniel Tiger too. But Corny scared me too :).
Poor kid!!! He scared me too actually. I remember so much. The "scariest" was when Prince Tuesday fell off a high tower (I think?). The other "lady" puppet with the red nose was creepy, the music when the purple pandas came on was creepy too. I loved that opera singer guy who came on and sang with Lady A - I always thought they would fall in love and get married. Was it Robert Goulet? I think my favs were the owl and the cat. Oh wait I LOVED the platypus family!!!
red-nosed puppet was Lady Elaine Fairchild if I remember right. And her museum-go-round that sometimes could fly around. I wonder if Mr. Rogers was a sober man when he thought all that up :)?!
My bean watched MRN. When he was 3 1/2 he pointed his tiny little finger at his grandpa, summoned up his best Lady Elaine Fairchild and said, "LISTEN TOOTS! If I want it to happen I just throw my boomerang, soomerang, toomerang and it happens!"
I swear I will never forget the look on my dad's face. Priceless. Absolutely priceless. I must admit she was my favorite when I was a kid. She was scrappy!
Oh wow I miss Mr Rogers. I think my favorite was....Lady Elaine, sometimes, but her voice bugged me. I also liked the queen and Lady Aberlin, and Mr. MeFeely!
The good old days!
I loved the land of make-believe and i always wanted to see inside all those little houses, especially Henrietta's.
To say that Corny is creepy is putting it mildly. Zane was completely right.
that is so funny - based on the fact that now all childrens things are so realistic...you're right - creepy. Back then, we didn't think anything of it because it's all we had with Sesame Street and I remember vividly coming home from Kind, and watching it with my bologna and ketchup sandwich... :)
I loved Mr Rogers! I teared up when Lula did her little tribut to him on her blog. I loved Corny and Purple Panda and the Platapus's (especially when they had the new baby), but my favorite thing was Picture Picture and the crayon factory.
My favorite was the train that took us in and out of the land of make-believe. But I have to say that my favorite part of Mr. Roger's was always the little educational clips on how stuff was made. I still remember the crayon episode. Good stuff. Except my kids always hated Mr. Rogers and would never watch it. Guess he was too old-fashioned for them. By the way, intersting pick of a name for me. Jocelyn is my aunt's name and James is my dad's. Funny. (Naturally I would be the "Saint" between the two! :) )
I was a little freaked out by Lady Elaine's nose. Someone went way overboard with the rouge. Wasn't there an owl that lived in a tree? And I always wanted to have tea with the king and queen. I liked it when Mr. Rogers fed the fish and when the mailman came with a package. And I remember that by the time Mr. Rogers changed his shoes and put on his coat, it was usually dinner time for me. Random. Very random memories.
I SO loved Mr. Rogers! I remember sitting with my now 11yo Gabe and watching him figure out that the switch for the trolley was right under Mr. R's seat. You would've thought he had discovered mom and dad are Santa. It was a big A-Ha! I got you Mr. Rogers, you can't fool ME no more!
Why can't there be more nice calm shows like that for our children now?
My favorite thing was when Mr. Rogers went into the kitchen and got out the little miniature models of the houses in the LOMB, and we would go there that way, rather than Trolley going through the tunnel in the living room.
Yeah.
loved that.
You KNOW? I just wasn't that into Mr. Rogers, but I DID watch him nonetheless.
The thing I liked watching the most was seeing if he could "make it" through his opening song without making a mistake getting dressed. He would sometimes not make it. His shoes would not be completely tied by the end of his song. My six year old stomach would be in knots while I cheered for him. I eyed his fingers going smoothly, or not so smoothly, zipping his sweater and tying those shoe laces.
"Hurry, hurry!" I would say in my mind.
As I grew up, I remember the first time I noticed that the train didn't come out of his tunnel all by itself, that it was actually controlled by Mr. Rogers!
"How could I have missed that all of these years!?"
I could see how Corny could haunt ones dreams! HA! I was personally a bit shocked when I found out the Mr. Rodgers did ALL the voices in the neighborhood of make-believe... I then listened closely and sure enough, it was him!
Poor little guy. One of my kids ran, terrified, from a guy dressed up as a piece of pizza. Pretty benign, but to him it was horrible.
I LOVE that poem.
I just loved Mr. Rogers. When I was surrounded by small children and all the insanity that can come from that when you don't have outlets, he spoke words of therapy to me. I think he would have been so boring to live with, but what a kind man. Genuinely good and gentle and kind.
That is hilarious!
My nephew had a similar experience with the sparkly "X" they had dancing around on Sesame Street.
I loved Mr. Rogers, what a sweet man. (I think he was a Presbyterian minister) He may have delved into the spirits while thinking some of that stuff up, who knows. I loved Daniel the tiger, he seemed sweet. Corny, yes CREEPY...but still not as creepy as D.J. Lance from Yo Gabba Gabba. (Freak of Nature I tell ya)
I also liked the trolly and how it came out of the wall.
I vaguely remember watching Mr Rogers--I was more of a Sesame Street fan...and I remember when Mr Snuffleupagus was FINALLY going to prove he was real by going on a trip with everyone---but he was late and got left behind. I cried! Also, as a little girl (3-4 years old) I had an imaginary flock of baby ducks that followed me everywhere. I had to put sweaters on all of them before we could go outside to run errands. My mom was a saint to indulge my little mother heart every. single. time.
Henrietta Pussycat was my favorite! I would talk like her all day long, which was probably not my mom's favorite.
Serious nightmares about Lady Elaine. Damn, that puppet was ugly.....
I always thought that guy was a little creepy!
That puppet is CREEPY! I don't remember much about that stuff-maybe I blocked it out!
You totally made me LOL when I was reading this post. I added you to my blog roll, I hope you don't mind!
I loved the musicals they would do in Make-Believe land every once in awhile...like the one that included a scam of selling air in aerosol cans? And bubbles?
There is something to be said for the relaxing pace - kids will either be drawn in or turned off, I guess.
i am laughing...out loud!!! this was good stuff! i have to think of something!!
That whole neighorhood creeped me out!!!
Oh that is too funny! And he is really really creepy -- as all wooden puppets are. I don't have any real memories of Mr. Rogers as our TV broke when I was small and my parents never replaced it for 10 years -- thereby depriving me of valuable pop culture touchstones.
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