Sideways Stories from Wayside School Books

Children have a certain knack for appreciating the bizarre and unusual. While adults are quick to question and doubt, children have always embraced the silliness with open arms. That's probably why looking back fondly at the oddball books and cartoons that used to entertain us often reveals them to be totally and completely insane.

The Wayside School series by Louis Sachar is a prime example of this type of endearing strangeness. While our adult selves may wonder what sort of drugs he was taking and where we can get some, our inner (well, at the time, outer) children lapped up his unending creativity and originality. To kids, things don't need to make sense. Not everything requires a logical explanation. Things can be zany, wacky, madcap, and other corny adjectives as well.

Wayside School was certainly a place all its own. Built sideways, the school mistakenly ended up with 30 floors with one classroom each rather than one floor with 30 classrooms. There is, however, no 19th story. In Sideways Stories from Wayside School, Chapter 19 reads: "19. Miss Zarves---There is no Miss Zarves. There is no nineteenth story. Sorry."


In the introduction to Sideways Stories from Wayside School, Sachar helpfully offers:

"It has been said that these stories are strange and silly. That is probably true. However, when I told stories about you to the children at Wayside, they thought you were strange and silly. That is probably also true."

As a child, I was fully sold after reading that introduction. In my book (yet to be published, nowhere near the towering fame of Wayside School), Louis Sachar was a brilliant author. He truly tapped in to the way kids think, and threw it back at any adults that may be reading along with tongue-in-cheek humor that could be enjoyed by readers of all ages. The overall message was, yes, these stories are completely absurd, but we're all strange in our own ways. Silliness should be celebrated, not repressed. After all, that's what makes kids kids. Otherwise they'd be adults, who we all know to be terribly dull and boring.




The first installment of the Wayside School books was published in 1978, meaning an expansive 11 years passed between release of the first and second books*. For condensation (in time, not moisture) and relevance's sake, let's delve into the 1989 title Wayside School is Falling Down. As the book is made of 30 loosely interconnected chapter, I have chosen a few to share with you today. I've even thrown in a handy "moral of the story" to enhance the story's applicability to you today:


Chapter 1: A Package for Mrs. Jewls

Thank heaven for kindly, sweet-faced Mrs. Jewls who replaced the tyrannical Mrs. Gorf in the original Sideways Stories. Mrs. Gorf had a penchant for zapping children into apples, so pretty much anyone below the meanness threshold of fascist dictator would have been welcomed graciously. Sure, Mrs. Jewls thought they were all monkeys for awhile, but overall she meant pretty well. For an inane fictional character, that is.

In "A Package for Mrs. Jewls", Louis the yard teacher claims to be Mrs. Jewls and accepts a package on her behalf. It should probably be noted that that Sachar neatly inserted himself into the stories, basing the Louis character on his own experiences as a playground teacher. Anyway, so this amalgam of the real and fictional Louises takes special care with the package as it is marked with numerous warnings of fragility. After lugging the enormous box up thirty flights of stairs, Louis breathlessly opens the box to reveal a shiny new computer.

The kids whine and resist, saying that the computer will speed up their learning and make more work for them. Mrs. Jewls objects, saying the computer will help them learn. She proceeds to push the computer out the window. After it smashes violently to the ground, she announces "That's Gravity!"

Moral of the story: If you're having a rough day at work, perhaps your office-mates would enjoy a good lesson in gravity. After you've read your daily installment of Children of the 90s, of course.

The real Louis (author Louise Sachar), who we can only assume has never carried a computer up 30 flights of stairs. Image via randomhouse.com

2. Mark Miller

Benjamin Nushmutt is a new student joining the wacky thirtieth floor class. Without provocation or just cause, Mrs. Jewls incorrectly introduces Benjamin as Mark Miller. Too timid to correct a teacher, Benjamin/Mark lets it slide. Unfortunately, by the time Benjamin musters the courage he is afraid she'll think him strange for not pointing out the mistake sooner. Benjamin adjusts to being called Mark and assumes the Mark Miller persona. Later in the book his efforts to come clean about his real name are acutely thwarted, though we do eventually meet the real Mark Miller.

Moral of the story: When you tire of your current personality, feel free to try another on for size. Particularly if you have a last name with the non-musical garblings of Nushmutt.



3. A Bad Case of the Sillies/A Wonderful Teacher

In these two stories, Allison (the only seemingly normal child at Wayside) mysteriously finds herself on the nonexistent nineteenth floor, home of Mrs. Zarves' classroom. Mrs. Zarves even-crazier students consist of Virginia (a 30-something who has never heard of a bathroom), teenage Nick, Ray Gunn (Bebe's made-up little brother), a cow, and the real Mark Miller. Unluckily for Mark Miller, everyone inexplicably keeps calling him Benjamin Nushmutt.


Moral of the story: If Seinfeld can have Bizarro Jerry, Benjamin Nushmutt can certainly have his Mark Miller. You may now freely assume that you too have a perfect opposite/evil twin somewhere out there.


4. Mush

Miss Mush is Wayside's school cook, whose most popular dish ("nothing") is in such high demand that she is always running out of it. She prepares her signature Mushroom Surprise, though no one knows exactly what the surprise is. The only person who ever eats Mushroom Surprise is Louis. Ron mans up and takes a bite, only to find that the surprise is that you immediately fall in love with the first person you see. Surprise! It's his teacher.

Moral of the story: If you ever are dining out and happen to run into JTT or Britney Spear circa 1999, feel free to dish out the Mushroom Surprise. You won't regret it. Unless, of course, it turns out to be Britney circa 2008. Then you're pretty SOL.



Who says reading for enjoyment can't be educational? The next time you hear someone make a statement like that, simply take a page from the Wayside books and call them a mugworm griblick. That'll show 'em.


*The series also includes the equally humorous 1995 Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, which is totally worthy of a full-scale examination that I don't have the time or space to provide.


*Oh, and they recently made a Wayside TV series that I'm sure if I watched, my imagination would automatically shrivel, die, and retreat. Hence it will not be covered in this post


Ooh! Read some Wayside Stories online with Google Books!

Sideways Stories

Wayside School is Falling Down

Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger

From Humble Beginnings: Before They Were (Animated) Stars

A funny thing happened to cartoons in the 90s. While once relegated exclusively for the mindless enjoyment of children, in the 1990s a new breed of animated series emerged with decidedly adult content. TV producers took the basic premise of the animated series and morphed it into a viable means of conveying grown-up themes and humor. These weren't your mother's cartoons. Or perhaps more accurately, they were.

Adult-geared cartoons flourished, and many of these series had long and fruitful runs far outstripping their initial potential. In fact, some of these shows continue to churn out new episodes today, though their adherence to original standards is ultimately questionable. Mind you, what we are about to delve into is a brief smattering of 90s adult cartoons and is by no means intended to represent the full canon. It does, however, represent part of the spark of the novel idea.

Nowadays, blocks of grown-up-geared cartoons air frequently on FOX or Cartoon Network's Adult Swim; if anything, the concept has gotten a smidgen tired. Back in the mid-to-late 90s, however, the concept was but a twinkle in the animators' eyes. The idea was just beginning to bud, and the craftsmanship was at best on the shoddy side. The underlying goal, however, was solid: to bring entertainment to an older audience using animation. Depending on your age at the time of their release. you may have enjoyed or misunderstood these cartoons. Either way, I think we can all agree that a lot has changed since their initial episodes.




The Simpsons

The Simpsons premiered on the Tracey Ullman Show in 1987, though its format was far from the smoothly drawn HD-TV Simpsons of today. The Simpsons began as a series of one-minute shorts focusing on a decidedly dysfunctional family.

Observe, the 16th short from the Tracey Ullman Show:



Sure, it's mildly amusing, but it's hard to believe that this meager offering evolved into a monstrous franchise spanning over 20 years. Obviously the Simpsons had a long way to go before achieving its immense popularity. Incredibly, all of the main character's original voice actors continue to perform their same roles. How's that for job security?




South Park

Though nowhere near as long-running as The Simpsons, South Park still boasts cartoon longevity running on its 13th season. When it premiered on Comedy Central in 1997, it was received as crude, juvenile, foul-mouthed, and dark. Critics noted the sharp contrast between the cute, innocent appearance of the characters and the filth that emanated from their poorly animated mouths. South Park was the first weekly TV series to receive the TV-MA rating, indicating it's intention of reaching mature audiences only. Depending on your definition of mature, this maturity was definitely open to interpretation.

In 1992, Matt Stone and Trey Parker produced the first ever South Park Short, The Spirit of Christmas: Jesus vs. Frosty. The film was presented at a student student film screening at their then-place of higher learning, University of Colorado. Though very, very rudimentary, the characters are shockingly similar to their current forms. They even have a "Oh my God! You killed Kenny!" sequence, only the Kenny in question later becomes the episodic Cartman.


Spirit of Christmas: Jesus vs. Frosty:


In 1995, with a slightly bigger budget, Stone and Parker produced a second Christmas short at the personal request of a FOX executive. It soon became one of the first viral videos, eventually catching the attention of Comedy central and prompting the initial discussion of the series.

The Spirit of Christmas, 1995 version: Jesus vs. Santa:


The actual pilot episode (shown below in its entirety, if you're into that kind of thing) is entitled "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe." Cute, right? Though many of us would hardly bat an eye over this today, at the time of its release it was pretty envelope-pushing.


more movies at www.miloop.com




Family Guy

I'm sure I'll be burned at the proverbial stake for my heathenry, but I am ready to admit that I have lost interest in the new Family Guy episodes as of late. Pardon me for not worshiping at the feet of the great MacFarlane, but I don't find it particularly funny anymore. It's gotten so gimmicky, it's forgotten its initial, truer, lighter gimmickiness. Okay, so maybe that's a bit confusing, but I promise there is some sort of sense buried in that statement somewhere. After all, I used to be a pretty dedicated fan during the DVD era.

Family Guy is a series that has been through innumerable phases and reformulations. In fact, the animated short that eventually became the series was not Family Guy at all but rather The Life of Larry. Life of Larry featured a slovenly middle-aged man named Larry, his wife Lois (I think we can all see where this is going), his son Milt, and his talking dog Steve. If you watch the short below, you'll see that the animation and character style is distinctly different, but the jokes do get recycled into later Family Guy episodes. I guess some jokes are just too good to waste.


Life of Larry (1995):

I will admit I find it pretty funny when Seth MacFarlane says, "Oh, hi there. You scared the crap out of me."

MacFarlane created a second Larry short, Larry and Steve, for Cartoon Network a year or so later:



The Family Guy pilot came a few years later (see clip below). If you're a fan, you may recognize it as a more crappily-animated version (with a few differences) of the 1999 premiere episode, Death Has a Shadow. As you can probably gather, the characters and flow differ pretty significantly from the current version:









Futurama

From the creators of the Simpsons, Futurama was a satirical science-fiction cartoon focusing on the life of Fry, a nebbishy pizza delivery guy who falls into a cryogenic freezer in 1999 only to be revived in the year 3000. Let me just clarify that Fry deserves our utmost 90s respect as he is voiced by Billy West, the man who brought us Doug Funnie, Roger Klotz, Stimpy, and the voices of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd in Space Jam. Now that's a 90s resume right there.

Fry and his distant relative Professor Farnsworth (along their robot, alien, and mutant misfit friends) start a shipping company called Planet Express. Over 2000 years, Fry evolved from delivery guy to...delivery guy. What a journey. The pilot is very set-up heavy as the premise of the show is fairly complicated, but if you stuck with it for awhile there were certainly payoffs. Now is probably also a good time to mention that Comedy Central recently ordered 26 new episodes of Futurama set to air in 2010. Set your phone calendar alarms, people, this is going to be big.

Clip from Space Pilot 3000, the Futurama pilot episode:






Daria

I know, I know, Daria was aimed at teens more than adults, but as my favorite cartoon ever I've made the executive decision to place it on this master list. I was in middle school and high school during Daria's run and just toeing the waters of sarcasm, so Daria really spoke to me on an "it's okay to be irreverent, rude, and brutally honest" kind of way. In short, Daria was my kind of girl, though significantly ballsier and more anti-social.

Or rather, in long. In the full-length episodes, we get a well-rounded picture of Daria with all of her character traits and flaws. In the pilot short, however, we get just an eensy taste of the sarcasm to come. As the Daria character premiered on Beavis and Butthead, the pilot short represented the transition from secondary character to star of the show. The show's creator's wanted to pitch the Daria series as completely separate from the juvenile lowbrow humor of B&B and thus sought to emphasize Daria's more biting wit and intelligence in the short. It's by no means as fleshed-out as the actual series (both literally and figuratively, as the pilot was done with crude animation in black and white), but you can gather the general idea:




The 90s showed us that animation geared toward more mature (age-wise) audiences was both a viable and worthwhile enterprise. You have to admire the enduring nature of these series: South Park and The Simpsons are still on the air, and Futurama and Family Guy both did so well in DVD sales and syndication that they were revived from the depths of cancellation hell. Now if only Viacom would see fit to release the Daria* DVDs, all would be right in the 90s cartoon world.


Hint: You can, however, watch the episodes online here. Just between you and me.

Magic Nursery Dolls

Disclaimer: To all of you male readers out there, I promise there will be some chest-thumpingly testosterone-filled posts coming up soon. I assure you, it's not all baby dolls and flounce here at Children of the 90s. Some brusque masculinity will be coming right up, pronto.

Magically, the Puppy Surprise post from a few days back garnered so much unprompted discussion of Magic Nursery Babies that I felt compelled to further examine their existence in their very own full-length post. See? You spoke, I listened. It's fun how it works like that. Unless I don't like your idea, that is. Luckily, though, this one is a winner. Bravo, readers. Bravo.

In toy production as in warfare, your most important strategy is the element of surprise. If the surprise can involve some scale of sorcery, well, then all the better. Children's awe and amazement is fairly easy to obtain: simply present to them something that defies their expectations, and wait for the temper tantrums begging parental spending to begin.

In 1990, the Mattel Corporation had a few such magic tricks up its sleeve with which to woo both children and toy retailers alike. Behold, from a 1990 New York Times article on the great unveil of Magic Nursery Babies at a retailer toy fair:

"With a wave of her silver wand, a fairy princess wearing a sparkling pink gown and tiara opened the mirrored portal known as the Magic Door. Inside was the Magic Nursery, a room decorated in spare-no-expense style, with soft lighting, plush pink carpeting and white lace."

In the center of the room stood a group of about a dozen middle-age men, all dressed in dark business suits. Like a religious sect reciting ancient prayers, they were chanting in a deep, solemn tone.

''Love is magic,'' they said in unison. ''Love is magic. Love is magic.''

[. . .]The group in the Magic Nursery was watching a demonstration of Mattel Toys' Magic Nursery doll, one of more than 6,000 new toys on display. As the men obeyed a saleswoman's command to keep up their chant, they stared at a baby doll's dressing gown that had been immersed in a bowl of water. Suddenly, the gown vanished, leaving behind a waterproof bag containing a frilly dress for the doll. The retailers erupted with ''oohs'' and ''aahs,'' responses that hovering Mattel executives hoped would translate into signatures on order forms."

While usually I enjoy speculating on what tipping point of craziness put ridiculous 90s toys on the shelves, in this case I don't have to. This is an actual account of the initial Magic Nursery Baby demonstration. Let me be the first to say, this is absolutely insane. There, I said it. Middle-aged men in business suits chanting cultishly, "Love is magic" is above and beyond any absurd toy pitches I could have dreamed up. I admit, the trick is pretty impressive, but the chanting errs on the side of totally and irrepressibly creepy.

"Love is magic," was the mantra of the Magic Nursery Babies. According to Mattel lore, if you chanted this mysterious incantation while swirling your doll's dressing gown in water, you could conjure an informative packet containing valuable and pertinent information about your latest doll acquistion. Oh, and an outfit! Mainly an outfit. See for yourself:

I especially love the little girl who hugs the baby doll maniacally, exclaiming, "I'm your magic nursery mommy!" Her level of enthusiasm troubles me. Also, does anyone else as an adult get a little creeped out when they say, "Let's find out!" and begin undressing it? I do sort of like the implication that the only thing differentiating a boy or girl baby is hair and a dress, though.

Just imagine, in the late 80s teams of researches and scientists slaved laboriously over Bunsen burners and graduated cylinders. They worked tirelessly to formulate the chemical reactions necessary to bring us these Magic Nursery Babies. The country's best and brightest weren't all tied up researching vaccines and medical treatments; some were churning out dissoluble baby doll dressing gowns. While their peers were out there, day after day, bettering mankind, these guys really wanted to focus more on doll cheeks that responded to kisses. You know. For the kids.

I will be the first to concede that the trick is undeniably impressive. How do they do it? Where are they hiding this mysterious packet, and how does this sinkful of water unlock this mystery? The details are pretty hazy, but the response was clear. Children loved them. They could not get enough. Better yet for Mattel, kids had no inkling as to whether their doll was to be a boy or a girl. Hence 50% of the time, the kids wouldn't get what they wanted. Even if, say, only 30% of parents are complete suckers, it's still a 30% increase in return customers to appease screaming children.

The baby's gender was not the only surprise the Magic Nursery had in store for us. Additionally, we all had a one-in-thirty-six chance of our baby being a twin. Let me repeat that. A one-in-thirty-six-chance. Those are terrible, terrible odds. Either way, we were all fairly certain that when push came to shove, we'd probably be getting a twin. Unfortunately for our parents, most of us were very wrong.




Also, the twin thing was pretty anticlimactic. Your dissolving dressing gown's resultant packet would proclaim your baby twinned, and you could fill out a form and send it into the manufacturer, wait 8-10 business days from point of receipt, and eventually receive a second doll by mail. Children, by nature, are not especially patient creatures. By the time that twin gets there, it's pretty likely they'll already have abandoned its brother or sister in favor of a new toy.

Mattel must have known our enchantment with these babies (under the "Love is Magic" spell) wouldn't last forever, and quickly shoved into production other Magic Nursery Prototypes:



Magic Nursery Pets were pretty much the same thing, only with animals and a condensed TV commercial time slot. I imagine these were slightly confusing to children, though, as they imply that the only thing differentiating one animal from another is its ears. Somewhere down the road, one of these Magic Nursery Pet-owning kids will be in a biology lesson on evolution, raise her hand and ask bewilderedly, "But what about the ear pulling? Where does that factor in?"

Later incarnations brought forth a new slew of tricks: babies with eyes that open or close when ice cubes or warm water was applied, twins or triplets that could be bought as sets, "my first haircut", a choice of newborn or toddler dolls. Even with the newer models, these dolls were essentially one-trick ponies. The most exciting part happened when the doll was first opened, meaning everything from that point on was sort of a letdown. Either way, that one magical moment of swirling the dress in water and chanting, "Love is Magic", was pretty impressive, whether to a child or room full of middle-aged businessmen.