90s Live Action Movies Based on Cartoons

Have you ever been watching a cartoon and thought to yourself, "Huh, I wonder what these comically misshapen characters would look like in real life"? If so, then this next bunch is for you. Apparently movie studios believed this to be a relatively common ponderance in the 90s and supplied us with many, many live action movie versions of our cartoon favorites.

In some cases, they probably could have left the cartoon-to-real-life translation to the safer confines of our imagination, but there were a few breakout hits in the bunch. These may not have been Oscar contenders, but they were a fun bunch of family-friendly films. That's the best part about marketing movies toward kids: they like anything. Really. I walked past a screening of Old Dogs last week and heard rampant child laughter. Clearly not a sign of superior judgment and discerning taste.

Whether they struck a chord with audiences or bombed big time, the live action take on a cartoon was a pretty widespread phenomenon. Some of the most-watched examples include:

George of the Jungle



That's some catchy theme song, huh? We could probably lure children into theaters on the merit of this song. Parents, on the other hand, may feel a little differently when their child belts out "GEORGE! GEORGE! GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE!" for the two hundred and fifty first time.

The original cartoon ran for just 17 episodes in the late 1960s, so it wasn't exactly a long-running classic. The series featured a Tarzan-like protagonist comically matched with a far-smarter female mate and ape friend. In 1997, a live action version with the same name premiered, starring Brendan Fraser and Leslie Mann. Wait, what? Leslie Mann played Ursula in George of the Jungle? Where have I been? Obviously as a child I just wasn't attuned to pertinent future comedic references.

Brendan Fraser had already proved his prowess for playing a dimwit with limited linguistic capabilities in cult classic Encino Man, which remains one of my favorites despite conclusive evidence it's one of the worst movies ever made. As George, Fraser frolicks with his lap-elephant Shep and toucan Tookie Tookie while avoiding the advances of mysteriously evil hunters. He falls in love with city girl Ursula, and, well, that's a story for another post. Let's just say it amused many of us as children, but it might not hold up the test of time to us as adult viewers with sensible opinions.





The Flintstones



The animated Flintstones series ran for six years in the 60s, but continued to entertain many generations of children in syndication. For children of the 90s, the characters also promoted our beloved Pebbles-brand sugar cereal and amazing frozen push pops, so they weren't exactly a tough sell. They fed us sugar, and we loved them.

The original show was clever and full of cutesy puns and funny modern takes on historically inaccurate prehistoric life. The 1994 live action film version was not quite as witty, though it was a box office success. Looking back, this project was packed full of actors I didn't recognize at the time but that now I can't believe agreed to be a part of this. At the time, I recognized Rick Moranis (Barney) as that guy from Honey I Shrunk the Kids and Rosie O'Donnell (Betty) from A League of Their Own, but it went much further than that. We had John Goodman, who was probably meant to play Fred Flintstone on physique alone. The Flinstones also had Halle Berry, Kyle Maclachlan (you know, Trey from SATC and Orson from Desperate Housewives), Elizabeth Taylor, Jay Leno, Seinfeld's Michael Richards, the B-52s, and that big bald guy from Nightcourt. How did I miss all this?





Casper



The character Casper the Friendly Ghost goes way back. Like back to the 1930s back. The animated version first appeared in the 40s and was followed by a TV series a decade later. Casper was very popular in its day, but it wasn't a totally known quantity for 90s kids when the live-action version came out in 1995. To be fair, Casper in his ghost form was not played by a human actor, but by special effects computer animation. Or as it may have been known in 1995, magic.

In the movie, a woman inherits a spooky old manor from a deceased relative, which unbeknownst to them is haunted by Casper, Stinkie, Fatso, and Stretch. Casper sees Kat (Christina Ricci) and her father (Bill Pullman) the dead person's therapist (?) on TV and falls in love with the young girl. Kat and her dad come to the house, antics ensue, yada yada yada, Casper turns into Devon Sawa. Jackpot! I've never been so jealous of anyone as I was when Christina Ricci got to dance with Devon Sawa in this movie. Then again, he turns back into a ghost after that, so she gets sort of a raw deal.






Inspector Gadget



Somehow when I look at the cartoon Inspector Gadget, I don't automatically make the jump to Matthew Broderick. Never once have I been kicking back watching the old Inspector Gadget show and thought to myself, "You know who they should really get to play this guy? Ferris Bueller." Apparently critics agreed with me for the most part, as the movie was something of a flop. I liked it, but mostly just because my old friend Harriet the Spy (now known to me as Michelle Tratchenberg) played Penny and the gay fake fiancee from My Best Friend's Wedding (Rupert Everett) played the villainous Mr. Claw. The movie was so-so, but it didn't have the lighthearted bumbling appeal of the animated series. Broderick just didn't have the chin for it.





Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles


Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Intro

S.O.B. | MySpace Video

The plot of the comic book and animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is so incredibly complicated and insane, I can't even begin to explain it here (luckily, I've already explained it here, so just check that out for a refresher course if you're in need). In short, it features a group of adolescent mutant sewer-dwelling turtles with exceptional martial arts skills and a penchant for pizza. I don't know what these people were on when they came up with this idea, but I would have loved to be a fly on the wall at that meeting. Or, you know, just one of the meeting participants. That would probably be better and more realistically feasible than the fly route. If I had a Delorean going 88 mph, I mean. Otherwise that's just ridiculous.

TMNT was a runaway hit, so a live action film seemed the logical next step. The first film premiered in 1990 to mixed reviews, but moviegoers ate it up. It's pretty violent for a kid's movie, but it does stay pretty true to the comics and cartoon so it satiated most of its young fan base. The first may be lacking sequel's amazing Vanilla Ice song "Ninja Rap", but overall it wasn't too shabby.



Dennis the Menace



Dennis the Menace has been an immensely popular comic and cartoon character since the 50s, with numerous remakes in subsequent years. Dennis was a well-meaning all-American boy with a habit of getting himself into all sorts of adorable messes. The iconic John Hughes did the 1993 film version, and in many ways it all too closely resembled another of his hits, Home Alone. I mean, how many times can we watch a little blond kid tie up a bad guy? It's not exactly the kind of material you can use again and again. Walter Mattheau and Christopher Lloyd were pretty entertaining as Mr. Wilson and Switchblade Sam respectively, so we'll call it a wash.




Turning an cartoon into a live-action film is something of a gamble. Just because something is popular in one form doesn't necessarily mean it will translate well to a different media. In most of these cases, though, crowds went crazy for the films despite their being panned by critics.

Their aura of feel-good nostalgia may have been enough to hold our attention, even if more impartial critics classified them as glorified dreck. Sometimes the fantasy is better than the reality, though, so I'll gladly abandon my cynicism and revel in the fun of these movies. They may not be masterpieces, but they had a power over us all the same.

Pogs

What kind of a child wouldn't adore playing with stacks of bottle caps, delighting in making little wavering leaning towers of Pogsa and later bashing them with a heftier, weightier cap? It's such an attractive option, I can't imagine how it took us 60-odd years since the games conception to discover its true awesomeness. It may have had something to do with printing technology; Pogs featuring psychedelically colorful eight balls and yin yangs are far more attractive to children than plain old guava juice bottle lids. Still, though, we're just hurling a slightly bigger disc at a pile of smaller discs, so something tells me we as 90s children possessed the inherent trait of being incredibly easily amused. You just couldn't sell that to today's kid. They'd be bored out of their minds before you even got to the word "slammer."aa

Pogs quickly achieved cultural phenomenon status, hurdling onto the toy scene in the early 90s. Pog legend (and possibly some factual information I didn't have the initiative to confirm) has it that the game originated in the 1920s/30s era in Hawaii, using milk caps. Decades later, a teacher introduced the game to her students using lids from POG juice: Passion Fruit, Orange, Guava. Get it? Pog? I think you get it, I just wanted to double check.


Pog play is incredibly, almost deceptively simple. In retrospect it almost seems as if a part of the original instructions have been lost somewhere along the way; it's hard to believe this basic game not only held our rapt attention but also lay claim to great chunks of our allowance money and precious limited recess time. The players would build a stack of caps at least four high with all pogs facing down. There are variations, of course; in some games each player built their own stack, but generally it required some buy-in of one's own valued pogs into the high-stakes mix of potential pog loss to superior slammer wielder. Each player takes a turn hurdling the slammer at the stack, claiming the pogs that land upturned and returning the downturned pogs to the original stack.

In some cases, we would play simply for fun, allowing each player to reclaim his or her beloved pogs at the end of the game. In others, though, we were out for keeps. We had to be careful which of our most beloved pog designs we decided to throw into the mix; in many cases, other players would leave the game with their pockets or patented pog stack cases lined with our once-treasured designs. It was sort of gambling 101 for children, and most of us were about three slammer throws away from needing a 12-step program. Each throw felt like this would be our chance to claim our neighbor's rarest and most valuable pog holding, but in most cases the house won and we were SOL. It's hard to look cool when all that remains in your pog case are the reject kitten and education-themed designs. Who's going to want to slam that?

If your memory fails to summon the high-stakes intensity of the game, just watch the following commercial. It will tell you all you need to know about just how hardcore 90s kids were about their pog play. Filled with semi-subliminal messages like "Wanna Play Gotta Play Above All," it's a frightening insight into the level of serious we invested in our pog collecting and gaming.



Pogs and their heavier, more potentially injury-inflicting counterparts Slammers established a ubiquitous presence on playgrounds and in classrooms everywhere. Schools called foul on the game, declaring it a soft form of gambling. Many school districts issued bans on the seemingly innocuous toys, declaring their "playing for keeps" nature to promote unhealthy and immoral gambling habits. Pogs soon went the way of the slap bracelet, reduced to underground, rule-defying secret game play.

The majority of parents pooh-poohed the schools' claims; the pogs weren't inherently dangerous and to many it seemed a reasonable alternative to TV and video games. Kids, after all, do have some inherent right to be kids, no matter how firmly schools push to eliminate it. In the schools' defense, though, they did have some grounds for banning on the same level of the later Tamagotchi craze: these things were distracting. It was tough to convince our teachers the slamming of a large disc into a pile of smaller discs was educational in its own right. Displacement? Physics? I'm still working on a viable explanation. I'm still meaning to get back to my second grade teacher on that one.

The game became so popular that manufacturers were scrambling to get their images plastered onto cardboard discs, releasing a horde of licensed designs and highly coveted collectible pogs onto the skyrocketing game scene. Soon fast food joints were offering pogs alongside children's meals, sports teams issued baseball card-esque designs, and even religious organizations sought to promote their moral messages on these ever more visible youth-accessible miniature billboard space. All types of licensed images found their way onto the fronts of pogs, giving a wide variety of kid-friendly enterprises an entirely new vehicle through which to promote their franchises.


Granted, some of the cross-promotional morally conscious pog marketing got a bit out of hand. While it might be cool to have a pog or two with some deeper meaning, many of the pog producing organizations sought to use the fad as a platform for their mission statement. Groups like anti-drug education program DARE and the US Environmental Protection Agency were soon printing pogs by the stackful, their well-meaning capitalization on a trend sucking a reasonable amount of the fun out of the game.

Like any good childhood fad, as soon as adults get too involved in utilizing the phenomenon to their benefit, it sends a message to kids that its trendiness is on the way out. Once adults have embraced a trend with the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" attitude, kids' internal coolness radar alerts them it's probably time to find a new favorite pastime. Beanie Babies, anyone?

Bop It

Bop it!




Twist it!





Pull it!




Bop it!

Twist it!

Pull it!


Bop it!
Twist it!
Pull it!

Bopit!Twistit!Pullit!

Bop it was endless hours of fun. Well, endless hours of preoccupation. Okay, maybe just endless hours sacrificed to almighty commander, Bop it.

In the 1990s, parents, teachers, and toy-makers must have sat down and had a meeting. "Kids just aren't obedient enough," the adults probably lamented. "They're always going outside to play and they refuse to sit still and obey our persistent two-word-followed-by-exclamation-point commands."

How could we solve this conundrum of noncompliance?

Bop it.

The notion that the original toy, featuring only three functions, could hold the attention span of an eight-year old is a somewhat baffling one. The toy was essentially the at-home version of the doctor's office knee-jerk reflex test. A small audio system embedded within an oblong piece of plastic would issue forceful, pleasantry-free commands instructing the player on which function to manipulate.

"Bop it!" the machine would urge. And we would comply, locating the bop-centric button and bopping accordingly.

"Twist it!" the contraption would prompt. And so we diligently twisted, maneuvering the crank.

"Pull it!" the device would insist. And so we pulled, slightly dislocating the handle on the opposite side.

That was it. I mean, that was it. The entire toy. Sure, it started slow and gradually built speed in its commands, but that was the whole shebang. If nothing else, Bop it taught the wrenching pains of stress and mounting pressure to perform onto young, unsuspecting children. Our hearts would beat quickly, our blood pressure would soar; to examine our physiological response you would think that we were experiencing extreme anxiety over a big boardroom presentation or an impending job promotion.

Like its similarly (though slightly more enthusiastically) titled 90s toy cousin, the Skip it!, the main objective that kept us sadistically coming back for more was the personal best scoring function. On an aside, it seems that at this time, Hasbro's marketing team was padded with semi-literate foreigners with a limited vocabulary and a penchant for profuse punctuation. Let us briefly envision a marketing meeting at Hasbro in the 1990s:

Marketing Director: Alright people, we've got two new toys to name.
Team Member: What do they do?"
MD: Well, one you have to bop and the other you have to skip.
TM: Great, we've got our first words. Could we possibly identify them by definitive, meaningful pronouns?
MD: No, no, I think we should go with "it". Gender neutral, flexible meaning. The feminists will go wild for it.
TM: Okay, so can we leave it at that? Bop it and Skip it?
MD: It seems to lack a certain pizazz...it needs some punctuation to punch it up a bit.
TM 1: Question Mark?
TM 2: Semi Colon?
TM 3: Ellipse?
MD: We're not quite there...
TM 4: Exclamation Mark? But only for the Skip it, let's not push our luck.
MD: Bingo! Team member 4, you've been promoted to head of the Hasbro toy naming department. Ingenious!

But again, I digress. Bop it may have been simple and exclamation-point-free, but it did have a certain charm. It was endlessly frustrating in an encouraging, self-improving way. Bop it (at least the early, non-sellout model) was refreshingly simple and required a great deal of concentration. This was Simon for the colorblind, whack-a-mole for the vegetarians. For every 10 points a player earned, Bop it would give you a congratulatory burst of audio and bragging rights to lightning-quick albeit unnecessary reflexes. The Bop it knew better than to let us become big-headed from our victories, though. For every mistake, the Bop it would cackle maniacally at your general ineptness. It was certainly humbling, if a little cruel.

Of course, as our generation evolved into miniature multi-taskers, so too did the Bop it evolve and betray its original design and develop into a more mature "extreme" version of itself.





Though not completely true to tradition, the Bop it Extreme had its high points. Just imagine, now you could also spin it! And flick it! How did they ever achieve this brilliant feat of engineering?

In a crazy twist of toy-naming fate, Hasbro's latest rendering of the Bop it toy (scheduled for a 2009 release) is a throwback to the Hasbro of the 90s and their distinct brand of earnestness and zeal that so defined their work. The new 2009 version of the Bop it will be called...

Wait for it...

Wait for it...

BOP IT!

With an exclamation point.

Sorry Marketing Team Member 4.

You're fired.

What Would You Do?

If you ever really need to know the answer to a question, here's a little tip from Nickelodeon circa 1991: lead in with a question word remixed on repeat. You may not find out what you would do, but you certainly have a better chance of ascertaining what what what you would do. You know. If faced with some sort of slime/pie type situation. The usual.

Yes, early 90s-era Nickelodeon was full of these handy tidbits of unconventional wisdom. Like their penchant for placing a germ-phobic obsessive-compulsive as host in not just one but two television shows whose underlying purposes were to cause disgusting uncontainable messes. Perhaps it was to Nickelodeon's credit that a hosting gig on their network was so highly coveted that even those with a disordered need for extreme constancy and cleanliness were willing to overlook their most basic anti-mess instincts. Not just any network held the power to persuade Marc Summers at the height of his inner OCD torment to host a show with the words "Super Sloppy" in the title.

Fortunately for Marc Summers, What Would You Do? was somewhat toned-downed in the super sloppy department in comparison to its sister show, Double Dare. I'm not sure this granted him any reprieve, but at least he was allowed a few brief moments of filming during which he was not coated head-to-toe in gooey green slime.



What Would You Do? was another of those magical Nickelodeon shows for which there was no reasonable explanation or justification. Children of the 90s, specifically those who grew up in a house with a cable TV hookup, were generally passionate about nonsensical programming. Nickelodeon demonstrated time and time again that they truly understood what kids were about; they managed to strike the perfect balance between recognizing the simplicity of entertaining children and not insulting their intelligence.

They also had a serious fixation on pies.

For some reason as of yet to be publicly declared and documented, the show included innumerable pie-themed features. While possibly derived from the original pie-in-the-face slapstick gag, What Would You Do? was determined to take this gimmick as far as whipped cream could possibly be flung. No pie stunt was too farfetched for this game show/interactive audience/wacky stunt television mash-up. Usually these pie shenanigans were tied to some sort of competition, but the reasoning was loose at most. There was no shortage of pie-centric hijinks, including but not limited to:

The Pie Slide
Sometimes, a straightforward name is best. The pie slide was, well, a pie slide. Contestants braved a regulation playground slide that culminated in an enormous vat of pie. Thankfully, they had the option of a head-first or feet-first dive. Full pie immersion ensued.



The Pie Pod
There's nothing like sitting in a chair, being covered with an enormous saran wrap-style tarp, and pelted directly with multiple pies, the number of which was based upon helpful audience input. Also popular was the Crowning Glory feature, which dropped additional pie on the participant's head.



The Pie Coaster
See Pie Slide. Replace "slide" with "coaster." Proceed.



The Pie Wash
Imagine if you will a car wash featuring an all-pie cast of cleaning supplies. Now remove the frame of the car and its mobile abilities. Congratulations! You've got a pie wash.



You've got to love that maniacal laughter by Marc Summers while issuing this pie sentence.

Clearly (or perhaps through pie-coated goggles) What Would You Do? could not be characterized by any conventional TV standards in its zany undertakings. The show frequently pitted adults and children against one another (in sometimes Double Dare-esque fashion), with the winning team holding the pie pronouncement power. Pie punishments could also be conveyed by means of the all powerful Wall o' Stuff. While the Wall o' Stuff had its benevolent side in which it dispensed freely the crappy What Would You Do? licensed merchandise to so-called lucky winners, it more often sent the contestant straight to meet their cream pie fates. The show also inexplicably had a "roving camera" segment featuring Candid Camera-style tomfoolery. As I said, the links between any of these segments were fairly difficult to ascertain; pie seemed to be the only element tying these things together.

Regardless of the lack of adherence to television norms, this show was beloved by children everywhere. Its sheer creativity was enough to captivate our young impressionable minds and forever instill within us a deep-seated love/fear relationship with a certain satisfyingly messy cloying confection. As What Would You Do? only filmed new episodes from 1991 to 1993, there is a lot to say for a show that can thrive through an oddly skewed rerun-to-new-show ratio. Because there were only 90 episodes produced, chances are all of us out there in 90s TV-land saw each of these pie-flinging episodes countless times during which we could ponder what indeed we would do in the place of these contestants. Whether you'd choose to brave the pie slide or take your chances on the Wall o' Stuff, What Would You Do? had a little something for everyone.

Everyone without whipped cream allergies, that is.


Check it out:
Pies on the Web: Dedicated to Pictures of People Getting Pies to the Face

American Girl

I'm still moderately crushed that they didn't unleash the glory of the respective downtown-based American Girl Places until I was far past the acceptable American Girl consuming age. I would have been all over that. I mean, tea parties? With your doll? Is there some sort of a sign up list somewhere? Because I would like to enlist myself immediately.

Just the other day, I was at the home of a family with young girls and found each one proudly toting a bona-fide American Girl doll. The jealousy reflex in me sprang forth, strong as ever. As much as I begged, my parents would never cave and purchase me a wildly expensive Samantha doll per my requests...er, demands. My friend had one complete with it's own turn-of-the-century style miniature version of the rich person wire bed on which she slept. Granted, these young girls I encountered this week had the far inferior "Just Like Me" My Twinn-knockoff dolls complete with eerily identical features and customizations, but the jealousy reflex enacted nonetheless.

While American Girl may have started with the noblest of literacy and girl pride-minded intentions, the brand morphed into a major franchise of merchandise and self-proclaimed collectibles. I was an avid reader of the books, so imagine my delight as a child when the mailman saw fit to bring me my very own American Girl merchan dise catalog. If I had known what crack was at the time, this catalog would have become its mildly less addictive equivalent for my 10-year old self. I spent hours meticulously marking pages, indicating not only which dolls and accessories I preferred but also which me-sized American Girl-style clothing options I would hopefully someday wear with false-modest pride. Who doesn't want colonial frock or a shirt whose collar suffocates me with its early 1900s high buttonedness? These things are relatively irresistible. Well, to girls in the target 8-12 demographic, that is.



This effort-laden catalog scouring turned out to be for naught, but it did teach me a valuable lesson about coveting and consumerism. That is, that I really, really like it. Thank you, American Girl. You've served me well in my path to shopping addiction.

The spark of the American Girl concept was born in the mid-80s when creator Pleasant Rowland visited colonial Williamsburg, enjoying the impact of the fully immersive experience. Later, when shopping for gifts for her tween-aged nieces, Rowland realized that the range of dolls available to preteens was highly limited. The focus of these dolls, she observed, seemed to be on either mothering (baby dolls) or aspiring to teenagehood (Barbie-type fashion dolls). No dolls were specifically geared toward the interests of then generally underserved preteen demographic.

Initially launching the line as a mail-order enterprise, Rowland created the fledgling American Girl franchise in 1986. American Girl originally featured three historical girls: Kirsten Larson, Samantha Parkington, and Molly McIntre. Each doll came with three books about her life in her respective historical setting and optional clothing and accessories based on the character. American Girl was born.

American Girl quickly grew into a veritable operation, releasing birthday books, seasonal books, and my personal favorite in 1988: life-size matching clothing for the doll owner. The line veered into some alternate territories, but for the most part its focus was on the historically relevant doll line with its corresponding books. The original characters released in 1986 were:

Kirsten Larson (1850s)Kirsten is a Swedish American living in Minnesota in the mid 19th-century. Kirsten is a kind, sensitive girl open to new experiences in her new country. She was an avid sewer and had an adventurous spirit. Plus, she wore her hair in an awesome braid/Princess Leia Cinna-bun hybrid. I liked the idea that she was Minnesotan like me, but I could never seem to get my hair to stay in those braid loops like hers.


Samantha Parkington (1900s)

Samantha Parkington is a turn-of-the-century orphan living with her rich Grandmary. Yep, Grandymary. I guess that's Edwardian rich-speak for Grandmother. Samantha is curious and progressive, excited in new prospects and ideas. She taught me that you can be both rich and kind. Plus that it's totally awesome to have a slew of servants at your disposal. I don't think that was the point, of course, but I definitely picked up on it.

Molly McIntire (1940s)
Until the line expanded into more ethnically diverse characters, Molly is the original line's token "girl with the glasses." Molly is lively and scheming, with a father abroad fighting in World War II. She has a taste for glamour and excitement and has vivid imagination.

The line quickly expanded to include more characters based in different historical periods. In 1991:

Felicity Merriman (1770s)

It's surprising Felicity wasn't in the original release group, considering creator Pleasant Rowland's claim that a visit to colonial Williamsburg inspired the series. Felicity is coming of age during the Revolutionary War. She is highly independent and spunky and rejects many of the feminine ideals assigned to her my her time period.

In 1993:
Addy Walker (1860s)
The series' first African American character, Addy's books explore more complex societal issues, depicting her life as an escaped slave. Addy doesn't believe slavery is fair and is a proponent of racial equality, finding the North to be similarly prejudiced to the South from which she escaped.

In 1997:
Josefina Montoya (1820s)
Josefina is a girl growing up in New Mexico before the Mexican-American war, when the period was still under Mexican control. Her books integrate some Spanish terms and examine Josefina's life following the death of her mother. She is shy, thoughtful, and caring. Plus, we get to pronounce her name "HO-se-fina", which is totally awesome.

In the 2000s, the company later added post-white settlement Native American Kaya'aton'my,first-generation American Russian Jewish Rebecca Rubin, spunky tomboy Kit Kittredge, and civil-rights minded Julie Albright. The diversity of character and ethnic background grew significantly over the years since the original 1986 release, but the general guiding principles remain the same.

The books had their flaws, but they fulfilled Rowland's original vision of interesting young girls in history and lives unlike their own. Rowland introduced girls to disparate historical periods through the lens of girls who were their own age, with similar hopes and ideals. It was an innovative idea, and kids bought into it with great fervency. Bought into it so much, of course, that they begged their parents for books, dolls, magazine subscriptions, costumes, accessories, and everything else that turned this educational premise into a lucrative financial enterprise. It may have worked too well on me; I'm still putting that Samantha doll on my birthday list. It's worth a try. If you're interested in fulfilling my decades-long dream, don't forget to throw in the wire-frame bed too.

Popular Young Children's Books of the 80s and 90s

Children's authors set the groundwork for a new generation to develop a deep love of reading, so it's critical that their output is engaging and amusing enough to hold our limited attention. Plus, our parents often bore the burden of reading these books to us again and again until they could have recited them from memory, so it helped if authors could throw in some humor that satiated the appetites of both adults and children.

These books satisfied both criteria in balance and firmly established a place in our collective nostalgic heart for their silliness, fun, and wit. Let's take a stroll through the magical world of 80s and 90s young children's books. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll develop a catchy rhyming scheme. Don't blame me if you start talking Seusically, though. It should wear off in 10-12 hours.

If You Give A Mouse a Cookie



We all know what happens when you start giving mice cookies. They're insatiable little rodents, really. At least that's the central message of Laura Numeroff's If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. He'll just keep bleeding you dry with favors until he finally just wants a cookie again. There's just no winning. Maybe if you try giving a Moose a Muffin or a Pig a Pancake things might turn out differently. Maybe.


Love You Forever


If you're a leaky-faucet type crier easily set off by emotional material, be warned that you'll release the floodgates by the last cycle of "I love you forever, I love you for always, as long as you're living, my baby you'll be." The book details the relationship of a mother and her young son as she recites the same refrain to him at various stages of his life. Near the end of the story, the adult child recites it back to his dying elderly mother and finally to his own infant daughter. The book resonates well with adults and children alike; it seems the older you get, the more likely you'll want to keep a full box of tissues nearby when you pick this one up.


The Eleventh Hour and Animalia




I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of three years trying to trace these gorgeous illustrations in hopes of miraculously transferring Graeme Base's incredible art talent onto my own hopelessly skill-free hands. Base's books may be visually enchanting, but in the case of The Eleventh Hour they're also incredibly tricky. I still haven't managed to solve all of the many riddles embedded in the story. I almost caved and broke into the solution in the back, but I'm still holding out hope that the answer will just come to me.


The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Fairy Tales




Revisionist fairy tales can be a lot of fun, and this Wolf-narrated version of the classic Three Little Pigs story is no exception. Our allegedly mistakenly accused suspect, Alexander T. Wolf, describes his troubles in borrowing sugar to bake a cake for his Granny's birthday. Is it his fault he has a terrible cold and that pigs build inferior non-sneeze-resistant houses? How could you let a delicious ham dinner like that go to waste, after all?

Along the same lines and written by the same witty author (Jon Scieszka), The Stinky Cheese Man gives us an irreverent look at some of our favorite classic fairy tales. The Gingerbread Man is the Stinky Cheese Man, The Really Ugly Duckling just grows into a Really Ugly Duck, and Little Red Riding Shorts manages to outrun the wolf on the way to Grandma's. The book is a bit chaotic, but it's legitimately clever and witty, too.


Arthur Books


Marc Brown was clearly onto something when he created this lovable anthropomorphic eight-year old aardvark named Arthur. Populating Arthur's hometown of Elwood City are a host of other cuddly animal characters with varying socioeconomic backgrounds, leading me to find that yes, you can indeed be jealous of a fictional monkey. Darn you, Muffy, and your enviable rich-monkey lifestyle.


The Jolly Postman


Kids have pretty short attention spans, so an interactive book is always a major draw: it's like a combination book/game rolled into a neat little package. To be delivered by a postman. A jolly postman.

In The Jolly Postman, our hero postman maneuvers from one fairy tale house to another, delivering correspondences (an apology note from Golidlocks and the 3 bears), junk mail (an advertisement for "Hobgoblin Supplies, ltd."), and even threats of legal action (the case of the Wolf v. Miss Riding Hood.) The jolly postman stops for tea at each home, delivering letters that we as readers could physically open and read.


Chicka Chicka Boom Boom


Learning the alphabet can be pretty boring, so imagine how relieved we were to find a book that turns dry and humorless letters into cute anthropomorphic characters. Our fearless letters climb the tree in orderly A-B-C succession, only to fall back down and sustain alphabetized injuries. Ouch.


Where the Wild Things Are


Monsters might seem like a scary, lurking under the bed prospect until we learn that in our imaginations we can just dance with them in a wild rumpus instead. Sounds like a decent solution to me. The back-story is possibly as entertaining as the tale itself: author Maurice Sendak had initially planned for the book to feature wild horses, but his publisher shunned Sendak's sub-par horse drawings. Sendak replaced the horses with caricatures of his Polish Jewish aunts and uncles: Aaron, Bernard, Emile, Moishe, and Tzippy. I imagine they were thrilled to find their likenesses titled "things."


Berenstain Bears


This friendly bear family has been teaching kids valuable life lessons for generations. I believe I read the Visit to the Dentist book at my own dentist's office at least twenty times, which helped assuage my fear of the infamous yankers while simultaneously teaching me about the untapped goldmine of cash at stake for my expendable baby teeth. Win-win.


Amelia Bedelia


What do you get when you combine a charming rhyming named housekeeper and a penchant for extreme literal interpretation of simple instructions? Pure children's book gold. Amelia Bedelia draws the drapes by trying her hand at sketching the curtains and prunes the hedges by sticking prunes in them. We learned the value of simple vocabulary and double meanings, plus I got some great ideas for how to make a mockery of my household chores,


Oh, The Places You'll Go!


Though it may have become a cliche gift for recent graduates, Dr. Seuss's final book is ultimately inspirational and sweet. The book details our protagonist's travel through uncharted territory, complete with setbacks and triumphs. So go ahead, give it to your graduating cousin or neighbor. He'll probably be able to start a collection with all of the copies he receives, but he may just learn a valuable lesson about endless possibilities.


The Rainbow Fish



This book seems pretty innocent with its message of sharing, so imagine my surprise in discovering it's taken some flack from critics for allegedly promoting a socialist agenda. It's a pretty preposterous accusation; it's enough to make you wish yourself back to a simpler time when you didn't know what things like "socialist agenda" even meant.


Stellaluna


Fruit bats are adorable and owls are evil? What kind of crazy mixed-up pre-Harry Potter owl love affair world is this? Stellaluna is separated from her mother and is raised with a nest full of baby birds, the mother of whom admonishes her for hanging upside down like, well, a bat. In case you were worried, she does eventually reunite with her mother, but the book has a bit of a melancholy feel through the whole "be true to yourself" message.

The Macarena

Image via atomicballroom.com

Fourteen weeks. Fourteen weeks. That's how long the Macarena held the top spot on the Billboard music charts. Fourteen weeks. That's three and a half months of non-stop Latin-beat line dancing. Not only was the song number one, it was everywhere. It was like an airborne contagion, only with a whole lot more butt-shaking. Weddings, bar mitzvahs, middle school dances; you name the venue, people were out there Macarena-ing their hearts out. They didn't care what the words were or where it came from. Most of them were just grateful to have pre-choreographed moves.

As far as dance crazes go, the Macarena verged on phenomenon status. It swept through the country and the world, though no one seems to know just how it got so popular or how everyone learned the dance. In an age before everyone had high-speed internet, every person between the ages of 5 and 95 seemed to have the Macarena down pat. Never mind that nowadays people have to watch step-by-step how-to videos on how to do the Soulja Boy dance on YouTube at least ten times before getting it down pat. Back in the 90s, dance trends may have been infectious, but they didn't spread virally.



Most of us can't pinpoint exactly when or where or how we learned it, we just all miraculously knew the appropriate times to jump a 180 degree turn counterclockwise in unison. There was something strangely hypnotizing about its repetitiveness. We know longer had to fear the dance floor, wondering when the appropriate moment was to switch from the shopping cart to the lawn mower. We just simply did the exact same routine over and over and over again. It was a relatively foolproof system, though limited skill dancers admittedly may have struggled a bit awkwardly with the pelvic swivels.

It all started way back in 1992 when Los del Rio unleashed their insanely catchy song onto a crowd of unsuspecting VIP Venezuelans. Though the song went through all sorts of tweaks and changes before turning into the dance craze we recognize today, it was that tiny spark of interest that launched a million hip swivels. The original was of course in full Spanish, with, well, interesting lyrics to say the least. That is, the lyrics were completely strange. Just totally, utterly, derangedly odd.

The original Spanish version went a little something like this. Okay, okay, exactly like this:




For those of you out there who do not speak Spanish (myself included), fear not. With the help of the trusty (well, kind of trusty) interwebs, I have tracked down what I can only assume to be an accurate translation. Correct me if I'm wrong, but here goes:


Give your body pleasure, Macarena
Because your body is for giving it pleasure and good things
Give your body pleasure, Macarena
Ehhhh, Macarena
Macarena has a boyfriend whose name is
Whose last name is Vitorino
And during his military swearing in
She got together with two of his friends
Macarena, Macarena, Macarena
Who likes the summers of Marbella
Macarena, Macarena, Macarena
Who likes the guerrilla lifestyle
Macarena dreams of the Corte Ingles (High-class dept. store)
And she likes the most recent fashions
She'd like to live in New York
And trap a new boyfriend


Stop right there. I mean, hold the phone. They might as well be describing me. I love the guerrilla lifestyle. I just adore it. And don't even get me started on the most recent fashions. No wonder we liked the song so much; even if we didn't understand the words, we may have just subconsciously been drawn to such a relatable character as this Macarena chick.

Needless to say, ethnocentric English-speakers required a watered-down version for our own understanding pleasure, so they came up with the following:



Now that is what I am talking about. That was most definitely the version I had blaring from my 90s-era Sony boom box. In case you didn't catch it, it goes a little something like this:

When I dance they call me Macarena
And the boys, they say que soy buena
They all want me, they can't have me
So they come and dance beside me
Move with me, chant with me
And if you're good, I'll take you home with me.

Yeah, that's it. Let's chant together. Oh, that is hot. Are you into Gregorian?

Now don't you worry about my boyfriend
The boy whose name is Vitorino
I don't want him, couldn't stand him
He was no good, so I...ha,ha,ha,ha,ha

Now come on, what was I supposed to do?
He was out of town and his two friends were soooooo fine.

Hey, what happened to Vitorino's military swearing-in ceremony? We couldn't fit that one there, eh?


Come and find me, my name is Macarena
Always at the the party con las chicas que soy buena
Come join me, dance with me
And you fellows chant along with me.
Move with me, chant with me
And if you're good, I'll take you home with me.


Okay, so this version is lacking a bit in the high-end department store/guerrilla warfare categories, but I think you get the general idea.

This handy diagram is great for practicing for 90s theme parties.

Anyway, just try to tell me that the dancers in the remix video are not the prototypical 90s girls. The hairstyles. The clothing. The multiculturalism. The mutliculturalism part is key, too. Because you know what the Macarena does? That's right, it brings cultures together. Forget complicated treaties and trade embargoes, just give us the Macarena and we'll be dancing together in no time. We're not really so different, all of us. We all do the Macarena one arm at a time.

Sticker Collections

Note: Sorry for the sporadic posts as of late, I've been in the process of moving and have had limited time for reminiscing. Fresh material is on the way, it might just pop up a little more slowly. Check back often for new posts!

In the 80s and 90s, no single possession could rocket a child to the top of the elementary school social stratosphere quite like a thoughtful, well-balanced sticker collection. Whether kept on their original backings or stuck carefully within the pages of an attractive sticker book, these collections were some of the most coveted items one could own during our grade school years. A new sticker afforded its owner not only the thrill of a new belonging but also recess bragging rights to the latest in sticker trends and technology. An image of two kittens playfully wrapped up in a high top sneaker or a three dimensional googly eyed dinosaur was usually more than enough to earn you a spot at the cool table in the cafeteria.

If ever there was anything to which to trace the overabundance of perfectionism and type A behavior amongst children of the 90s, sticker collections have got to be one of the major culprits. Like other forms of collecting, forming sticker collections required patience, self-restraint, and the ability to enjoy something that both serves no use.

In order to maintain the pristine condition of our most prized stickers, it was critical to not touch or handle your collection too roughly; in short, it was necessary to treat them llike a signed first edition being brought to appraisal on Antiques Roadshow. Doing anything to compromise the alleged inherent value of the following items was the equivalent of social sticker suicide.


Lisa Frank

Lisa Frank were among the most coveted designs in school supplies during the 80s and 90s, so it’s no surprise her stickers were considered fairly high-end in the classroom trading market. The bright colors, whimsical designs, and schmaltzy characters turned Lisa Frank stickers into virtual currency for elementary school girls. Innumerable hours were lost to swooning over the cuteness of a panda wielding a paint-laden brush or unicorn leaping majestically across a rainbow. For the record, the current Lisa Frank designs are generally considered to be subpar and inferior to our colorful cuddly originals.


Scratch n' Sniff

I’ve been told technology yields progress, and I can imagine no greater example than the leap from ordinary, smell-free stickers to the odoriferous sensory explosion of a scented sticker. The patented technology gave us a simple two-step process to nasal bliss, executed as follows:
1. Scratch
2. Sniff
It was that simple. You saw a strawberry, you scratched a strawberry, you smelled a strawberry. Sticker technology at its most useful.


Fuzzy

Textured stickers were also a popular addition to any collection, though their fuzziness often made it difficult to keep them in their original condition. Repeated rubbing wore down the fuzz, leaving us with bald puppies and hairless kittens. Tough break.


Puffy/Googly Eyes

Also a major contender in the textured category were the puffy and/or googly eyed stickers, giving us a decidedly creepy three dimensional experience that would not stop staring. I don’t care how functional it may seem to infuse a triceratops image with its very own googling eyeballs--no one wants that much shaky eye contact with a prehistoric sticker.


Holograms
It’s a scientifically proven fact that children love shiny things and the existence of multiple dimensions, so it’s a no-brainer that we all went crazy over a shimmery combination of the two. These mysteriously three-dimensional holographic stickers sold in science museum stores and other such vaguely educational shops, ensuring that each trip there with our parents would inevitably end with an ear-plugging, breath holding, foot-stomping tantrum over these stickers.


Mrs. Grossman's

Andrea Grossman’s infinite wisdom and business savvy saw fit to sell her rolls of stickers by the yard, hence exponentially expanding their welcome additions to any child’s sticker collection in a single shopping trip. Featuring designs like cleverly posed animals and background scenery elements, Mrs. Grossman’s stickers could be arranged into scenes complete with storylines and characters. Posable stickers made for exciting Storybook Weaver-esque sticker book pages, shaping turtles, picnic baskets, and other assorted items into a coherent scene.


Sandylion

Fuzzy koala bears and sparkly rainbow fish? Where do I sign up? Glitter or texture made Sandylion an attractive addition to any well-rounded collection. With the right combination of shimmery dolphins and fuzzy ghosts, you could easily corner the market of your local underground sticker trade.


Sticker Books/Boxes

Of course, the most important element in any worthwhile sticker collection was a specially created (re: unnecessarily expensive) book or receptacle by which to transport it. After all, what good is a sticker collection if you can’t carry it around and show it off? You could choose to stick yours in a book with special non-stick pages or cut each sticker individually with its backing to ensure easy trading.

That said, actual sticking of the stickers onto surfaces such as notebooks and Trapper Keepers was generally frowned upon. Such behavior was the equivalent of supergluing a dollar bill to the front of your Yikes pencil case. Stickers were veritable elementary school currency, so improper usage was akin to destruction of of US-minted money--it may not have been illegal, but it certainly wasn’t acceptable usage.

Baywatch

Let's be honest here: lifeguards are heroes. They're out there every day, protecting vulnerable swimmers from all manners of ill-fated ocean encounters. Their watchful eye allows us to enjoy our carefree time at the beach, knowing we are safe under their care.

Also, they sometimes run in slow motion.

I don't know about you, but while that initial job description is nice, I doubt 1.1 billion people would tune in to watch it on television. The slow motion thing, though, well, there you've got yourself a series.


Baywatch taught us all sorts of valuable life lessons, namely that beautiful women are largely interchangeable when dressed in the same signature red swimsuit. Men, on the other hand, are our true mainstays. We learned that if you were a woman who appeared on a plotless show mainly as eye candy, you could later land some lucrative Playboy covers or release sex tapes. If you were a man, you could eventually serve as a judge on America's Got Talent and battle rampant public alcoholism. Of course, if you weren't lucky enough to meet any of these grand fates, you could feel free to fade into the general obscurity that comes with people's waning interest in slow-motion footage of you in swimwear.

Remarkably, Baywatch is the most-watched show of all time. I'm not quite sure that you caught that, but either way it bears repeating. The most-watched show of all time. Lifeguards. On a beach. Limited, repetitive plotlines. Knight Rider running down the beachfront at bottom speed (is that the opposite of top speed? One can only assume.) Really, truly, how much drama can these lifeguards face on a weekly basis? The show's producers (Hasselhoff included) would contend that the answer was indeed quite a lot.

The Hoff made it happen

How many times have you been at beach anywhere, ever, and seen someone in a truly risky near-drowning situation? For most, the answer is rarely or never, but for the ol' Baywatch gang it was just a constant drownfest of careless parents and vicious undertows. Sharks encircled swimmers close to shore, bomb threats loomed like a dark shadow over the beach, and murderers roamed the premises on a regular basis. I'm not saying TV has to be just like real life, but at least make some effort to calibrate the premise to the plot lines. If we were dealing with marine biologists, CIA officials, or police detectives, then sure, these story lines could seamlessly integrate into the character's everyday encounters. However, these people are lifeguards. Lifeguards. They hold a giant red piece of foam and sit in a crappy makeshift elevated chair.

To be honest, I never watched the show in much detail, but it didn't take a dedicated viewer to pinpoint the improbability of these plots. While certainly the interpersonal drama between the male and female characters was substantial and there is certainly action off the beachfront, a great deal of the show relied on increasingly repetitive and formulaic scenarios. Have you ever wondered how many possible ways people could encounter danger in the water? Unless you get really creative (read: insane) with it, there are not too many permutations. Thankfully, the Baywatch writers were imaginative, though not necessarily in a positive way.

The show's initial run lacked sufficient financial backing, and was canceled after a single season. Lucky for those among us who appreciate a good slow-motion beach run sequence, the show was down but not out. David Hasselhoff, the male lead, believed in the show enough to come on as a producer and keep it afloat (sorry, I didn't even see that pun coming.) I guess the 80s German pop music scene was pretty lucrative, putting him in a fair position to make waves with Baywatch (that one was unfortunately intentional).

Repackaged and rebranded with a catchier theme song, the show quickly established itself in the ratings.



Little things other shows valued such as character development, consistency, and story variation seemed obsolete as Baywatch snowballed to success. It was camp TV at its best. It was cheesy, montage-rich, and often segued aimlessly into tangential melancholy music video-esque segments a la Ace of Base's Don't Turn Around.

The show had no shame, but it also had no pretension. Audiences accepted the fact that a steady stream of beautiful women (including Pamela Anderson, Yasmine Bleeth, Carmen Electra, and Gena Lee Nolin) had nothing better to do than get crappy jobs with the Los Angeles County Lifeguards. No one would call the show deep or insightful by any stretch of the imagination, but it did present a pleasingly idyllic form of escapism. Sometimes, after a bad day, watching scantily-clad attractive people bounce around in slow motion is just what the doctor ordered*.

It was, in short, a guilty pleasure. Many people did not want to admit that they were captivated by this cheesefest, but the ratings didn't lie. Baywatch was at the time recorded as the most-watched TV show of all time. Unfortunately, it couldn't hold its audiences forever.

As with many long-running series, the show dragged on and lost many of its original characters. The shark-jumping in this case was not only literal, but became more frequent and shameless. The early-90s dramatics evolved into late-90s near-comedy. It was that sad sort of premise that wasn't supposed to be funny, but it was unintentionally gut-bustingly hilarious. Acting fell completely by the wayside, as the equivalent of cardboard cutouts of female models chattered their lines with all the expression of reading the dictionary. The show managed to stay on the air and slide by on its purported reputation, but the magic of those Hasselhoff music video moments had dissipated.

Despite its wane in quality and popularity, its notoriety remained intact. It may not have been the smartest show or contain the most substance, but it was pure fun. They must have been doing something right, as we can only hope 1.1 billion viewers can't be wrong. The show may have been an easy target, but it generally seemed to posses redeeming qualities as well.

At the very least, a whole generation of young boys aspired to be lifeguards.



*What, your doctor never prescribed this?

Classic Children of the 90s Repost: Popular Young Children's Books of the 80s and 90s

Children's authors set the groundwork for a new generation to develop a deep love of reading, so it's critical that their output is engaging and amusing enough to hold our limited attention. Plus, our parents often bore the burden of reading these books to us again and again until they could have recited them from memory, so it helped if authors could throw in some humor that satiated the appetites of both adults and children.

These books satisfied both criteria in balance and firmly established a place in our collective nostalgic heart for their silliness, fun, and wit. Let's take a stroll through the magical world of 80s and 90s young children's books. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll develop a catchy rhyming scheme. Don't blame me if you start talking Seusically, though. It should wear off in 10-12 hours.

If You Give A Mouse a Cookie



We all know what happens when you start giving mice cookies. They're insatiable little rodents, really. At least that's the central message of Laura Numeroff's If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. He'll just keep bleeding you dry with favors until he finally just wants a cookie again. There's just no winning. Maybe if you try giving a Moose a Muffin or a Pig a Pancake things might turn out differently. Maybe.


Love You Forever


If you're a leaky-faucet type crier easily set off by emotional material, be warned that you'll release the floodgates by the last cycle of "I love you forever, I love you for always, as long as you're living, my baby you'll be." The book details the relationship of a mother and her young son as she recites the same refrain to him at various stages of his life. Near the end of the story, the adult child recites it back to his dying elderly mother and finally to his own infant daughter. The book resonates well with adults and children alike; it seems the older you get, the more likely you'll want to keep a full box of tissues nearby when you pick this one up.


The Eleventh Hour and Animalia




I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of three years trying to trace these gorgeous illustrations in hopes of miraculously transferring Graeme Base's incredible art talent onto my own hopelessly skill-free hands. Base's books may be visually enchanting, but in the case of The Eleventh Hour they're also incredibly tricky. I still haven't managed to solve all of the many riddles embedded in the story. I almost caved and broke into the solution in the back, but I'm still holding out hope that the answer will just come to me.


The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Fairy Tales




Revisionist fairy tales can be a lot of fun, and this Wolf-narrated version of the classic Three Little Pigs story is no exception. Our allegedly mistakenly accused suspect, Alexander T. Wolf, describes his troubles in borrowing sugar to bake a cake for his Granny's birthday. Is it his fault he has a terrible cold and that pigs build inferior non-sneeze-resistant houses? How could you let a delicious ham dinner like that go to waste, after all?

Along the same lines and written by the same witty author (Jon Scieszka), The Stinky Cheese Man gives us an irreverent look at some of our favorite classic fairy tales. The Gingerbread Man is the Stinky Cheese Man, The Really Ugly Duckling just grows into a Really Ugly Duck, and Little Red Riding Shorts manages to outrun the wolf on the way to Grandma's. The book is a bit chaotic, but it's legitimately clever and witty, too.


Arthur Books


Marc Brown was clearly onto something when he created this lovable anthropomorphic eight-year old aardvark named Arthur. Populating Arthur's hometown of Elwood City are a host of other cuddly animal characters with varying socioeconomic backgrounds, leading me to find that yes, you can indeed be jealous of a fictional monkey. Darn you, Muffy, and your enviable rich-monkey lifestyle.


The Jolly Postman


Kids have pretty short attention spans, so an interactive book is always a major draw: it's like a combination book/game rolled into a neat little package. To be delivered by a postman. A jolly postman.

In The Jolly Postman, our hero postman maneuvers from one fairy tale house to another, delivering correspondences (an apology note from Golidlocks and the 3 bears), junk mail (an advertisement for "Hobgoblin Supplies, ltd."), and even threats of legal action (the case of the Wolf v. Miss Riding Hood.) The jolly postman stops for tea at each home, delivering letters that we as readers could physically open and read.


Chicka Chicka Boom Boom


Learning the alphabet can be pretty boring, so imagine how relieved we were to find a book that turns dry and humorless letters into cute anthropomorphic characters. Our fearless letters climb the tree in orderly A-B-C succession, only to fall back down and sustain alphabetized injuries. Ouch.


Where the Wild Things Are


Monsters might seem like a scary, lurking under the bed prospect until we learn that in our imaginations we can just dance with them in a wild rumpus instead. Sounds like a decent solution to me. The back-story is possibly as entertaining as the tale itself: author Maurice Sendak had initially planned for the book to feature wild horses, but his publisher shunned Sendak's sub-par horse drawings. Sendak replaced the horses with caricatures of his Polish Jewish aunts and uncles: Aaron, Bernard, Emile, Moishe, and Tzippy. I imagine they were thrilled to find their likenesses titled "things."


Berenstain Bears


This friendly bear family has been teaching kids valuable life lessons for generations. I believe I read the Visit to the Dentist book at my own dentist's office at least twenty times, which helped assuage my fear of the infamous yankers while simultaneously teaching me about the untapped goldmine of cash at stake for my expendable baby teeth. Win-win.


Amelia Bedelia


What do you get when you combine a charming rhyming named housekeeper and a penchant for extreme literal interpretation of simple instructions? Pure children's book gold. Amelia Bedelia draws the drapes by trying her hand at sketching the curtains and prunes the hedges by sticking prunes in them. We learned the value of simple vocabulary and double meanings, plus I got some great ideas for how to make a mockery of my household chores,


Oh, The Places You'll Go!


Though it may have become a cliche gift for recent graduates, Dr. Seuss's final book is ultimately inspirational and sweet. The book details our protagonist's travel through uncharted territory, complete with setbacks and triumphs. So go ahead, give it to your graduating cousin or neighbor. He'll probably be able to start a collection with all of the copies he receives, but he may just learn a valuable lesson about endless possibilities.


The Rainbow Fish



This book seems pretty innocent with its message of sharing, so imagine my surprise in discovering it's taken some flack from critics for allegedly promoting a socialist agenda. It's a pretty preposterous accusation; it's enough to make you wish yourself back to a simpler time when you didn't know what things like "socialist agenda" even meant.


Stellaluna


Fruit bats are adorable and owls are evil? What kind of crazy mixed-up pre-Harry Potter owl love affair world is this? Stellaluna is separated from her mother and is raised with a nest full of baby birds, the mother of whom admonishes her for hanging upside down like, well, a bat. In case you were worried, she does eventually reunite with her mother, but the book has a bit of a melancholy feel through the whole "be true to yourself" message.