Posted by babka at 1cust10.tnt10.nyc3.da.uu.net on July 27, 2001 at 11:12:43:
In Reply to: Wasn't Lady Elaine the scary puppet? posted by Darth Dobbin on July 27, 2001 at 10:19:16:
: The one that looked like Madame, of "Walyan Flowes and..." fame.
Yes.
: Don't get me wrong; I enjoyed many aspects of the show.. I liked that
Trolley was somehow a sentient being, even though all he was was a train on
a track, and the Meow Meow Kitty was tops. And I liked the fact that Rogers
sang, "You'll have things, you'll like to talk about...I will..too."
: It lent an odd promise of interativity to the coming day. (Sadly, one
that was never fulfilled. But when you're 3, you take each instance on
faith. Maybe TOMORROW, **I'll** get to talk about something.)
God. This insight is amazing. I never thought of it as
a promise made, and then never fulfilled in reality. But then, I was kind
of relegated to Make-Believe, and the show had all these child-development
experts to o.k. every nuance of the scripts: but don't think anyone ever
raised this.
: But both Lady Elaine and King Friday gave me the willies.
Fred voices both of them. I had never encountered the
sort of sense of priviledge + God-centered authority + monarchy/genius
attitude that FXIII exemplifies, and resented him at times (in & out of
character), but each puppet stands (it's a deep show, many layered) for a
different stage of childhood... nor had I ever worked for a rich person
before, nor lived in a kindly neighborhood (I grew up NYC, thought MRN was
jive, like Eddy Murphy's parody response to it, but it's real in PGH, who
knew...prolly in Redbank N>J> too).
: And after Rogers sang the "You can never go down the drain" song, I was
indifferent to him. What sort of freewheeling fool did he take us toddlers
for? Who's afraid of going down the drain?
And I had exactly your strong objection to that song
for the reasons you mention, and also : I never had that fear, why put that
fear in a child's mind (just because the child psycholgists say it exists)
and then reassure a child that they won't. But if you take "going down
the drain" as a metaphor for the tremendous fears that may sometimes assail
us in life (whether we are high or "sober"), the reassurance (from way
beyond & above MisterRogers) is a VERY important one (like Alanis's embrace
of Bartleby) and one that counters all the newscasts meant to rule us with
anticipatory terror. type thing. thanks, darth. I do