I remember having quite a few VHS tapes from a company called “Just For Kids”, that had some of the neatest shows.

“Sherlock Hound”, “Kissyfur”, “Foofur”, “Seabert”, and quite a bit more. My siblings and I loved animals, so this got us interested right away!

I also grew up in a religious household, so Christian videos were standard for us.

Did you know that there was a bible-story-centric anime called “Superbook”? Used to watch it all the time! There was also “McGee and Me”, “Secret Adventure”, and “Adventures in Odyssey”. Used to listen to the “Adventures in Odyssey” radio show all the time!

“The Donut Man” was a Barney-esque Christian show for kids, too.

What obscure things did you watch growing up?

  • shimura@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    It’s technically a Disney Movie, but Brave Little Toaster was a bizarre move we used to watch all the time as kids. Up there with movies like Flight of the Navigator or Short Circuit or Batteries Not Included in terms of rewatchability for us. Tried watching it with my kids a year or two ago and I feel like I don’t know how my parents could have let me watch it as a kid. So dark. So weird.

    • TimTheEnchanter@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      To this day I am still extra cautious with the vacuum cleaner cord because of that scene where the vacuum runs over and vacuums up his cord! That movie had some really intense scenes!

      • shimura@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        Right?! I remember taking extra care to never lose my blanky because of that movie.

  • PepperTwist@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    Being born in the early 90’s in a country neighboring Russia, you could find quite a lot of bootleg or otherwise weird VHS-tapes of Soviet-era cartoons that had made it across the border back after the Iron Curtain collapsed, usually at flea-markets or in bargain-bins.

    I remember we used to have quite a few of them, most were just collections of different Russian cartoons from like the 70’s and 80’s. A few I’ve managed to track down, like Nu Pogodi! The rest of them I’ve tried to find with the limited details I remember, but haven’t had any luck.

  • TimTheEnchanter@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    I don’t know how obscure it is, but I loved watching KaBlam! It was weird animated shorts in a variety of styles. My favorites were the shorts made with stop-motion and action figures.

  • JillyB@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    My brother and I remember this cartoon we had on VHS from our childhood. Every time we mention Seabert to anybody, they have no idea what we’re talking about. It’s about a guy and his seal going on adventures, often in the desert…

  • raccoona_nongrata@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    My dad would often record shows off TV to VHS for us, and looking back we’d end up with some pretty obscure stuff.

    One cartoon that I’ve tried repeatedly to find again over the years was a kind of anthology of various Grimm’s fairy tales. The animation was sort of rotoscoped in places, and I later found out they were Soviet-era cartoons, but the art from some of the stories really stuck in my brain.

    In particular there was a story about some kind of ice mountain, and I think two children had to go there for some reason and confront the kind of dour king who lived there. All I really remember is the image of the mountain itself, that was very geometric and sparkling. All I’ve ever been able to find was one of the short tales from the collection about the Fisherman and the Golden Fish. The imagery in general stuck with me:

      • raccoona_nongrata@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        Ah, nice, I’ll definitely check it out. I really enjoyed Hedgehog in the Fog too. The layered animation was amazing, but also the translation into english was really funny sometimes

        “A fox has ensconced himself in my house!” Lol

        Also, if you’re looking for beautiful old animation, there’s stuff by Lotte Reiniger that’s amazing. She would do these elaborate stop-motion paper cutout animations that were amazing. My favorite was the Adventures of Prince Achmed. It’s all public domain now too, so you can find it on youtube:

      • raccoona_nongrata@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        I have! Every now and again I’ll think of it and sit down to try and find the anthology we had. And that’s actually where I got the screenshots from. There is a copy of “The Fisherman and the Fish” story on youtube.

        Unfortunately I cannot seem to find the one I really want of the ice/glass mountain (the mountain kind of looks like the image above from what I recall). I plan on looking for the VHS at my parents house and getting it digitally scanned it if it’s still in ok condition.

        • Storksforlegs@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          You definitely should digitally scan and post it somewhere! Im sure there are lots of others who would love being able to see it.

  • Ignacio@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    There was one made in stop motion called “Bumpy in the night”. Just two seasons, but it was fun. I liked it.

  • Witch@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Jam the Housnail.

    I thought for the longest time it was a fever dream. That it didn’t exist. I could never find it anything related to the godforsaken thing on any Canadian channels list of cartoons they aired. My family thinks I am joking when I mention how horribly this show plagued my thoughts over this years, but I had been searching for a decade.

    Anyway apparently it’s from Japan and I probably watched it on Veoh or something, because it’s on my anime list now and I finally found out what it was called last year.

    https://myanimelist.net/anime/29367/Jam_the_Housnail

  • Storksforlegs@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Does anyone remember a show that featured a big record man who clacked wooden spoons together? He was terrifying haha, he would say “AND HERE COMES THE BEAT”…

    Also, anyone remember 3,2,1 Contact on PBS?

  • Alex@rabbitea.rs
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    1 year ago

    I swear - there used to be a segment on CBC kids where children would submit short films they had made. The mascot was an electric wall outlet; I have not been able to find anyone else who remembers this but it was definitely real because I have a number of home movies I wanted to submit to it.