All in Tube Tied

TV Tidbit: The Neighborhood of Make-Believe

From 1968 to 2001, one of PBS’s most-beloved and celebrated shows for kids was Mister Rogers Neighborhood. Featuring the kindly Fred Rogers who invited kids to join him in little house for play, learning, and self esteem building, the low-key was a staple in the home of anyone who had children. One of the highlights of the show was when Mr. Rogers would take the models of The Neighborhood of Make-Believe off his kitchen shelf and set them up for an adventure to the colorful little village where puppets and people interacted and everyone learned how to treat each other with love and kindness. It was a special place in all our childhoods, as Mr. Rogers sent us down the trolley tracks (the man had a trolley in his house!) for our daily lesson in fun and play.

TV Tidbit: The Easter Bunny is Comin’ to Town

At Christmas time, we all sit down to watch many holiday Christmas specials made by those keepers of the yuletide, Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, Frosty the Snowman, Twas the Night Before Christmas, The Little Drummer Boy and The Year Without a Santa Claus are among the many holiday specials that this duo were behind producing. But Rankin and Bass were not just Christmas-fixated. One of their best and most beautifully constructed stop-motion animation special debuted in 1977, on April 6th.

TV Tidbit: Double Dare

In the early days of the Nickelodeon Network, there was a raucous fun to be found in TV shows like You Can’t Do That on Television, Out of Control, Danger Mouse, Turkey Television, Don’t Just Sit There and Hey, Dude. Totally outrageous and always full of wisecracking humor that delighted kids, these shows are what the network’s success were built on. Another show from the early Nickelodeon pack that was a must-watch for kids was the gameshow Double Dare.

80’s TV Musical Alice in Wonderland Comes to 54 Below: You Aren’t Going to Want to Miss This!

If you had the pleasure of growing up in the 80s, then you know that things were big, colorful, and full of the “cheese” factor. This was a good thing. Anything worth doing was worth over-doing. Made-for-TV movies were often epic and star-studded events, offering a parade of popular performers (past and present) in sprawling entertainments that amazed and delighted. Among these was the deliciously campy and endlessly melodic two-part television musical of Alice in Wonderland (1985) produced by Irwin Allen.