Bizarre Memories From Childhood, Investigated

by Alexandra Molotkow

Memory #1: The little men inside the jukebox at Shining Time Station play a song called “Born to Die,” intended to teach kids about death.

Reality: Shining Time Station did feature a jukebox full of little men, but they mostly did songs like “Pop Goes the Weasel.” “Born to Die” was a mishearing of “Born to Run.”

Memory #2: Kid’s variety show hosted by a short-haired woman who wears primary colors and sings in that throaty, yelpy, womany voice that bothers me a lot. Features a segment in which a middle-aged man wears a tutu or a bee suit and ruins around addressing the camera. His theme music goes, “What time is it, young teacup.”

Reality: Show premiered in 1986 called Take Part! The bee suit guy was known as Crazy Mr. Twister, which sounds like a figure from a recurring nightmare, and he’s named several times in his theme music so I’m not sure where “teacup” comes from. The woman was (and is) Lois Walker and the show also featured felt crafts and a ‘90s-style beatnik in a bucket hat who makes art out of garbage.

Memory #3: Patrick Stewart stars in a Saturday Night Live sketch as a vendor of erotic cakes. All the cakes feature women going to the bathroom. “Sexed it all up for you,” he sings, when Rob Schneider complains.

Reality: 90% True. Patrick Stewart says “sexed it all up for you” to Tim Meadows and David Spade, who had ordered a “man-on-man lemon meringue” (this is played for laughs) but instead got a woman going to the bathroom.

Memory #4: A CGI version of the afterlife and there’s a zebra woman and a leopard man on some steps, and he leaps into the air and becomes a butterfly and there are little stick figures hopping on an obelisk, and beguiling music plays and it gives me a terrible feeling like I’m home.

Reality: Clip from Beyond the Mind’s Eye, a series of shorts sort of like Fantasia but with ’90s computer animation and a prog rock soundtrack. The film was cut up and repackaged (along with its prequel, The Mind’s Eye, and Imaginaria) as a series of bumper videos called Short Circutz for YTV, the main kid’s station Canada. They aired before ReBoot.

I actually looked this up years ago but I still think of it as a past life.

Memory #5: A crowd of twinkling faeries stand in front of a giant slime pit cooing, “sliiiiiiimeeee-oooo, sliiiiiime-oooo.” A giant meatball rises from the goo and burps out a butterfly. Two faerie men start arguing, so the others push them down a chute into the meatball’s mouth as punishment for disturbing the peace.

Reality: Scene from The Great Land of Small, a French Canadian children’s movie starring Michael J. Anderson, the Man From Another Place on Twin Peaks, featuring Cirque Du Soleil performers and the dark visions of Czech director Vojtěch Jasný. It happened pretty much as I remember it.

Memory #6: A children’s album about a little blue man who follows the singer everywhere she goes and always says “I love you.”

Reality: “I Wuv You” by Bonnie Phipps.

Memory #7: TV show starring Joe Flaherty as father to a full-grown, paunchy, balding adult baby.

Reality: Maniac Mansion, starring Joe Flaherty and George Buza as the adult baby. Created by Eugene Levy. It lasted three seasons.

Memory #8: Show about a talking dog possessed by an uncle, possibly a criminal killed during a heist.

Reality: Dog House. “Contains not a whit of original thought nor anything resembling a line worthy of a giggle,” wrote the Toronto Star, according to Wikipedia. The dog is a brother-in-law, not an uncle, and actually a former police officer. Only sitcom intro I’ve ever seen to show a cop funeral.

Memory #9: Short horror story about a kid in a waiting room who gets sucked into the clock and trapped in a Time World where the only other person is a wizard.

Reality: I can’t find this for the life of me if anyone remembers this can you tell me the name???

Memory #10: Show about a department store where the hot mannequin comes to life when his hat is on.

Reality: Today’s Special, silly!!!!!