No, I DON'T want a bedtime story tonight

January 28, 2012 10:09 AM

Smother Goose, an invaluable resource for anyone who was ever traumatized by a childhood "classic", covers everything from popular kids' books to bizarre movies, even that odd little song you had memorized as a kid.

The site also offers mature perspectives on old standbys, reminiscent of Mefi favorite Myths Retold (previously and previously).

This post was inspired by zarq's excellent Puff the Magic Dragon FPP.

posted by misha (25 comments total)

A home for Nightmare Fuel? I can't decide if that's good or bad.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:24 AM on January 28, 2012 [1 favorite]

Oh my God, nightmare song: "Mister Alligator pumpin' up an uphill street/He said, 'You know what? I need somethin' to eat! I'm gonna raid that refigerator! Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna raid that refigerator!"

Somehow that song wasn't comforting to a child who a) couldn't ride a bike very fast, and b) was small enough to be eaten by a hungry alligator.
posted by MonkeyToes at 10:30 AM on January 28, 2012

If I was choosing a movie for a young child, I'd have a hard time deciding between Watership Down and Apocalypse Now.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:32 AM on January 28, 2012 [2 favorites]

@robotvoodoopower

why not both
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 10:41 AM on January 28, 2012

Does anyone remember this kid’s show? It was called Candle Cove and I must have been 6 or 7. I never found reference to it anywhere so I think it was on a local station around 1971 or 1972. I lived in Ironton at the time. I don’t remember which station, but I do remember it was on at a weird time, like 4:00 PM.
posted by modernserf at 10:55 AM on January 28, 2012 [8 favorites]

Return to Oz is an excellent horror movie for kids.
posted by martinrebas at 11:04 AM on January 28, 2012 [5 favorites]

If I was choosing a movie for a young child, I'd have a hard time deciding between Watership Down and Apocalypse Now

why not both

General Woundwort: "El-Hrair-Rah, El Hrair-Rah" *dies*
posted by KingEdRa at 11:08 AM on January 28, 2012

I KNEW one of the movie links was going to be Return to Oz! God that movie creeped the hell out of me. I don't even mean when I was a kid, when I couldn't watch past the bit where Mombi switches heads, I mean, like, last year.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 12:08 PM on January 28, 2012 [1 favorite]

YES. That Velveteen Rabbit entry. We were read the story, and shown the movie, when I was in the second grade. I remember being aghast by this genuinely fucked up story with its SKIN HORSE and sneering rabbits and scarlet fever. The pat ending just left me thinking, Christ, finally that poor rabbit got a freakin' break already.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 12:51 PM on January 28, 2012 [2 favorites]

My parents were weirdo hippies, so we had a lot of weirdo kid's books (including a copy of Struwwelpeter. But nothing scared me as much as Tim Rivers' Metaphysical Stories for Children. I used to beg my mother to read me this one story about a unicorn. She always told me that she shouldn't, that it would scare me. One day she relented. In the story, the unicorn leaves his grove and encounters all these friendly children who tell him that he doesn't exist. Sad, he returns to his Mom and asks her why they'd say that. And her response is that they're saying that because he's not real. My mother was right. Ugh. Probably got a decade of existential angst out of that one.

(Milton the Stick of Gum was pretty groovy, though.)
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 1:01 PM on January 28, 2012 [1 favorite]

Oh god, the Walt Disney Snow White Movie. When the evil queen looms up over Snow White with the apple in her hand. Major nightmares when I was about five.
posted by Cocodrillo at 1:16 PM on January 28, 2012

Oh, yes, that hideous story "Jesus Understood." It scared the living daylights out of me when I read it in the hospital waiting room. I would like to find the author, so I can properly thank him for writing such a heart-warming story, probably by breaking both his kneecaps.
posted by Nyrath at 2:02 PM on January 28, 2012

Return to Oz is an excellent horror movie for kids .

oh, i never reaized faruza balk was dorothy in that movie. and yes, that part still gives me the creeps.
posted by fuzzypantalones at 2:03 PM on January 28, 2012

Mother Goose Rock 'N' Rhyme! My brother and I watched that countless times. Whoever came up with that one was definitely smoking.
posted by bluesapphires at 2:37 PM on January 28, 2012

nothing like watching Return to Oz in a house full of emotionally disturbed children. we had NO IDEA what we were getting ourselves in for....I hate that movie
posted by supermedusa at 2:37 PM on January 28, 2012

smoking something, that is.
posted by bluesapphires at 2:38 PM on January 28, 2012

Kid's version of Left Behind fucked me up badly. Wake up in the morning and no one's around? EVERYONE WAS RAPTURED EXCEPT FOR ME
posted by book 'em dano at 3:27 PM on January 28, 2012 [1 favorite]

book 'em dano: "Kid's version of Left Behind fucked me up badly. Wake up in the morning and no one's around? EVERYONE WAS RAPTURED EXCEPT FOR ME"

Glad to hear I'm not the only one! As a teenager I would wake up with panic attacks and flip on the news looking for stories of people who had disappeared.
posted by IndigoRain at 6:48 PM on January 28, 2012

Yeah, thanks for the 36 years of nightmares (and counting), silent hollow-eyed melty-clay-face Mummenschanz on The Muppet Show in 1976.
posted by argonauta at 9:49 PM on January 28, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'd all but forgotten about Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Stories. Those books (along with The Bible Story) were always in the doctor's waiting room when I was a kid. After reading some of the entries about them, it's probably better that I didn't remember any of them specifically!
posted by SisterHavana at 10:23 PM on January 28, 2012

I read a story in a doctor's waiting room once. In a book of stories for kids. It was about a little boy who was hurt in a car accident, and wanted to die. (Which he did).

The thing was, remembering that story helped me remember that, when I read it, i also wanted to die. And I can not remember _why_ I felt that way, when I was 8 years old.
posted by Goofyy at 12:40 AM on January 29, 2012

I must be twisted. I really liked Return to Oz. Saw it two-three times, thought it was a nice contrast to the original film.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 12:42 PM on January 29, 2012

Struwwelpeter was one of my favorites as a kid because HOLY COW EFFED UP. I never thought a tailor was going to come after me for sucking my thumbs, I just thought that book was weird as shit.

Outside Over There - now THAT was some messed up book. Some of my mom's friends gave it to her when I was born and she read it and was all "??!!!!" And then when I got old enough to read... that creepy ice baby? Nightmares.
posted by sonika at 5:14 PM on January 29, 2012

SisterHavana: "I'd all but forgotten about Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Stories. Those books (along with The Bible Story) were always in the doctor's waiting room when I was a kid. After reading some of the entries about them, it's probably better that I didn't remember any of them specifically!"

Thank you!! I've been trying to remember the name of the books that were in my doctor's office as a child, with red coversm that had moral and Biblical stories. Specifically, one about a child who eats blueberries at a store and is forced to confess his theft. (I recall the same book having the story of baby Moses being floated in a basket.) I can't find a specific reference to that story with just a cursory Google search, but I think that looks like the line of storybooks.
posted by IndigoRain at 3:08 AM on January 30, 2012

Uncle Arthur's emailed me back and sure enough, that story is in their Bedtime Stories book. Thanks again SisterHavana!
posted by IndigoRain at 8:33 AM on February 7, 2012 [1 favorite]