From Ed Conroy of BlogTO:
The 10 weirdest Toronto kid’s shows of all time
Every generation has a slate of local kids TV shows that seem to transcend the medium, and not always in a good way. Although Toronto has never produced anything as truly bananas as Teletubbies or Boohbah in modern times, we pretty much owned the genre in the 1980s after unleashing an avalanche of utterly loopy kids programs onto an unsuspecting public – the effects of which probably still keep a fair amount of Psychiatrists busy today. Continue reading.
I was a big Sharon, Lois and Bram fan. Lol, just the other day I bought a few Skinnamarink TV video tapes for my kids from Value Village. They were already familiar with The Elephant Song and Skinamarinkydoo thanks to my singing them those songs since birth. I was also a watcher of Circle Square Ranch–some girls at school actually appeared in that show. I am familiar with Friendly Giant too but it was a bit before my time–my dad apparently was into it when he was 15 when his family got a TV set. All the other shows are unfamiliar to me as I lived with Farmervision (CBC & CTV). Some live-action kids’ shows I recall watching a lot from childhood are Romper Room, Poetree & Friends, Under the Umbrella Tree, Aunt Harriet’s Magic Hats, Fraggle Rock, Fred Penner’s Place, Peewee Herman, and Mr. Dressup.
’80s Canadian kids shows ! Wow, what a blast from the past. That’s when our son age 6 to 10 was growing up and I was the stay-at-home ‘daddy-mom’ and I had to watch most of those shows with him. Today’s Special was a fav, Frightenstein was VERY weird, Mr. Dressup – god I really miss those days and shows and years spent with my son watching them.