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?
There was a lot of made in Canada cartoons. Flying Rihno Junior High, 6teen, and Being Ian for example.
Canadian animation is wild, and so much of it is unknown outside of the country.
I remember seeing a short called “La Salla” on Canadian TV when I was a kid. Caused me a bit of childhood trauma lol
Canadian animation was fantastic!
Ryan Larkin was briefly going to be the future of animation, and then he crashed and burned. The handful of shorts he managed to create are INCREDIBLE though.
Man, that so tragic…
Looks like he struggled with drugs and homelessness? That’s so sad.
Totally. Every once in a while I think about what an interesting legacy creators of those shows leave. A lot of the time they only worked on one show and it stays obscure for those didn’t view it when it initially aired and outside of the country. Yet over a decade later people still look back fondly.
What was La Salla about?
Is that the cgi short with the evil doorknob?!
YES! Well, kind of!! With the apple!!
Hahaa! Yes I remember that short. YTV used to randomly play it in the middle of the night, just for added nightmare fuel
Apparently it won some kind of award? It’s definitely a bit fun for me as an adult, but DEAR GOD did it frighten me as a kid watching it at night!
Only saw it once and it stuck with me for about 25 years. Spooked me good!
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.
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!
Right?! I remember taking extra care to never lose my blanky because of that movie.
The junkyard car song from that movie has to be one of the most soul crushing, depressing songs ever
https://youtu.be/-UfsEj7AOGI. (Seriously, dont watch if you are very depressed)
Thanks for sharing. I was gonna look it up to refresh my memory. Soul-crushing indeed.
Oh god… so that’s where my depression came from!
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!
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.
We had this VHS we watched as a kid called “How Come?” And I don’t even really remember what it was about. But I think it was educational? The only thing I could find about it online was this ebay posting of the VHS: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/hMEAAOSwNsVfWTMT/s-l400.jpg
I would call these semi-obscure, but I absolutely love The Secret of NIMH and The Land Before Time. Don Bluth films have such a special place in my heart.
Oh yeah and also I was a public TV kid, and I watched the Wishbone movie, Between the Lions, Peep and the Big Wide World, and I’ve had yet to meet someone that knows what The Zula Patrol is. It’s such a banger TV show.
And you can’t forget about Word World.
There was one made in stop motion called “Bumpy in the night”. Just two seasons, but it was fun. I liked it.
Have you rewatched it? It’s like a fever dream. Hahaha I loved that show.
Does anyone remember a show that featured a big record man who clacked wooden spoons together? He was terrifying haha, he would say “NOW HERE’S THE BEAT”… (I think this might be a Canadian show)
Also, anyone remember 3,2,1 Contact on PBS?
Once Upon a Time… Life comes to mind. I also recall Tante Soesa & Sassefras which was a Dutch program that would be broadcast in between other kids programs.
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…
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:
Old Soviet cartoons are so absolutely beautiful! I really do hope you are able to find them someday.
There is a video about Soviet animation, if you haven’t seen it already!
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:
Very haunting images, have you tried tracking these cartoons down as an adult?
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.
You definitely should digitally scan and post it somewhere! Im sure there are lots of others who would love being able to see it.
I remember the doughnut man, but not fondly.
There was this movies called scamper the penguin I really liked.
Not sure how obscure it is, but I used to watch Liberty’s Kids on PBS all the time.
Beakman’s lab. In Chinese
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.
