26 Outrageous Truths About Children's Television - mental_floss on YouTube (Ep.50)

Hi, I'm John Green. Welcome to my salon. This is Mental Floss on YouTube

And did you know that a young Bill Nye worked on a local comedy show in Seattle called Almost Live

During one episode, the show's host said gigawatt, meaning gigawatt, and the story goes that Bill jumped in to correct him, and the host snapped

Who do you think you are? Bill Nye the Science Guy? The name stuck

And that's the first of many outrageous truths about children's television I'm going to share with you today

In 2000, People magazine included Steve from Blue's Clues on their list of America's

100 most eligible bachelors. And they weren't the only ones to take notice. A New York Times

profile on Steve observed that he, quote, developed an avid following among both preteen

girls and mothers. The latter scrutinized the show with an intensity that might make

even Elmo blush. So congratulations to the New York Times for that weird, misogynistic editorializing

Schoolhouse Rock was created by Bob Dorough in the 1970s. His boss told him

My sons can't memorize their times tables, yet they sing along with Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones

and they get their words. Dorough was initially unsure if combining education and rock and roll would work

but the show took off and aired through 1985. By the way, Dorough's personal favorite song was Lolly Lolly Lolly

get your adverbs here, about three generations of a family who sold adverbs

and he sang all three parts. In 1997, over 700 people in Japan experienced seizures, vomiting, and eye problems after watching an episode of Pokemon

In the episode, the characters go into a computer and destroy a virus

which causes Pikachu's eyes to flash red and led to a television-induced seizure in many viewers, mostly children

Mark says that this is a Pokemon, not my area of expertise. So as you may know the internet has a theory that Barney is Satan No real surprise there but let me take you through the argument So you take the phrase cute purple dinosaur and then replace the letters U with Vs as the ancient Romans would

Then you pick the Roman numerals out of that phrase and it just so happens to add up to 666

Coincidence? Yes, definitely. I mean, decide for yourself. Sometimes 90s nostalgia strikes at weird times, like in 2012 when there was an Adventures of Pete and Pete reunion show

featuring an appearance by the fictional band Polaris. The group spent time rehearsing at a warehouse in Providence, and the grungy punk band playing

next door came over and said, Are you a Polaris cover band? Man, truly only 90s kids will get that

Nickelodeon aired new episodes of the Rugrats from 1991 to 2004. Since the premiere episode was Tommy's first birthday, at the age naturally throughout

the show he would have been 13 by the time it ended. The Powerpuff Girls were originally named the Whoop-Ass Girls

Craig McCracken started a short in college called Whoop Ass Stew before Cartoon Network

bought the idea and changed the name, you know, to tone it down a bit. Now South Park is known for parodies, but sometimes other shows beat them at their own

game, including, believe it or not, Arthur. In a 1999 episode, the gang from Arthur entered a contest to write an episode of a TV show

Buster's idea was shown in the animation style of South Park, complete with Buster getting

killed by a spaceship and Francine saying, hey, you squished Buster. That was my Francine impression

I know it was excellent. Reading Rainbow was on PBS for 21 seasons, but that wasn't enough for host LeVar Burton

Along with his business partner, Burton spent 18 months acquiring all of the rights to the

show so they could create an app version. The app launched in 2012 and has been enormously successful

As if you needed more reason to believe that LeVar Burton is the coolest person in the world

Well, it's actually a three-way tie with TNG co-stars Will Wheaton and Patrick Stewart

Scooby Doo name was originally too much but right before production started one of the creators of the show heard the Frank Sinatra song Strangers in the Night and was inspired by the refrain Doobie Doobie Doo

Is that copyright infringement? No, apparently my singing was not good enough for that to be copyright infringement

Remember in the 90s when people who had way too much free time were up in arms because they thought that Tinky Winky the Teletubby was gay

Well, this rumor got so huge that people involved with the creation of the Teletubbies had to

make official statements. The BBC responded, quote, Tinky Winky is simply a sweet technological baby with a magic bag

And a representative for the company that licensed the show in the U.S. said, The fact that he carries a magic bag doesn't make him gay

The cartoon Rocko's Modern Life is known for its hidden inappropriate innuendos

One example is the restaurant in the show, Chokey Chicken, a possible reference to masturbation

The name of the restaurant was eventually changed, by the way, to Chewy Chicken. A few different Jack Russell Terriers played Wishbone on the TV show of the same name, but the main dog actor was named Socker

Now, I'm not calling Socker a sellout, but he was also known for his commercial work with companies like Nike and Mighty Dog Dog Food

Meanwhile, our office dog, Alex, can't book a role to save her life. I mean, the only thing she's ever done is, like, be in our hot dog eating contest

The creators of Yo Gabba Gabba, Christian Jacobs and Scott Schultz, started as directing partners who worked on music and skateboarding videos

After the men became fathers, they were struck by how unimpressive children's programming was

so they developed their own show, despite having no experience with children's TV or writing

The show took off when Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess found it on the internet and sent it to a Nickelodeon exec

and ever since, I've been hanging out with DJ Lance Rock. Alright, we gotta speed this up. Little Richard sang the Magic School Bus theme song

Sesame Street has won over 100 Emmys, by far the most Emmys of any television program ever

When Michael Cera was 14, he voiced Brother Bear in the Berenstein Bears

Lamb Chop is still performing today with Sherry Lewis daughter Mallory They do a lot of performances for the military who promoted the puppet to a three general Miranda Cosgrove earns for each episode of iCarly Compare that with Miley Cyrus who earned for an episode of Hannah Montana In 2011

the Fox News program Fox & Friends spent a segment devoted to whether the SpongeBob book

SpongeBob Goes Green was pushing the political agenda that climate change is real. Johnny

Knoxville has cited Tom & Jerry as a major influence on Jackass. Kermit the Frog of the

Muppets was originally made out of Jim Henson's mother's coat and ping pong balls. To be clear

those were the eyes. Inspector Gadget's nemesis, Dr. Klaw, is never shown in any episode, but he does have an

action figure that has a face. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie already had three kids when

Jolie got pregnant with twins. To help the other three understand, they showed their kids

an episode of Dora the Explorer about twins. And lastly, we return to the salon so that I can tell you that in 2001, Bob the Builder

covered Mambo No. 5 with relevant lyrics like a little bit of tiling on the roof. That version

hit number one on the UK charts. loosely you want to define ice cream. Like in the 6th century, people in the Persian Empire

would combine snow with grape juice concentrate, and that was sort of ice cream. But the first

known ice cream recipe involving actual cream comes from England in the early 1700s. The

recipe mentions multiple fruits as flavor options, including cherry, raspberry, and lemon. So one of those. If you have a mind-blowing question, please leave it in comments, and

we'll endeavor to answer as many as possible. Thanks again for watching Menoplas here on YouTube, and as we say in my hometown, don't forget to be awesome