Hi, I’m John Green. Welcome to my salon. This is Mental Floss on YouTube. 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 “jigowatt,” 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 “developed an avid following among both preteen girls
and mothers...the latter scrutinize 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 Pokémon. In the episode, the characters go into a computer and destroyed
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 Pokémon. Not my
area of expertise.
So as you may know, the Internet has a theory[a] that Barney is Satan. No real surprise there,
but let me take you through the argument. You take the phrase “Cute Purple Dinosaur”
and then replace the letter “U’s” with “V’s,” as the ancient Romans would.
Then you pick the Roman numerals out of that phrase, which it just so happens to add up
to 666. COINCIDENCE? Yes, definitely. I mean… decide for yourself.
Sometimes nineties nostalgia strikes at weird times. Like in 2012 when there was an Adventures
of Pete & 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?” Truly only nineties kids will get
that.
Nickelodeon aired new episodes of the Rugrats from 1991 to 2004. Since the premiere episode
was Tommy’s first birthday, if he aged naturally throughout the series, he would have been
13 by the time it ended.
The Powerpuff Girls were originally named the Whoopass Girls[b]. Creator Craig McCracken
started a short in college called “Whoopass 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[c]. 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 T&G co-stars Wil Wheaton and Patrick
Stewart.
Scooby-Doo’s name was originally “Too Much.” But right before production started,
one of the creators of the program heard the Frank Sinatra song “Strangers in the Night”
and was inspired by the refrain: “Dooby-dooby-doo.” Is that copyright infringement? No, apparently
my singing was not good enough for that to be copyright infringement.
Remember in the nineties 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,
“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.” Chuckle.
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 Soccer. Now, I’m not calling Soccer 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.
All right, we’ve gotta speed this up!
Little Richard sang the Magic School Bus theme song.
Sesame Street has won over a hundred Emmys, by far the most Emmys of any television program
ever.
When Michael Cera was 14, he voiced Brother Bear in The Berenstain Bears.
Lamb Chop is still performing today with Shari Lewis’s daughter, Mallory. They do a lot
of performances for the military who promoted the puppet to a three-star general.
Miranda Cosgrove earns $180,000 for each episode of iCarly. Compare that with Miley Cyrus who
earned $15,000 per episode of Hannah Montana.
In 2011, the Fox News program Fox and 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 Hensen’s mother’s coat
and ping pong balls. To be clear, those were the eyes.
Inspector Gadget’s nemesis, Dr. Claw, 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 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.
Thanks for watching Mental Floss here on YouTube, which is made with the help of these nice
people. Every week we endeavor to answer one of your mind-blowing questions. This week’s
question comes from Victor Kugler who asks “What was the first flavour of ice cream?”
That’s a fantastic question, Victor, I don’t know the answer. By the way, this is kind
of a Transformer ice cream cone. It starts out as an ice cream cone and then it becomes
a little person! But Meredith tells me it depends on how 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 for watching Mental Floss here on YouTube and
as we say in my hometown - Don’t forget to be awesome.
[a]We'll want text probably: "CUTE PURPLE DINOSAUR" -->
"CVTE PVRPLE DINOSAVR" --> "C V V L D I V" -->
"100 5 5 50 500 1 5" --> These add up to 666
[b]Can we say this on the show? It's just too good to not include. Maybe with a bleep?
Or alternate: "'The Whoop-A Girls.' Only the 'A' was an actual curse word that we can’t
say on this show. Creator Craig McCracken created a short in college called 'Whoop-A
Stew!'" [c]Maybe we can link? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ6AdWpll1Y
at 2:10