The Weird Eighties
On the morning of my fourth birthday, I innocently tuned in to a Saturday morning cartoon based on "The Pied Piper of Hamlin." Apparently I was not familiar with the story, because when the piper led all the children off to, well, candyland, or death, or oblivion or whatever awaited them away from the safety net of parental observation, I became greatly distressed. As I recall I even wanted to put off my birthday party, though by the time the guests (and their presents) had arrived I had moved on. The version of "Pied Piper" I saw was, I recall, a fairly straightforward animation and thus not the version you will see in today's chapter.
If I'd seen that in my tender youthful condition I probably would not only have postponed that day's party, but all future ones as I curled up in a ball in my room, a nervous wreck for all time (seriously, it's pretty creepy - and cool; see for yourself). But the film featured below reminds us of a crucial fact, and one that ties in to some of my other childhood frights (namely the bizarre and ghoulish "Hansel & Gretel" episode of Shelley Duvall's "Faerie Tale Theatre"), if not this particular one. It's a fact that people sometimes forget but those of us who were young enough to live through the era with the fresh, easily perplexed eyes of childhood certainly remember: the eighties were weird.
(continued below, along with NSFW warnings)
