Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? (26 page)

Let that nice girl next door gussy up her notebook with Snoopy and scratch 'n' sniff strawberries; you were rebelling against the advertising establishment, even if you weren't quite sure what it was. Pass the Frosted Snakes.

I
F you're inexplicably freaked out by mirrors, blindfolds, eclipses, and backwards writing on foggy windows, perhaps it's because you once saw Disney's most disturbing kid movie ever, 1980's
Watcher in the Woods
. It starred the girl from
Ice Castles
(Lynn-Holly Johnson) and a completely desiccated Bette Davis. In a fabulous movie coincidence,
Ice Castles
girl just happened to look like Davis's character's daughter, Karen, who'd mysteriously disappeared thirty years ago.

In one of the film's most-remembered creep-out scenes,
Ice Castles
girl's little sister gets all possessed and writes “NERAK”—“Karen” backwards—on a window. Her perfect backwards handwriting was so impressive that plenty of young viewers were inspired to attempt to do the same for weeks afterward on foggy school bus windows.

Many parents, lulled into security by Disney's blander live-action fare, foolishly let their kids see
Watcher
without realizing that nightmares would ensue. Forget mirrors and blindfolds, just staring at Bette Davis's sunken-in cheeks for an hour or so was pretty horrifying. Critics snorted that the movie never delivered, but (spoiler!) Karen comes back safe in the end, which is more than
The X-Files
can say for Mulder's sister.

T
HEY were slooshy, splorfy, and, for some reason, a vehicle for showcasing wildlife art.Waterbeds in the '70s and '80s were often capped by headboards with majestic elk etched into the mirrors, ornate dark-stained finials, and frosted-glass cupboard doors. Convenient cubbies allowed hipsters to show off their eight-track tape players, lava lamps, and giant ashtrays. Classy.

Waterbeds were mini
Poseidon Adventure
s waiting to happen: When the inevitable leak came—and it always did—the stream would shoot high into the air, like a shopping-mall fountain, until you could get it patched. But it was the adults' job to fix the problem. Kids just loved the beds for their resemblance to a water park ride; we could hop on and surf, or pretend we commanded the SS
Serta
. It was the equivalent to having your very own blow-up bouncy house. Or, when it leaked, a Slip 'N Slide.

Adults seemed to enjoy them for, um, other reasons. We weren't exactly sure what was going on, but the sound of sloshing coming from the parents' bedroom when we slept overnight at a friend's house always made us seasick.

W
ITH their tiny heads and bottom-heavy bodies, roly-poly Weebles took anything a kid could dish out and kept popping back up for more, like a punching bag with a weighted butt. As you may have gleaned from the annoying but unforgettable jingle, they wobbled but they didn't fall down.

They were Indians and pirates, ghosts and ringmasters, doggies and pigs. Even though their arms were stuck inside their eggy shell—and they didn't have any legs—Weebles certainly had fulfilling leisure lives, with accessories ranging from campers and haunted houses to circuses and submarines.

The skin on the earliest models tended to peel off, so Weeble manufacturer Playskool encased later versions in clear plastic shells. Although the plastic looked protective, kids quickly found that heat, water, and dirt could still get inside. If you dropped a Weeble in the sink to see if it could swim, or sent it on a trip through the dishwasher, the outside would stay intact but the inside . . . eew. There's something unsettling about a little cowboy slowly shriveling away, as if it had toy leprosy.

T
HERE were plenty of pretty-boy bullies in '80s movies, but all of their blond hairdos, snarky smirks, and dripping sarcasm combined didn't add up to one William Zabka.

There was nobody better at capturing seething entitlement and impatience with nerds than Zabka, who stalked the screen awash in testosterone and, probably, Brut aftershave. The second he stepped into frame, audiences knew that Zabka would be the one to root against, and nowhere was that more apparent than when he played Cobra Kai Johnny Lawrence in
The Karate Kid
. Whether he was chasing Ralph Macchio while dressed as a skeleton, or sweeping Daniel-san's injured leg during the climactic competition, Zabka nailed the jock-with-a-chip-on-his-shoulder role, while subtly infusing him with a bit of humanity. Which made him even scarier.

Zabka could have hung it up after
Karate Kid
, content in the fact that he'd aced a spot in the Movie Villain Hall of Fame. But he continued to ride his wave of evil through the '80s, menacing Rodney Dangerfield's son (and wearing a red Speedo and caveman costume) in
Back to School
and terrorizing ninety-eight-pound weaklings in the cafeteria in
Just One of the Guys
.

Even we nerds had to admire his tenacity. All hail William Zabka, King of the Jerks.

W
AS 1971's
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
the weirdest kid movie of all time? Your Honor, the evidence:

Charlie Bucket's four decrepit grandparents share a bed while waiting for death. The acid trip of a boat ride where Wonka completely loses it.Violet Beauregard turns into a giant blueberry. And the smoking gun? The orange-faced, musically moralizing Oompa-Loompas. The prosecution rests.

Despite this sea of weirdness, and really, because of it,
Wonka
stuck with us all these years, like a watermelon Jolly Rancher on a molar. It's a scrumdiddlyumptious, imaginative ride through crazy-town. Gene Wilder's performance as candy master Willy Wonka was a sweet little nugget of nougat covered in bitter—and demented—chocolate.

“You lose!” Wonka curtly lied to Charlie, just before he handed over the keys to the candy factory. But any kid who watched the thing won pretty big.Any kid but Violet, Veruca, Mike, and Augustus, that is. Wonka promised Charlie that the other children would be restored to their “normal, terrible old selves.” We always suspected Wonka lied about that, too.

P
UT your prejudices about the scary orange-faced little guys aside. For one tasty part of the 1970s, Oompas was the name of a candy, and they were as magical as Everlasting Gobstoppers. Shaped a little like M&M's that had eaten too many M&M's, the candies somehow balanced two fillings, with peanut butter cream on top and chocolate on the bottom. Or vice versa, if you flipped your Oompa over.

Many an Oompa-loving kid felt cheated when Reese's Pieces came out in 1978. They looked like Oompas, and the word “Reese's” hinted at a PB and chocolate marriage, but one bite proved that wrong. The filling was all peanut butter, with the only chocolate found in the candy shell. Oompa, loompa, doompa-didisappointing.

F
ORGET Pig Latin. The cool kid's language of the 1970s was Ubbi Dubbi (“Hub-i, Fr-ubiends!”), and if you could speak it, you felt like a genius and sounded like a dork. Most of us just faked it. But it was still one of the best parts of the kids' show
ZOOM
, which ran on PBS from 1972 to 1978.

ZOOM
had a DIY feel long before we knew what DIY meant. The games Zoomers played had been sent in by real kids, so they felt random but real. No network legal department today would ever approve CrackerWhistle, where you and a friend stuff wads of saltines into your mouths and try to be the first to choke enough down so that you can whistle.

Some of
ZOOM
's trademarks survived well after the show was canceled.What kid didn't try to copy the weird fluttery hand movements made by early Zoomer Bernadette? Or puzzle over the language game called Fannee Doolee? And forget 90210, the ZIP code kids knew best in the 1970s was “BOS-Ton Mass, OH-two-ONE-three-FOUR!”

It's a true American mystery that kids at recess in, say, Maine, often sing the same jump-rope rhymes or play the same clapping games as kids in Southern California or Seattle or Miami. Kid knowledge seems to spread through osmosis, but we'd bet a lot of it originated with an ever-changing cast in striped rugby shirts. Come on and Zoom Zoom Zoom-a Zoom . . .

T
O properly acknowledge everyone who in some way contributed to this book, we'd have to go back in time and thank everyone who joined in our childhood pop-culture fun, whether they played the Dark Shadows board game with us or helped us stab Stretch Armstrong till we found out what was inside (Answer: Goo!). If you are one of those people, please consider yourself thanked.

Gael Fashingbauer Cooper would also like to thank Rob and Kelly Cooper; Ann, Ed, E.H., Claudia, Drew, and Dave Fashingbauer ; Anne, Tom, Josh, and Sam Howard; Annie-marie and Mark Miller;April, Heidi, and Christian Fashingbauer; Clio, Carl, Maggie, Molly, and Erin McLagan; Grace and Paul Peters; Pete Cooper and Linda Richardson; Alison Cooper Valenziano; Todd Mannis; Lisa Olchefske Gilbert; Suzanne Dillon; Ann Simerson Williams; Bob Seabold and Bobbe Norenberg; Scott and Stacy Pampuch; Scott Feraro; Matt Gillen; Dan Dosen; Jeannine Walden Roberts; her Fashingbauer and Votel cousins; her Seattle book club posse; the Lenora Mattingly Weber list; Francine Ruley for loaning out some of her pop-culture collection; the entire Derham Hall High School class of 1985; and everyone who's ever read
Pop Culture Junk Mail
and
Gen X-tinct
.

Brian Bellmont would like to thank Jen, Rory, and Maddy Bellmont; brothers Mike, Kevin, and especially Dave, for the generous use of his collection of nerd things; Mom and Dad; his grandparents, Bob and Jeanette Welle; Ryan Bisson; Molly Bellmont; Allison, Kelsey, Eric, and Al Guggisberg; Sue and Darwin Buerkle; Phyllis Iverson; childhood, high school, and college pop-culture partners-incrime Andrew Leahy, Kevin Kasparek, and Chris Moore; Dave Nimmer, Dave Aeikens, Kathleen Hennessy, and Mike Zipko; kajillions of cousins, nieces, nephews, aunts, and uncles, especially Liz Hoch and Pete Welle; Aquinites, WEAUers, and Shandwickians; and classmates and teachers from Sts. Peter and Paul and Cathedral.