Muppets and More: Childhood and the Stories Grown-Ups Crave

Kermit the Frog is the reason I became a broadcaster. In his tan trench coat, with his microphone in his long, green fingers, Kermit popped up all over Sesame Street, getting to the bottom of stories such as Humpty Dumpty’s demise. And on The Muppet Show, Kermit kept his cast of Muppets from galloping toward chaos as the ultimate stage manager, producer, and director.

As a result, my brother and I made up our own radio broadcasts and styled our own variety shows, recording our work on a General Electric tape recorder that was so old, Ray Dolby’s ideas about noise reduction and chrome alloy cassettes were a distant dream to us.

When I was five, one of my mother’s friends gave me my very own Muppet. I can’t remember his name, but he was purple and he wore a striped sweater and he came in a box. He came with a wardrobe of facial features, too, that stuck to his face with Velcro. I loved his glasses and his squishy orange nose. Soon, he began starring in the variety shows we recorded on those old GE cassettes which, come to think of it, were a lot like the tapes Mr. Rogers later showcased on his show and in the recent PBS video, “Garden of Your Mind.”

With all this, then, is it any wonder that I’m a veteran of broadcast news or that the heroine in my latest novel wears glasses?

Nope!

In fact, the books, songs, movies, and TV shows that touched us when we were kids continue to shape us as adults, too. They influence what we value in the stories we encounter today. But to paraphrase LeVar Burton of that childhood staple, Reading Rainbow, you don’t have to take my word for it. Chris Carter, creator of the 1990s runaway hit, The X-Files, said he wanted that show to recreate the feelings he had a as a kid in California when he watched Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Kolchak quit investigating the weird and the wonderful in 1975, but during the height of The X-Files’ popularity, a short-lived reincarnation starring Stuart Townsend and Gabrielle Union came to life and you could even catch the original episodes on some cable channels. Sure, those old episodes seem a little campy by today’s standards, but to a child of the ’70s, they were probably as thrilling as The Twilight Zone was in the ’60s or Fringe has been recently.

 

The bottom line is that Carter carried Kolchak with him into adulthood--and into what it means to have a great story. And I've carried the Muppets, Mr. Rogers, Nancy Drew, and even Remington Steele with me. With that said, I'm excited to see what stories may come from generations moved by Veronica Mars, Firefly, or Pretty Little Liars.

And I'd love to know what favorite childhood books, songs, movies, or TV shows have stayed with you. Which ones taught you what to look for in a story today?