Saturday, August 30, 2003
(11:07 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Talking Koala Bears
I distinctly remember that when I was a child, there was a show on Nickelodeon about talking koala bears. They came from another dimension, which could only be reached by doing some occult kind of activity in the Australian desert. There were children involved, and those children's father was missing, but it turned out that he had been in the other dimension or something. I got the feeling that I wasn't watching the show in chronological order, because some of the episodes would be just that, episodes with no particular continuity between them, just fun-filled koala-based romps. Some of them, however, appeared to be part of some overarching plot of almost Marvel Comic-esque ambition.
I have found some resources for The Adventures of the Little Koala, but that doesn't seem to be the right show. Am I hallucinating the part about the kids and their dad? Am I conflating the adventures of Roo-Bear and his pals with some other, weirder show? This episode guide does not seem to fit my description at all, but "The Adventures of the Little Koala" seems to have run during the exact right years (1987-1993). Here is an illustration, which is very familiar to me:
There is apparently a petition to put "Adventures of the Little Koala" back on the air, which I would gladly sign if any of the damn links worked on the page.
In other news, what about "David the Gnome"? I mean, what the hell? That was another show that seemed to have a lot of shallow, fun-filled episodes (I remember one in particular where David's boots were too worn out and there was some worry that he'd fall off a tree because of it), and then there were these episodes where David was apparently fighting some transcendent, Sauron-like evil. I guess these shows from Nickelodeon in the 1980's are not a big deal on the Internet, because here's what I get for a description:
This show is about the gnomes that live in a forest. They are friends with the animals and nature. Wherever they are in the forest, they are in danger of the mean trolls who are always trying to capture them.
Here is a picture of the heroes:
And the villains:
To change the topic slightly, back in my computer heyday, when I was a master of the Commodore 64, I often enjoyed playing a game entitled "Ducks Ahoy." The search results for that title on Google are dominated by stories about this incident where some rubber duckies en route from China to Seattle were left out on the open sea. The main point, however, is that no one ever believed me when I described the game to them, even though I remember it vividly. Thus, I provide this link to a ROM of the original Commodore 64 game, as well as this link to an emulator that will play it. I think I have just discovered how I'm going to spend my last weekend before being engulfed in the rigorous academic demands of Chicago Theological Seminary's Master of Arts in Religion program. And probably every weekend after I am engulfed.
UPDATE: This is a page dedicated to all the Dangermouse merchandise available, including the all-important DVDs and videos of all the various episodes. I add this to the Weblog mainly for my own benefit, so that I can find the page and buy the videos when I have more money (i.e., any).
