Month: December 2016

Two years after Nickelodeon’s official launch, it began airing the comedy series that would set the standard for the kid-friendly comedies that have dominated the channel’s programming lineup in the nearly 40 years since. Like a tween version of Laugh-In, You Can’t Do That On Television offered kids a somewhat subversive take on the sketch comedy genre. Its ensuing popularity essentially defined the network in the 1980s, and introduced its iconic green slime to the world. Here are 12 fun facts you might not have known about You Can’t Do That on Television.

1. IT DIDN’T START OUT AS A NICKELODEON SHOW.

Two years before making its international debut, You Can’t Do That on Television was created in Ottawa, Canada with the intention of airing there and only there. It wasn’t until two years after its original premiere that Nickelodeon took a shine to it and expressed interest in bringing it to cable television. In early 1982, Nickelodeon took a chance on the series and began airing some edited versions of the show to gauge audience reaction. It quickly became the channel’s biggest hit.

2. THE OPENING CREDITS WERE INSPIRED BY TERRY GILLIAM.

If the opening credits to You Can’t Do That on Television look familiar, you might be thinking of Monty Python’s Flying Circus or any number of other Terry Gilliam-created animations. When asked about the similarities in animation style by Splitsider, You Can’t Do That on Television executive producer Geoffrey Darby admitted that, yes, “The opening was definitely influenced by [Gilliam]. In fact, it was very much a crib on some of the things he had done previously. Not the sausage factory, but the conveyor belt and hitting the head, and having it crack open. That was very much the style of a lot of animation in 1979 and 1980. It was very much the cutout Terry Gilliam style.”

3. CHRISTINE MCGLADE WAS CAST AS THE HOST ALMOST ACCIDENTALLY.

Christine “Moose” McGlade showed up at the first audition for You Can’t Do That on Television with no intention of auditioning. She was there merely as emotional support for a friend and fellow actress, who was trying out. But show creator Roger Price wasn’t having it: he reportedly insisted that McGlade either audition or leave. She opted for the former and ended up being cast as the show’s host.

4. IT HELPED LAUNCH THE CAREERS OF SOME FUTURE STARS.

While not all of You Can’t Do That on Television’s kid stars remained in show biz, the series did help to kickstart the careers of a few household names—most notably, singer Alanis Morissette, who appeared in a handful of episodes of the show in 1986; less than a decade later, she released her hit album Jagged Little Pill, which became one of the best-selling albums of all time. Bill Prady, who would go on to executive produce Gilmore Girls and The Big Bang Theory, was a writer on the show.

5. IT WAS INTENTIONALLY ANTI-EDUCATIONAL.

Whereas other kid television creators were aiming for education over entertainment, Roger Price was focused squarely on making kids laugh. “You Can’t Do That on Television was kind of anti-educational,” McGlade told The Huffington Post. “It’s funny because I’ve worked in educational media and one of my former cast mates grew up to be a teacher. But actually, Roger Price was a very rebellious anti-establishment man. His thought process was ‘If the kids took over the studio, all these fun, silly, hilarious things could happen.'”

6. IT’S BEEN CREDITED AS THE BIRTHPLACE OF “GROSS” HUMOR.

As part of that “anti-establishment” mentality, You Can’t Do That on Television was full of bathroom humor—so much so that many people point to the series as the birthplace of gross-out humor. “[You Can’t Do That on Television] was probably the first,” Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi told The Ottawa Citizen of how the show opened the door for more potty humor-loving kids series. “If it hadn’t been for them, we wouldn’t have been able to do our thing. It was Les Lye and all those wacky guys who paved the way.”

7. THE KIDS SHOT AFTER SCHOOL AND ON WEEKENDS.

Unlike other kid actors who have on-set tutors, You Can’t Do That on Television‘s producers wanted the kids who appeared on the show to remain “normal” kids in every sense. So that they could maintain their regular routines, production occurred around school schedules. “They all went to regular school and were in regular classes,” Darby explained. “They would come after school for the table readings and then would work on the weekends. They stayed regular, local kids, because we didn’t want them in a bubble. Because then they’re no longer kids, they’re ‘act-ores.’ Which is never what was wanted.”

8. IT ORIGINATED NICKELODEON’S FAMOUS GREEN SLIME.

To this day, “getting slimed” is a staple of the Nickelodeon network—and it started with You Can’t Do That on Television. Anytime a kid said the phrase “I don’t know,” he or she would be doused with a bucket of bright green slime—which Darby said happened kind of by accident:

“We were in the dungeon set and what happened was we had this joke, which was, ‘Whatever you do, kids, don’t pull on that chain.’

We went to the cafeteria and got them to give us a bucket of slop.

We said, ‘We want you to take all the stuff that’s left on plates over the whole day and put it in this bucket.’ And then we were going to dump it on the kid so that it looked like if he pulled the chain, sewage would come out.

We didn’t get around to shooting the scene because you can’t go into overtime with children. It’s against the law. If you don’t get the scene, you don’t get the scene. We didn’t get it shot.

So we put the set up again the following week to shoot that one scene … The prop man came to me—literally, this is a completely true story—and said, ‘There’s a problem.’ The problem was that he didn’t get a new bucket of slop. He just kept the old one back stage. There was about eight to 1- inches of green crud. Growing. It had grown on the top of this bucket of … stuff. There was mold.

So, we had to get the scene, right? We couldn’t get more slop, because we couldn’t! I said, ‘Dump … it … on … the … kid … anyway.’ And that’s how green slime was invented.”

9. BEING SLIMED MEANT A BIGGER PAYCHECK.

Green slime wasn’t the only liquid kids on the show got doused with; any mention of “water” or “wet” would lead to a bucket of water being dumped on their heads. But there was a tradeoff: Kids were paid an extra $75 per episode that required them to be soaked, and $150 per episode that required them to be slimed. “We just thought it was a way to reward them for the horror of having that done,” Darby told Splitsider.

10. ONE EPISODE PROVED SO CONTROVERSIAL THAT IT WAS BANNED IN AMERICA.

In the show’s eighth season, one episode—“Adoption”—proved to be quite controversial. It did air in the U.S., but was quickly banned. Looking back on the episode in 2012, Darby admitted that the episode was a misstep, saying that, “We ourselves didn’t understand what buttons were being pushed about an episode dealing with adoption. And that was our mistake. None of the kids were adopted, we didn’t know anybody who had been adopted. That was really us just not being cognizant of the world of adoption. And so that was a bad show. That was just not being respectful.”

11. MR. ROGERS WASN’T A FAN.

Though kids loved the show, it had its fair share of detractors—many of them parents who didn’t like the way that adults were portrayed on the show. It also had one very famous critic: “Fred Rogers hates the show,” Price said in 1989. ”He doesn’t realize we’re saying the same thing—I’m saying it to eight-year-olds and he’s saying it to four-year-olds … I care about my viewers: I don’t care what their parents may want them to be, I care about them for what they are.”

12. IT INSPIRED A DOCUMENTARY FEATURE.

More than a decade after You Can’t Do That on Television’s series finale, interest in the show was still strong enough that Shout! Factory released You Can’t Do That on Film, a feature-length documentary about the series, directed by David Dillehunt.

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Holiday songs are usually full of imagery of snowy nights, cozy fires, and loved ones gathered around the Christmas tree. One thing they lack, though, is a reminder of how artificial intelligence is slowly creeping into our lives. But don’t worry, this new tune from the University of Toronto has that base covered.

According to Smithsonian, computer scientists at the university developed an artificial intelligence system capable of composing an original song inspired by a digital photo of a Christmas tree. The result below is a valiant effort, but it’s no reason to think the next Irving Berlin will be coded by a software developer. The University of Toronto team is just the latest group to experiment with music and AI. Earlier this year Sony shared a Beatles-inspired AI composition entitled “Daddy’s Car,” and they plan to release an entire album of neural network originals sometime next year.

[h/t Smithsonian]

Header/banner images courtesy of iStock.

Don’t miss an episode—subscribe here! (Images and footage provided by our friends at Shutterstock. This transcript comes courtesy of Nerdfighteria Wiki.)

1. Hi, I’m Mike, this is mental_floss on YouTube, and did you know that in the ’50s the Catholic church condemned the song “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus?” So the record label flew the 13 year old Singer, Jimmy Boyd, out to Boston to meet with the archdiocese. Afterwards, they determined that the song was okay after all.

And that is the first of many facts about holiday songs that I’m gonna share with you today. Sorry, it’s gonna get pretty Christmas-y up in here, but don’t worry, we’ll be back to our secular ways soon enough.

2. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree,” “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” and “Run, Rudolph, Run” were all written by the same man, Johnny Marks, who was Jewish.

3. “The Little Drummer Boy” was originally known as “The Carol of the Drums.” The von Trapp singers are credited with popularizing the song—yes, those von Trapps.

4. “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,” from The Nutcracker, was written in 1891 for the celesta, an instrument that was invented only five years earlier. Oh hi Nutcracker! This is a great outfit. Where do you shop?

5. In 1906, “O Holy Night” became the second song to ever be broadcast on radio.

6. The singer of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” might sound old, but that is Brenda Lee—who was 13 years old at the time.

7. The first Christmas song to mention Santa Clause was “Up on the House Top” in 1864. These guys are slightly younger than that.

8. “Do You Hear What I Hear?” was written by two people with the most Christmas-y sounding names of all time: Noel Regney and Gloria Shayne. It is also, as it turns out, about the Cuban Missile Crisis. So next time you listen to “Do You Hear What I Hear?” just keep that in the back of your mind.

9. “Joy to the World” was originally a song about Christ’s resurrection and his second coming on Easter, not his birth.

10. And the popular New Year song, “Auld Lang Syne,” was never supposed to be associated with the holiday at all. One live band in New York coincidentally played it just after midnight on the radio, then it became a tradition. Not long after it also became a tradition to turn to someone next to you at the New Year’s party and say, “What does ‘Auld Lang Syne’ mean anyway, I don’t even know.”

11. The song “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” mentions that there will be scary ghost stories, which doesn’t seem Christmas-y—but in fact it was a holiday tradition that started in Victorian England and has since died out. Spending all of that uninterrupted time with your family is scary enough so there’s no need for ghost stories. Just kidding, Mom and Dad, very excited to come home for Christmas.

12. Thurl Arthur Ravenscroft sang “You’re a Mean One, Mr Grinch.” He was also the voice of Tony the Tiger for 50 years. Not going to make a grrr-eat joke.

13. During World War I, there was a Christmas Truce, in which the French, English, and German troops sang “Silent Night.”

14. On the other hand, the BBC would not play the song “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” during World War II because they didn’t want to lower the morale of their troops.

15. Songwriter Meredith Wilson wrote “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” in addition to the University of Iowa fight song and The Music Man. That guy had range.

16.The group recording of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” brought a feud between Boy George and George Michael to popular consciousness. Of George Michael’s recording, Boy George said, “God, he sounded camp.” But then, he is.

17. George Michael actually wrote the Wham song “Last Christmas.” He also got sued for it because of its resemblance to the Barry Manilow song “Can’t Smile Without You.” It was settled out of court.

18. Irving Berlin, who wrote “White Christmas,” hated Elvis’s cover of his song. In the ’50s, he started a campaign to ban Presley’s version of the song from the radio, a process that proved akin to banning snow from falling.

19. And speaking of which, “Let It Snow” was written by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne during a 1945 heat wave in California.

20. Another song that was written in the heat: “The Christmas Song,” also known as “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.” Apparently songwriter Bob Wells was overheating, so he wrote a list of things that reminded him of cold weather. Chestnuts roasting, Jack Frost nipping, yuletide carols, et cetera. And then, it became the star of a song.

21. The residents of Armonk, New York believe that the song “Frosty the Snowman” was written about their town. They even hold an annual parade in honor of it.

22. “We Three Kings” was originally written in 1857 for a Christmas pageant at the General Theological Seminary in New York City. I imagine that’s a little bit different than the one that you would find in A Charlie Brown Christmas.

23. The original Yiddish version of “I Have a Little Dreidel,” the dreidel is made out of bley, which means lead. It was translated to clay.

24. “Deck the Halls” started as a dance tune, the lyric “follow me in a merry measure” means “join me in dance.”

25 “Silver Bells” was originally called “Tinkle Bells.” Then the song writer Ray Evans told his wife about it, who responded “Are you out of your mind? Do you know what the word tinkle is?”

26. There are three, count them, three separate music videos for the Mariah Carey song “All I Want for Christmas is You,” and for some reason, I’m not surprised.

27. When “Winter Wonderland” was written in the ’30s, some people were offended by the bit about Parson Brown marrying people on a whim. The line was replaced with “In the meadow we can build a snowman, and pretend that he’s a circus clown.”

28. “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” was originally sung by Elmo Shropshire, a veterinarian, which I guess means that there’s some kind of professional expertise supporting the described results of when grandmas and reindeers collide.

29. Paul McCartney wrote, sang, and played every instrument for “Wonderful Christmastime.” He still earns between $400,000 and $600,000 every year in royalties for the song.

30. If you really received all of the gifts from “The 12 Days of Christmas,” there would be 364 presents total. Someone did the math in 2013, and determined that it would cost around $114,651.18.

31. Finally, I return to the salon to tell you that “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” was written for the Judy Garland film Meet Me in St. Louis, originally it contained lines like “Have yourself a merry little Christmas, it may be your last, faithful friends who were dear to us will be near to us no more,” but Garland insisted that the songwriter change them, because she was supposed to sing it to a 7 year old and didn’t want to seem like, I quote, “A monster.”

Thanks for watching mental_floss on YouTube, which is made with the help of these nice people. My name is Mike Renetta, if you like my face, you can find more of it on YouTube at PBS Idea Channel, and if you like my voice, you can find it on my podcast, Reasonably Sound, links to those things in the Dooblydoo, and hey, DFTBA, and happy holidays!

Since Monopoly hit store shelves in 1935, it has been tweaked and reinvented countless times. From Pokemon to World War II, there is a variation for everyone. And now cat lovers can play a Monopoly-inspired game that’s completely dedicated to all things feline.

Cat-Opoly, an unofficially licensed board game by Late for the Sky, takes the Monopoly formula and adds a lot more whiskers. Instead of properties and railroads, players can buy cat breeds; instead of going to jail, there’s a water square; instead of a luxury tax, there’s fleas. All the chance cards come with cat facts on the back, so the game is both enjoyable and educational. You can grab a board for your family game night on Amazon. Just remember cats can’t hold game pieces—and they’re terrible cheaters anyway.

[h/t The Daily Dot]