I remember having quite a few VHS tapes from a company called “Just For Kids”, that had some of the neatest shows.
“Sherlock Hound”, “Kissyfur”, “Foofur”, “Seabert”, and quite a bit more. My siblings and I loved animals, so this got us interested right away!
I also grew up in a religious household, so Christian videos were standard for us.
Did you know that there was a bible-story-centric anime called “Superbook”? Used to watch it all the time! There was also “McGee and Me”, “Secret Adventure”, and “Adventures in Odyssey”. Used to listen to the “Adventures in Odyssey” radio show all the time!
“The Donut Man” was a Barney-esque Christian show for kids, too.
What obscure things did you watch growing up?
It’s technically a Disney Movie, but Brave Little Toaster was a bizarre move we used to watch all the time as kids. Up there with movies like Flight of the Navigator or Short Circuit or Batteries Not Included in terms of rewatchability for us. Tried watching it with my kids a year or two ago and I feel like I don’t know how my parents could have let me watch it as a kid. So dark. So weird.
To this day I am still extra cautious with the vacuum cleaner cord because of that scene where the vacuum runs over and vacuums up his cord! That movie had some really intense scenes!
Right?! I remember taking extra care to never lose my blanky because of that movie.
The junkyard car song from that movie has to be one of the most soul crushing, depressing songs ever
https://youtu.be/-UfsEj7AOGI. (Seriously, dont watch if you are very depressed)
Thanks for sharing. I was gonna look it up to refresh my memory. Soul-crushing indeed.
Oh god… so that’s where my depression came from!
I don’t know how obscure it is, but I loved watching KaBlam! It was weird animated shorts in a variety of styles. My favorites were the shorts made with stop-motion and action figures!
I would call these semi-obscure, but I absolutely love The Secret of NIMH and The Land Before Time. Don Bluth films have such a special place in my heart.
Oh yeah and also I was a public TV kid, and I watched the Wishbone movie, Between the Lions, Peep and the Big Wide World, and I’ve had yet to meet someone that knows what The Zula Patrol is. It’s such a banger TV show.
And you can’t forget about Word World.
Alright, last one. I remember being absolutely mesmerized by The Woodwright’s Shop. I could watch that show for hours lol.
Jam the Housnail.
I thought for the longest time it was a fever dream. That it didn’t exist. I could never find it anything related to the godforsaken thing on any Canadian channels list of cartoons they aired. My family thinks I am joking when I mention how horribly this show plagued my thoughts over this years, but I had been searching for a decade.
Anyway apparently it’s from Japan and I probably watched it on Veoh or something, because it’s on my anime list now and I finally found out what it was called last year.
Not sure how obscure it is, but I used to watch Liberty’s Kids on PBS all the time.
We had this VHS we watched as a kid called “How Come?” And I don’t even really remember what it was about. But I think it was educational? The only thing I could find about it online was this ebay posting of the VHS: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/hMEAAOSwNsVfWTMT/s-l400.jpg
I remember the doughnut man, but not fondly.
There was this movies called scamper the penguin I really liked.
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Old Soviet cartoons are so absolutely beautiful! I really do hope you are able to find them someday.
There is a video about Soviet animation, if you haven’t seen it already!
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Very haunting images, have you tried tracking these cartoons down as an adult?
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You definitely should digitally scan and post it somewhere! Im sure there are lots of others who would love being able to see it.
Does anyone remember a show that featured a big record man who clacked wooden spoons together? He was terrifying haha, he would say “NOW HERE’S THE BEAT”… (I think this might be a Canadian show)
Also, anyone remember 3,2,1 Contact on PBS?
My brother and I remember this cartoon we had on VHS from our childhood. Every time we mention Seabert to anybody, they have no idea what we’re talking about. It’s about a guy and his seal going on adventures, often in the desert…
I remember having a VHS tape from some group which was basically just a bunch random kid friendly songs. I did some googling and found a Youtube Channel with them (interestingly called “Kidsongs”) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71a4VPi6toc
The other obscure-ish one that I remember was trying to wake up early before school to watch Superhuman Samurai Cyber Squad. I can see now it was an attempt to capitalize on Power Rangers’ popularity and reuse Japanese footage in the same way/style.
War Planets was another one I loved as a kid, mostly because I had a lot of War Planets toys too.
I remember a few. I’m thinking they could be considered obscure to some degree, but mostly because I live in Europe. But I remember ‘Mighty Max,’ ‘Captain N: The Game Master’ and ‘The Toxic Crusaders.’
‘Toxic Crusaders’ has an absolute banger of an intro song. XD
https://youtu.be/mf2_g52p__Y?t=13
The singer goes so hard.
Oh man, Captain N was my jam back in the days.
Has anyone here watched Centurions? It was such a cool concept. I’m surprised there hasn’t been a remake or adaptation of this.
I have a nostalgic soft spot for the old Sonic Adventures. He sure loved his chili dogs.
Idk how obscure it is, but I was just looking for Zoids Chaotic Century last night and couldn’t find it on any streaming service, so I checked Amazon for a DVD copy only to see people want $150+ for used copies of the show… Sucks that it’s so hard to find now!
