Forgotten/less well-known kids media.

[MallRat]

I feel inspired to post, so why not? Share some children's shows and movies that you remember watching that didn't get any buzz at the time or faded into obscurity!

Here's a couple that I remember loving:

A childhood favorite of mine! I feel that Igor never got the recognition it deserved.

I'd always tune in whenever this one was on. I really liked the art style as a kid! This was also a comic series that was originally in Chinese, but English fan translations exist.

It was a movie, but it was also a TV series. The writing is corny af as an adult (the series also had a male writing staff and it really showed sometimes), but I was into fantasy worldbuilding as a little kid so it was perfect for me. The lore is actually pretty messed up, but I know that was never going to get explored. I'm pretty sad nobody talks about it anymore

[Melooon]

Its kinda hard to tell since there were a bunch of shows I remember as a kid that then became very obscure but have now come back into being well known - My Life as a Teenage Robot and Totally Spies would be good examples.

However I'm gonna drop in Angela Anaconda which is a show I viscerally hated as a kid (we used to sit around in school and talk about how much we hated this show) and I don't think anyone will ever try and reboot it - I re-watched some of it just now and its still both cerebral-y horrifying and kind of mesmerizing at the same time - I cant tell if I hate it or love it and that's deeply worrying 

Id also include Pepper Ann, which was an ok show, it had some memorable moments like the entire episode themed around misunderstanding the phrase "new wheels", mostly it just had a great intro song! - Although its a Disney show so maybe it was actually more popular than I realize!

EDIT: I just looked them up and apparently both of these shows are created by the same person! Sue Rose. I kinda had a sneaky suspicion since they both have quite slimier themes - perhaps looking back I was too hard on them as a kid, they both stuck in my mind all these years and had an impact on me when a lot of other shows just didn't. That says something about what they had to offer 

[MallRat]

In reply to Melooon because the quote reply would’ve been too long 😵‍💫


I had no idea! I remember both of these. I never saw Pepper Ann because it wasn’t airing on Disney when I was watching it (I loved the theme song, though), but I have seen a little bit of Angela Anaconda. I thought Angela Anaconda was an adult cartoon for some reason? I think it’s because of the art style.

I legitimately wonder if My Life as a Teenage Robot would’ve ran for longer if it came out later in time? It was unique for “girl audience” shows that were airing where it didn’t shy away from action/fighting scenes. I loved that show as a kid and it had some pretty cool art direction. I was always a fan of uniquely animated/stylistic cartoons.

[MrsMoe]

I watched a LOOOOOT of random obscure shit as a kid, mostly due to being canadian and having regular trips to the library. I have a mountain of examples I could use, but here's some shows I remember watching on Treehouse or VHS that I never see anyone talk about:

- Cleo the Misfit Unicorn: A weird and....kinda ugly show (lol) if I'm being honest, about unicorn helping outcasts find their place. I think most of it is lost media, but I definitely remember the animation kind of making me uncomfortable as a kid lmao.

- Angelmouse: This is one we had a few episodes on a tape and I don't remember much about it other than the premise. It's about a tiny mouse angel (obvs) working for heaven and doing little tasks. Although I don't remember much, the art style and main protagonist are SO cute. I even had a tiny plush doll of Angelmouse growing up and my dad still quotes the duck character losing control of his roller-skates to this day. "No breaks!!! No breaks!!!"

- The Big Comfy Couch: Lunette the clown is a canadian ICON!!! Or was. Idk if the younger generation is even aware this show exists. Anyway, this show was on all the time when I was small. It's about a clown girl doing stuff in her room (and her....clown village?? Like she lives in a world where everyone's a clown. Based, I fear) with her dolly. There was also a lot of vignettes about two creatures that  lived under her couch called the dust bunnies. To this day, the noises they make fucking slay me.

- Teepee Tales: This one scared the CRAP out of me as a kid, mostly for having the creepiest puppets I've ever seen in my life. Which is really unfortunate, considering how the valuable and important the subject matter is. It involved an aborginal family living their day to day life and having issues that would segway into a related indigenous folktale. I can't speak to the actual quality of the show, but it's a fun way of getting canadian kids interested in aboriginal culture. I just wish the puppets didn't look like....that.

- The Toy Castle: This one might be my favorite just for the visual design alone. The set (for a show meant for young kids), costuming and makeup are so whimsical and charming, I love it. If I'm being honest, I think it was a major influence on my current love of theatrical and fantastical visual design (and maybe also clowncore. This show has some clowncore vibes). I seriously implore you to check it out or just even watch the intro because it's seriously lovely.

As for obscure movies I grew up with (and I really mean obscure, not like....The Iron Giant or something):

- Balto
- Ferngully
- The Pagemaster
- Rock-a-Doodle
- The Tangerine Bear
- The Little Polar Bear
- Milo and Otis (....don't look up the behind the scenes stuff)
- The Care Bears Movie (as well as those weird CGI ones that came out during the 2000's)
- The Chipmunk Adventure

I also grew up with Angela Anaconda and Igor btw 

[Eunice]

TV from when I was young. Well, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, and Stingray of course. Blue Peter, the Clangers, The Double Deckers, HR Pufnstuf, the Banana Splits, Belle & Sebastian, White Horses (I want the theme tune played at my funeral), Star Trek, and Space 1999. Those are the ones I can remember. The first film I saw at the cinema was Song of the South, when I was 4 years old.

[Yoylecake420]

Finally, my time to shine.

I remember playing on the PBS Kids website and I found this show called Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman, and the games were pretty cool. I also remember Bubble Guppies and Ni Hao Kai Lan from Nick Jr.

Now it's time for me to talk about Cbeebies. I remember going on the website and learning about the multiple shows on Cbeebies, such as Alphablocks, Abadas, Postman Pat, Numberjacks, Kerwhizz, Balamory, 64 Zoo Lane, The Lingo Show, and Mister Maker.

[magr0b]

One that stays in my heart is Prizee.com, a french flash games website. I remember playing it almost everyday back when it was still active as such. The cool thing about it was that one could win physical stuff (plushies, stickers, shirts, and later also consoles and phones) just by playing those webgames!

Prizee had some animal characters as mascots: a fish, a frog, a little demon and a rabbit as main characters, but also a raccoon (which I always thought it was a fox), and later on a penguin and a cat too. Funfact, my first ever plushie was of that raccoon!

here he is, almost 20yo <3

I believe my favourite flash game featured on the site was a labyrinth-like game in which you have to move the tiles to free the character. One that I also vividly remember is the golf game with the rabbit (?). I miss those games and it's kind of disappointing that no one managed to back them up. 

[ABlueRose]

Finally, my time to shine.

I remember playing on the PBS Kids website and I found this show called Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman, and the games were pretty cool. I also remember Bubble Guppies and Ni Hao Kai Lan from Nick Jr.

I watched Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman, I liked it!

Bubble Guppies and Ni Hao Kai Lan were a bit after my time, but I recognize the names, and remember what they looked like.

Some less well-known kids media I liked and remember are: "The X's", "Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi" "The Perils of Penelope Pitstop", and "Hoodwinked"

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

Seeing that good artists are often least popular in their own countries, I wonder how well the anglophone users here know Catweasle ;). It got a pretty good translation, and was fairly popular around here when it got its original release, and a second wind upon a re-release directed at nostalgic adults in the mid 2000s; my father got it for my younger brother (who loved it). I was slightly too old for it back then, but still enjoyed what I captured from it.

Another show that is obscure - at least in Germany - is Backpuss. We weren't aware of this show, until we visited Canterbury last year - our camping place had a giant information poster about the show, outsizing the ones for the Cathedral by several factors :D. It seems to be a show about some cat-doll that has a life of its own, with music by John Faulkner (who I knew before); I never saw a full episode, but I love the concept and what I heard from the show:

We visited the museum where the original doll is displayed.

There was a show running for a short time after my parents got satellite TV - it was set in Africa, with a pristine art style, and full of magic. I tried to find out the name several times, but gave up on this ~15 years ago. I just tried again, and searching for the channel name and "Africa" got me on the right track (and that it still seems to be the only cartoon ever set in Africa that was aired on our stately kids channel might be a testimony about how unique this show was) - it was "Kassai and Leuk", a French production. I guess it is lost media. The art style is much less good than I remembered it, but I still think that it was a good show:

Arabela (in Germany known as the Princess Bride) was a czech series, and maybe the peak of Czech children fantasy - from the same people responsible for the much more famous "Pan Tau". The series features people growing from old man into children, dogs turned into people, magic of all forms, and... Fântomas. Its absolutely charming :). Not easy to find footage that sums the show up in a good manner, but this supercut might give an impression:

Miracle in Milano is not essentially a childrens movie, but a movie well understandable for children, and absolutely great. Magical, italian neo-realism, highly political, melancholic, but also absolutely light hearted. See this scene, where a platoon of policeman is about to evict the slum where the story is set (english subs available; setting the time doesn't work in the embed, so please jump to 1h 11min):

The whole movie is to be recommended.

There was a kind of B-Set on the anime channel in my child hood. Series I remember quite well are The Genie Family (which I remember as full of rather transgressive jokes, I'm pretty sure that this wouldn't air nowadays anymore), the incredibly bad Flint the Time Detective, or Monster Rancher - that was essentially a Pokémon copycat. I can't imagine that many people still remember these :D.

[MallRat]

Finally, my time to shine.

I remember playing on the PBS Kids website and I found this show called Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman, and the games were pretty cool. I also remember Bubble Guppies and Ni Hao Kai Lan from Nick Jr.

Now it's time for me to talk about Cbeebies. I remember going on the website and learning about the multiple shows on Cbeebies, such as Alphablocks, Abadas, Postman Pat, Numberjacks, Kerwhizz, Balamory, 64 Zoo Lane, The Lingo Show, and Mister Maker.

Hell yeah, I loved Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman. I'd always watch it when it came on. I also watched a little bit of Cbeebies. Specifically Charlie and Lola, Teletubbies, and Bob the Builder. Specifically, the original version of Bob the Builder and not the more detailed looking one.

[musicobsessed107]

Anyone else remember Raggs? I remember watching it on TV once when I was 5 years old at my old apartment and I recently discovered that I even have a DVD of it still as I was going through my collection. I don't remember what television network owned it at the time, I just know it was on channel 3 (at least if you had Time Warner Cable circa 2011/2012 like my folks and I did) and it might have been a local PBS channel or something.



Other obscure kids shows that come to mind for me are The Upside Down Show, Gullah Gullah Island (or at least it was by the time the great rebranding of the Nickelodeon sister channels happened in late 2009 and they would only air this at midnight I believe if you were on the west coast like I am), Jack's Big Music Show, Wayside (yes, there was a television series based off of the books, believe it or not), 3rd and Bird, Blue's Room, Kipper the Dog, and Brandy and Mr Whiskers. I hardly see anyone talking about those shows anywhere.

[fablefound]

- The Toy Castle: This one might be my favorite just for the visual design alone. The set (for a show meant for young kids), costuming and makeup are so whimsical and charming, I love it. If I'm being honest, I think it was a major influence on my current love of theatrical and fantastical visual design (and maybe also clowncore. This show has some clowncore vibes). I seriously implore you to check it out or just even watch the intro because it's seriously lovely.

fellow canadian spotted!! and i'll do ya one better: do you remember the toy castle pilot movie, which was inspired by the steadfast tin soldier story? i do because it absolutely terrified me as a kid with the evil jack-in-the-box haha.

[MrsMoe]

fellow canadian spotted!! and i'll do ya one better: do you remember the toy castle pilot movie, which was inspired by the steadfast tin soldier story? i do because it absolutely terrified me as a kid with the evil jack-in-the-box haha.

I actually never saw the pilot movie, just reruns of the show. Maybe someday I'll get around to it.

[lakes]

There's one show I remember from my childhood, Brandy and Mr. Whiskers. It was about 2 anthropomorphic animals stranded in the jungle, one a snotty dog named Brandy and the other one a dumb bunny named Whiskers.
There was also Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi which is about 2 musicians & their manager. Apparently it's based on & stars an actual music duo.
Another music based show from my childhood was Class of 3000 about Andre 3000 teaching a music class.
I don't know if any of these are actually good but I remember them being ok at the time.

[ABlueRose]

There's one show I remember from my childhood, Brandy and Mr. Whiskers. It was about 2 anthropomorphic animals stranded in the jungle, one a snotty dog named Brandy and the other one a dumb bunny named Whiskers.
There was also Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi which is about 2 musicians & their manager. Apparently it's based on & stars an actual music duo.
Another music based show from my childhood was Class of 3000 about Andre 3000 teaching a music class.
I don't know if any of these are actually good but I remember them being ok at the time.

I remember Brandy and Mr. Whiskers! I really liked it as a kid, and I think there were games for it on Disney's website back then! I had completely forgotten the name though, so I could only remember the character designs.

Also yay! Another person remembers Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi!