Things are just funnier when life has driven you to the edge.
Two hours of 20-month-old crying for no reason we can fathom… Screaming over every bite of dinner, exiled to his crib for ten minutes to calm the tantrum. Bribed with a butterscotch chip for every piece of zucchini, chicken or pasta he eats (still screaming) (is he going to choke on it?). Kids at the other end of the dinner table with their hands over their ears.
To calm the mayhem, Christian puts on The Muppet Show, Season One. Nicholas continues to shriek, so I have to abandon the dishes to hold him. We settle in the glider rocker; he settles down and stares, transfixed, at the TV. (He doesn’t know how lucky he is to get videos; in our early parenting years, Alex wasn’t allowed to so much as glance at a TV screen until he was two years old.)
Over on the couch, Julianna snuggles down under Christian’s arm, the sweetest thing ever (where, oh where is the camera when I need it?) And then, this comes on the screen:
Christian and I are screaming with laughter, tears pouring down our faces; Nicholas is crying, and Julianna edges away from Daddy, retreating to the end of the couch, where she huddles against the poofy arm and stares back at her beloved Daddy with genuine alarm. Have all the adults lost their grip on reality?
And this, folks, is why we will never get rid of the TV altogether:
Kathleen M. Basi 
Television 98% Pure Junk. But the 2% is what keeps us coming back for more. 😀
I loved watching the Muppet Show as a kid. Most kids’s shows these days can’t hold a candle to it. Those guys in the first clip are hilarious–and I don’t recall seeing that bit before. Hilarious! Thanks for posting this!
Evan
Not that it’s for everyone, but we punted TV about 16 years ago:
http://platytera.blogspot.com/2009/03/tv-and-lent.html
We ditched the TV for two or three Lents running, and it was definitely a good idea. We haven’t been willing to do it the last few years, though.
FWIW, I’m aware that neither of these video clips is particularly “child”-appropriate–it’s so interesting to see the difference in what people *used* to program for kids and what they do now.
My kids don’t watch much TV these days. But we keep checking out old-style Sesame Street and Muppets for the kids to watch. 🙂
I always thought the Muppets were adult entertainment – not necessarily in a bad sense. Jim Henson was a once-in-a-lifetime genius.