Giant Killer Lollipop

When I was very little, I watched a good bit of educational TV. I'm actually fairly certain that huge doses of Sesame Street, with dashes of Schoolhouse Rock thrown in, helped me considerably in school.

As an adult, looking into the nostalgia craze, I was a little afraid of watching Schoolhouse Rock again, because I was absolutely sure that it was the source of one of my recurring childhood nightmares. See, when I was very little, I had horrible dreams about a little girl being chased by... um... well... a lollipop.

Stop laughing! The girl was terrified, and the lollipop was sinister, to say the least. The dreams were awful, and for years afterwards I was afraid I'd see the imagery again and have nightmares again. But to my surprise, when I finally did see all of Schoolhouse Rock, the sinister lollipop was nowhere to be seen.

I figured that it must have been some other educational insert - they were really common on Saturday Morning Cartoons (I remember a particularly good nutritional series that never once convinced me not to eat sweets). I sighed and breathed easy, since the odds of me seeing the evil killer lollipop seemed remarkably slim.

When the Best of the Electric Company DVD became available, hubby-Eric enthusiastically bought the set. I wasn't so enthused. Basically, all I remembered about the show was "HEY YOU GUYS!" Not much else sprang to mind when I thought about it. Heh. Boy was I wrong.

Not only did I remember a few of the sketches on the first disc (all of which aired before I was born), I also found that the rhythm of the show was very familiar. Clearly I saw the show far more than I'd realized.

Then we started the second disc. As we were watching Episode 109 tonight, a very familiar and terrifying sight appeared. I saw that poor little girl, hiding ineffectively behind a tree, and I KNEW I was about to see it again... THE EVIL LOLLIPOP!!!!

It was the Electric Company all along. The Electric Company gave me nightmares for years and years! And there it was! Confirmation, on our TV screen, that I hadn't made up the evil lurking lollipop all those years ago. And... come to think of it... we've never seen that little girl since that horrible cartoon short. I was right all along. The evil giant killer lollipop ate her.

I just know I'm gonna have nightmares tonight.