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?

  • PepperTwist@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    Being born in the early 90’s in a country neighboring Russia, you could find quite a lot of bootleg or otherwise weird VHS-tapes of Soviet-era cartoons that had made it across the border back after the Iron Curtain collapsed, usually at flea-markets or in bargain-bins.

    I remember we used to have quite a few of them, most were just collections of different Russian cartoons from like the 70’s and 80’s. A few I’ve managed to track down, like Nu Pogodi! The rest of them I’ve tried to find with the limited details I remember, but haven’t had any luck.

  • shimura@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • TimTheEnchanter@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      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!

      • shimura@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        Right?! I remember taking extra care to never lose my blanky because of that movie.

  • TimTheEnchanter@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    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!

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    1 year ago

    There was one made in stop motion called “Bumpy in the night”. Just two seasons, but it was fun. I liked it.

  • FalseAerobics@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    We also had a few of the “Just For Kids” VHS tapes growing up and it took me ages to track down info about the company down when I randomly remembered them a year or two ago. I absolutely loved “The Elmchanted Forest” as well as “Sampson and Sally” and “Katy and the Katerpillar Kids.”

    From what I found Just For Kids had bought the rights to some obscure Eastern European films from the 80’s and dubbed them into English before they disappeared themselves which was a disappointment to me given the fond nostalgia I had for their movies. Took me forever to find the films I remembered because of that, but I did eventually.

  • Zelsabriel@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    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!

  • ADHDefy@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Oh boy, I had a few like this that come to mind.

    Bucky O’Hare was a favorite of mine. There was also this weird British superhero teddy bear called Super Ted.

    Someone else in this thread mentioned Bump in the Night, which was def a big one for me, too.

    I also had a VHS of Cubix: Robots for Everyone that I was obsessed with. It was a Korean CGI animated show that sadly never got all that big in the US, but there were a couple of lame video games and a few toys that made it here.

    I could make a whole huge list, so I’ll stop here, but it would be a disservice of me not to mention Extreme Dinosaurs which was (and still is) objectively the coolest show ever made.