When I was in elementary school, I would often fake a stomach ache so that I could stay home and watch TV. It was great, because both of my parents worked. I had the whole house to myself and free run of the refrigerator. Once everyone was gone, I would slither down stairs to plant myself in front of the black and white TV and watch the greatest kids show ever created … Captain Kangaroo.
Now most youngsters have no knowledge of the Captain. This was way before Sesame Street, Mister Rogers, Barney, or Tele Tubbies. The Captain had a bunch of friends that apparently cohabited with him 24×7. These other characters included A pseudo-zoologist named Mister Green Jeans, a giant dancing bear, a talking grandfather clock, a moose puppet named Mister Moose, and a rabbit puppet named Bunny Rabbit.
The Captain was always hiding Bunny Rabbit’s carrots and Bunny Rabbit was always scheming a way to steal the carrots. Bunny Rabbit always and without fail, screwed the Captain out of the bunch of carrots through some devious means. Why did the Captain not just hand the carrots over at the beginning of the show? A mystery for the ages, perhaps. The carrot hiding, scheming, stealing scenario was a central tenet of Captainology and was always a “wait for it” moment, so that probably explains a lot.
The second recurring theme involved ping pong balls. Mister Moose always had some scheme to dump a shitload of ping pong balls onto the Captain’s head. The whole process had to be triggered by the Captain pulling a string or pushing a lever, so Mister Moose had to use his far superior intellect in order to fool the Captain into triggering the ping pong ball avalanche.
I don’t want to be judgmental, but apparently Captain Kangaroo was a moron.
