Unexpectedly Good Media

thinking today about a certain kind of media... i engage with a lot of obscure cult media and get into some deep rabbit holes. there's cult media that stands out in a variety of different ways, but one of my favorite kinds of obscure media is stuff that doesn't really make it to cult status. there's some stuff that only stands out because it's exceptionally _good_ relatively to similar things that surround it. if what surrounds it isn't something that's of wide interest, then people aren't going to notice anything about it necessarily. this is particularly likely if what surrounds it is less _bad_ than _mediocre_. i was talking with some friends about lost media, about how lost media isn't necessarily terrible stuff but stuff nobody thinks to care about in the first place. stuff like the 1980s Disney Channel series "Dumbo's Circus". I remember that show being on as a child and was never interested because in those days the Disney Channel sucked and thought that just carrying the Disney brand excused them from having to make engaging or interesting content. if there was an episode of that show that was actually _good_, that would be the kind of thing i'm talking about.

i find this sort of thing most often in the realm of television, but there's no reason it couldn't apply to other media as well. i've heard people say, for instance, that "the button down mind of bob newhart" is better than they expected. it's not what he's remembered for these days. maybe he will be once people forget his tv shows... i don't know. i grew up on his tv shows. or romance comics, there are probably some really great, sophisticated romance comics from the '50s out there, but nobody knows about them because romance comics don't have a cult following.

i was reading a book about unsold pilots, which was interesting but wasn't always organized in the most helpful way for future research. it happened to mention a 1960 tv pilot by sam peckinpah, and that it was good. it also mentioned, i think, that he had a pilot that went to series around the same time, and that series was also good. it was around. i could find somewhere to watch it. and yeah, it's good. it's not "the wild bunch", but it's good. does it have a cult reputation? maybe. a deep, deep cult reputation among peckinpah diehards. i don't think of the western era in television as a time of great creative ferment. bonanza and gunsmoke aren't bad shows, from what i've seen. there were just a lot of them, and a lot of them were pretty ordinary. they tend to blend together unless you're a diehard cultist... and there aren't really diehard western cultists.

i'd contrast this with something like akio jissoji's work for the ultraman line of series. to me, tokusatsu shows absolutely blend together, but they do have a fanbase who will champion lesser-known works, even in the anglosphere where these shows aren't necessarily subtitled. in addition, akio jissoji's work is notable for being very strange. the stuff i'm talking about is stuff that doesn't really distinguish itself by nature of being unusual.

so for instance the channel poparena, running a series of video essays on every tv show broadcast by nickelodeon, covered the obscure 1970s pbs series "vegetable soup" and was surprised to find out - hey, this is a really interesting and really good anti-racist kids show.

anyway that's the kind of stuff i'm talking about. it's all around us, always has been, but you kind of have to squint and look sideways to see it.

anybody have anything they think of along those lines?

I'm gonna say Peppa Pig. I know all you ILX moms and dads would say Bluey, but Bluey's whole thing is that it's the one kids show out there right now that's actually very well-made and thoughtful, so it's not a surprise that it's good. Peppa Pig on the other hand is so ubiquitous and comes off so low-effort that you assume it's a Teletubbies or Cocomelon type thing. But it's not only watchable but it's also sometimes very funny in a weirdly specific way

re: romance comics, Kirby and a slew of superstars cut their teeth there. I didn't realize this was Bill Sienkiewicz for the longest time:
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/marveldatabase/images/d/d0/Transformers_Vol_1_1.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20201230042322

I was kind of shocked at how good the Five Nights at Freddys trailer is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_T0o5uNrlY

Odd Squad and Octonauts for kid shows

re: romance comics, Kirby and a slew of superstars cut their teeth there. I didn't realize this was Bill Sienkiewicz for the longest time:

― Philip Nunez

i love how this post implies that "transformers" was a romance comic (at least if you ignore the unfortunately broken image link) :)

there is a 2003 movie. it is called Hot Wheels: World Race. we watched it as a family around that time when we were all desperately sick with a stomach flu and we were mesmerized by it. it was like a fever dream. We watched it again a couple of years back out of nostalgia for the time when we were all sick as sick dogs. it holds up. there is something trance-like and captivating about it. and you would never know that in a million years because what sane adult would watch a 2003 Hot Wheels movie all the way through?
i think the only person on here who actually watched it and agreed with me that it is worth watching was...Tombot!

Octonauts

crea-ture rep-ort! crea-ture re-port! CREATURE REPORT!

I caught an Odd Squad the other while channel surfing and was reminded of the show's genius concept of US Government agencies being staffed entirely by children.

The PBS adaptation of the Arthur series was great, really nailed aspects of childhood other shows have trouble handling at any length.

Damn, I loved the creature reports

One of the small tragedies of your children growing older is that you're likely hardly ever going to see these types of shows again, until you have grandchildren, if you're fortunate enough to do so.

Hot Wheels: World Race

Is that related to Hot Wheels: Acceleracers? My car-crazy kids used to love that one. It was well-done, if derivative.

I remember one episode of odd squad that was titled "Robert Plant" and all the interstitial music was pseudo led Zeppelin riffs. My recollection is that agent obfusco asked some odd squad members to take care of his plant, named robert, while he was away. And then when he returned at the end he asked them if they would also take care of his other plants jimmy, john, and john paul.

I've answered my own question, AccleRacers was the sequel.

i just don't watch tv shows for adults, haha, it just seems like so much blood and violence and cruelty and in the meantime kids shows are the ones dealing with the real shit without being exploitative about it.

Oswald and Backyardigans were my two fave shows that my little ones used to watch. i could watch them all day long. i still could. the volcano sisters episode is one of my favorite things of the 2000s for real. "we'll get you what you want" haunts me to this day.

(volcano sisters ep is backyardigans.) (oswald is just flat out a work of art imo.)

I read a guide to romance comics years ago and it seemed like there was only a few bright spots in terms of the writing, John Romita (possibly the most famous American artist in the genre?) said working on romance comics was soul destroying, probably because most of the scripts were so dull.
The guide only recommended Joe Simon-Jack Kirby comics, Dana Dutch-Matt Baker comics and one other team I can't recall.

I used to be kind of a Matt Baker fan but once again I mostly lost interest before this book came out
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1520690.Romance_Without_Tears

There's a reprint series called Weird Love that focused on the most misguided, weird and terrible (misogynistic) romance comics.