Memories

Though I'm about 16 years late on this one, we can also say good-bye to the original Letter People. Anybody else remember those? When I was in Kindergarten, our teacher, Mrs. Shealy, each week would blow up another of the Letter People inflatable dolls ("Huggables"). The inflatables were usually two feet tall and by the end of the school year filled up the shelf that ran around the room near the ceiling. Each Letter Person had a story book and a song. On my first day of Kindergarten, I've been told, my teacher was impressed that I could read the title of the book sitting at the bottom of the blackboard: "Meet me at the Market". The only bit of song I can remember was for Mr. K, and it was something like "You can kick a ball/You can kick a can/But never, ever/Kick a man".

In 1990, Abrams bought out Alpha Time and the Letter People. I'm assuming that the people with the Abrams company must not have had the Letter People when they were kids, if indeed they were ever children at all. Whereas there were only 5 female Letter People originally (the vowels), there are now 13 so that Kindergarteners won't be sexist. The Letter People who were negative (Jumbled Junk, Ripping Rubber Bands, X all wrong) or unhealthy (Cotton Candy, Delicious Doughnuts, Gooey Gum, Lemon Lollilops) were redone as well so that Kindergarteners won't hate the homeless or gays and won't rot their teeth out. I don't see what they're worried about. Mr. L never influenced me to take up sucking on Lemon Lollipops. And donuts sell themselves.

The new Letter People seem a lot more anesthetic in appearance. I mean, they're all doctor's office colors. A side by side comparison would definitely show how dull the new ones are. Looking back, I'm of course inclined to feel a certain fondness for the original Letter People. It's hard not to cherish any memories, however faint, from those far-away days of childhood. But I think I appreciate now just how cool they were. There were colorful. They were artistic. And you can just tell that they are straight out of the early 70s.

I just wish I could have seen the television show. Maybe eventually I'll get one of those original huggables off of Ebay. Sometimes you can find the whole set.

By the way, I've changed my mind about who I think is really Mr. Six. I'll bet it's Mark Felt, and that he'll confess to that this coming summer. I mean, come on, we could make all sorts of jokes using the term "Deep Six".