DefunctTV: The History of Under the Umbrella Tree

DefunctTV is brought to you by privacy.com. Protect your financial information and easily manage your subscriptions at Privacy.com/defunctland. On November 10, 1969, Sesame Street debuted on the National Education Television Network. The show prominently featured a cast of Muppet characters from puppeteer Jim Henson. Henson’s style of puppetry, with simplistic designs and felt-like materials, was quickly becoming the standard for puppets in broadcast television. However, just three days before “Sesame Street”’s debut, the Canadian broadcasting network CBC Television had debuted a brand new puppet show of their own with a very different style. The show, named “Hi Diddle Day”, utilized the puppets of Noreen Young, a puppeteer who along with her husband Brig, developed a unique puppet-creation process that applied liquid rubber and dye to plasticine sculptures of modeled faces. The two already had a cast of characters built for TV appearances, birthday parties, and puppetry classes that would be utilized by “Hi Diddle Day”. The cast featured the adolescent dragon, Durwood, the immigrant bird, Chico Crow, the investigative basset hound, Basil, a wolf, Wolfgang Von Wolf, Town Mayor, Gertrude Diddle, swinging geriatric, Granny Diddle, and Baby Swartze. Noreen’s success in puppetry led her to form Noreen Young Productions to develop live events and television shows. This led to another series with CBC named “Pencil Box”, in which students from Ottawa would submit stories that would then be acted out. The series, which premiered in 1976, again included a variety of Young’s puppets, along with live actors, elaborate sets, and television effects which brought the children’s stories to life. “When Sam had his bath and was dry, he saw Bonnie, and now Bonnie and Sam have puppies of their own.” The show’s main cast of puppets included Bolo Bat, Webster the Dictionary, Stubby Pencil, Miffy Skunk, and Clara Cactus. Pencil Box was a hit for CBC, and it was also cheap to produce with a budget of around $2300 per episode. However, the program was plagued with legal concerns, as some of the children submitting stories had plagiarized them from other sources, resulting in copyrighted works being performed on the show. This would eventually lead to Pencil Box being canceled in 1979, but it would not be long until Young was pitching her next puppet show. Her next idea was a children’s sitcom which would center around a young artist and her animal roommates who would all live in a house under a large umbrella tree, to be called, “Under the Umbrella Tree”. The CBC initially passed on the show, and Young looked elsewhere to fund the project. At the same time, she continued to contribute puppets to other shows. TVOntario Children’s show “Today’s Special” utilized Muffy Mouse, a puppet Young originally built to be a main character on “Under the Umbrella Tree”. This would be the first time most US audiences would be exposed to Young’s work, as “Today’s Special” would become a staple of the then young children’s network Nickelodeon. In 1983, Noreen and Brig Young purchased an 84-acre property 50 kilometers west of Ottawa in Almonte. They would build a 3,600 square foot workshop and studio on the property where Noreen made and stored her ever-growing collection of puppets. Noreen even shot smaller productions at the home studio and continued supporting the company through safety and educational videos. For the French language instructional series “Téléfrançais!” Young built and puppeteered Ananas, a french speaking pineapple, whose name translated to “pineapple.” As more Canadian productions were bought for US distribution, Noreen Young continued pitching projects to CBC, TVOntario, Nickelodeon, and The Disney Channel. Working with Ken Sobol, a writer of “Téléfrançais!” as well as the educational series “Readalong,” the pair developed stories for different pilots, including a series that would recycle the Bolo Bat puppet from “Pencil Box.” Throughout all of these shows, Young continued pitching “Under the Umbrella Tree”. In the Spring of 1986, she would enlist her puppeteer friends and collaborators to shoot a pilot episode of the show. For Umbrella Tree’s human roommate, Young recruited “Pencil Box” performer Holly Laroque. Laroque, a talented actress, singer, and dancer, was the perfect choice for the character, who would be named Holly Higgins. For the three main puppets, Noreen Young recruited her brother, Stephen Brathwaite, to perform a blue jay named Jacob Blue. Bob Stutt, a performer who worked on “Fraggle Rock” and “Today’s Special,” was recruited to play the fun-loving green lizard, Iggy Iguana. Noreen Young herself would play the pif-tailed Gloria Gopher. The pilot effectively showcased the likable, fun characters and sitcom style, but the CBC could not greenlight the show until it found funding. It would not be until Young would secure additional production funds from Telefilm Canada that CBC would greenlight the show for 70, fifteen-minute episodes. CBC Ottawa provided the studio space, equipment, and crew for the episodes. The budget was $15,000 Canadian dollars per episode, a fraction of the 350,000 Canadian dollars puppet show “Fraggle Rock” spent on their episodes at the time. Production of season one of “Under the Umbrella Tree” began in June of 1987. The show’s home interior sets were built in a garage near CBC Ottawa which was converted to a studio. Puppeteers knelt and squatted in modular floor sections and breakaway stairs to perform their characters along with Holly. The new show was slated to replace a CBC staple, “The Friendly Giant”, a children’s show that had an incredible 28-year run. The fifteen-minute “Under the Umbrella Tree” episodes would air Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 10:15 am, with the show’s first episode premiering on October 5th, 1987 to the delight of children throughout Canada. “Do you ever wonder what could happen under, under an Umbrella Tree? Sunny days or thunder, your friends are waiting under, under the Umbrella Tree.” Early episodes of the series featured a pink title graphic with the show’s logo, which would fade to the beginning of the episode. In one season one episode, Holly struggles to bring in a large box from outside. After eventually getting it set in place, Jacob, The Blue Jay and Iggy the Iguana arrive and ask Holly the Human about the box. “What is that?” “Oh, it’s a box, Jacob. It’s a box.” “Well I know it’s a box, but what’s in it?” Holly explains that it’s an exercycle, a special kind of bicycle that doesn’t go anywhere and is used for exercise. Iggy invites Holly out to play baseball with him and Jacob, but she passes on the invitation, choosing instead to set up her new bike. After building the bike, Gloria the Gopher swings by to see the result. “Hi, Holly.” “Hi, Gloria.” “What’s this?” “This is my new exercycle. Let me show you how it works.” Holly leaves to get her exercise clothes, and Gloria inspects the bike, adjusting knobs inquisitively. When Holly returns, Gloria and Holly do some warm-up exercises, including stretching, toe touches, and push-ups. “One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen.” “Gloria?” “Yeah. Yes.” “That’s enough.” After warming up, Holly begins to sing a song about fitness which the pair dance and exercise to. “On your mark. Get ready. All set rarin’ to go. Grab a new attitude. Want to get in tune, from your head down to your toes.” After the song, Holly attempts her maiden voyage on the new exercycle, a ride that ends up being tremendously difficult as a result of Gloria’s earlier absent-minded tampering. “Aaagh! Gloria! Hold on!” “I’ll stop you.” “Don’t let go! Ahhh.” “Oh my goodness.” “Ahh.” After changing the setting, Holly is able to ride the new bike as intended, and she does so until she grows tired and sore. The episode ends with Jacob and Iggy returning from playing baseball and Holly lying up on the couch unable to move. “Is she lying down? Uhh, well, no. Not exactly, it’s more like, she’s laid up.” This was the typical format and style of the series. Instead of focusing on education, “Under the Umbrella Tree” was a sitcom-first, and any morals or lessons it taught were purposefully simple. “No. What I mean is that even though a lot of these things belong to me, we can all use them. It’s called sharing.” Barbara Chernin, a publicist for the CBC, described the show at the time, “This is a situation comedy for children. They get to see what happens to Holly in her everyday life and that helps them understand adults in their own lives.” For this reason, the show quickly appealed to Canadian Kids and adults, who enjoyed the funny characters and comdedic sitcom-style antics. The series captured an impressive 85% share of its target 2 to 11-year old audience within two weeks of its premiere. “Under the Umbrella Tree” did not reveal much about its characters origins until the flashback episode “How it All Began,” which told the story of how Gloria, Jacob and Iggy became roommates. The episode begins with Holly and Jacob talking about how much they each love the apartment in which they live. Jacob recalls what it was like to live in the house as everyone moved in. “Well Jacob, I didn’t know you lived here first.” “I did, but I knew I didn’t want to live alone. So I invited Iggy and Gloria to move in.” Gloria recounts the first time she saw the apartment. Impressed by the giant tree in the living room, Gloria believed she had found the perfect spot to burrow a small place for herself. Before agreeing to stay in the apartment, Gloria needed to meet Jacob’s friend Iggy whom Jacob had invited to become a third roommate in the house. “Hiya Jake. Hey, what a great apartment. I love it already. This is Grea… Aaah!” Iggy introduced himself to Gloria, but his awkward coughing and cheesy jokes were a little offputting to the young gopher. “Say Gloria, what’s that on your shirt?” “Where” “There.” “Gotcha.” The three planned a sleepover that night to test whether or not they would be compatible roommates. Gloria’s need to go to bed early immediately conflicted with Iggy’s late-night musical performances and rollerskating relay races. In the morning, Iggy was woken by Gloria’s singing as she made pancakes in the kitchen. “You should try to go to bed earlier. Like I do.” “Hmm.” “Well at least I don’t sing at breakfast.” “Yeah.” The two potential roommates fought about their conflicting schedules and determined the apartment was not big enough for three occupants. Jacob’s two friends told him to decide who was going to stay, and both were surprised when Jacob’s choice left them together in the apartment while he moved to the park outside. The noble gesture weighed heavily on Gloria and Iggy as a storm brewed outside the home. After talking about the nice things Jacob does and how he is a great friend to both of them, Gloria and Iggy warmed up to each other. “And you know, Gloria, I guess any friend of Jacob’s can’t be all bad.” When Jacob returned to the house to get out of the rain, the trio decided there was enough room in the home for all three of them, and later added Holly as a roommate as well. The episode ended with Holly leading the group in a song about Jacob. “Jacob Blue Jay. Where you going today? While not every episode had a musical number, many episodes featured original songs written by Bob Soucy. The series frequently tapped Holly Larocque’s impressive singing and dancing talents for the songs. “I love to sing. I love to dance. Try something different. Take a chance. I like to think that I’m special that way.” Despite the cramped studio space, the home within the show appeared quite large and included a variety of rooms. At the start of each episode, a model portrayed the exterior of the large suburban Ottawa home. The show’s living room set was the largest and most frequently used location on the show. The living room housed the large Schefflera actinophylla tree from which the show took its name. The living room set also contained a couch, a bookcase, a phone, and stairs leading to multiple doors; including the entrance to the house. The group also frequented the house’s kitchen for meals and snacks. The set also featured individual rooms for Holly, Gloria, Iggy, and Jacob as well as a bathroom, basement, and front porch. The show’s fun characters, relatable stories, and creative environments connected with Canadian toddlers. However, despite a successful 70 episode first season, a second season was not guaranteed. Telefilm Canada was suffering financial problems at the time and could not immediately commit funds to another season. Luckily, in March of 1988, six months after the series premiered, Telefilm was able to contribute enough money to renew Under the Umbrella Tree for a second season. Like Season One, season two would consist of 70, fifteen minute episodes. The series popularity had also spread its reach internationally, with Singapore being the first foreign market to distribute the show. The Disney Channel was also expressing interest in airing episodes throughout the United States, but no deal had been made. Under the Umbrella Tree’s popularity domestically continued to grow throughout this time, with Holly Larocque and her puppet roommates occasionally appearing for special performances at shopping centers. The show’s second season continued to focus its sitcom shenanigans on common preschooler problems and predicaments. In the episode “The No-Power Hour,” the gang is in the kitchen making popcorn, cinnamon toast, a banana smoothie, and hot chocolate as it storms outside. Everyone goes to the radio to listen to their favorite show when suddenly the house loses power because of the storm. “Huh?” “What happened, Hol? “Well I don’t know. Just a minute.” Holly takes the opportunity to teach her trio of friends about electricity and how it is required to power the various kitchen items that they were using. “Just like food gives us energy.” “Food.” “Food gives us the energy to go, while electricity is the energy or power that makes all sorts of electrical things go.” After contacting the power company and being told that the storm knocked down a power line, Holly remembers that she has a box in the basement with some neat old stuff from before people had electricity. Holly finds a kerosene lamp in her box of old things. While going through her box of old things, the group plays with the antique clothes and other items. The group pretends to make bread, chop wood, scrub laundry, and milk a cow to churn its butter. “Oh, I like this part.” The four ended their fun by singing a “round,” in which each character contributed their own verse. “Go.” “Scrub scrub scrub your socks” “Chop chop chop the wood.’ “Churn churn churn the butter.” Their song is interrupted by the power turning back on, and the trio quickly abandon Holly to see if they can catch their radio program. The program ended as they arrived to the living room, and the group was disappointed to have missed the show. Holly cheered everyone up by reminding them that, with the power back, they could finish making their popcorn, cinnamon toast, banana smoothie, and hot chocolate in the kitchen. “Brought to you by… electricity.” Beyond the show’s four main characters, additional humans and puppets frequented the Umbrella Tree gang at their home. Many of the main characters’ relatives appeared on the show, including Holly’s kind mother, performed by Heather Esdon. “After all, Holly is my daughter, and you three are my adopted family.” Holly’s English entertainer Uncle Jack, performed by Don Westwood. “But lately things are topsy-turvey and here’s the reason why. Whenever I see something funny, I just want to cry.” The group’s Polish neighbor who liked to jar pickles, Mr. Pleck “What? What’s going on here? Gloria, what were you doing in the pickle juice. You’re not the secret ingredient.” And Holly’s identical yet Irish-accented cousin Lorraine, who was also played by Holly Larocque. “So good to hear your voice.” “Hello. Holly. Though I was hoping you and I would have a chance to get together before me bike and I fly back to Ireland in the morning.” Iggy’s clumsy cousin, Emmet Iguana, also appeared on the show and was performed by Bob Stutt. Many of Noreen Young’s trademark animal-surnamed characters made cameos as well, including Louis Byrd, Mitzi the Dog, Simon the Bat, Calvin Crow, Anette Parakeet, Darleen Swan, Waldo Bunny, Matt and Martha, a pair of mice, and the Chickadee family, Chester, Charlene, Chelsea, and Charles. The gang’s other neighbor, Mrs. McMertree, was a unique human puppet, performed by Noreen Young. Mrs. McMertree made many appearances on the show, including in the episode “Iggy Moves Out.” In this episode, Iggy moves into Mrs. McMertree’s place after being criticized for playing his music too loud, leaving his skateboard on the stairs, and borrowing Jacob’s baseball bat without asking. “We just want you to be a little more considerate. That’s all.” “And thoughtful.” “Well if I’m so awful to live with, maybe I should just move someplace else.” Mrs. McMertree gives Iggy a taste of his own medicine by being messy and inconsiderate while he stays with her. “I love it. It’s so much fun being messy and inconsiderate. I don’t have to think of anyone else and I owe it all to you.” Later, When Iggy returns home and tells his friends about how bothersome Mrs. McMertree was behaving, the group reveals that Mrs. McMertree’s actions had been intentionally designed to teach Iggy a lesson about being more considerate, something he was happy to learn by the episode’s end. “Well from now on, I’ll pick up my stuff, not borrow things without asking and play my radio a lot quieter. I’ll be the perfect roommate.” Along with Season 2, the CBC aired the thirty-minute special, “Christmas Under the Umbrella Tree,” on Christmas Eve, 1989. The special included a new holiday-themed intro and saw the group partake in various Christmas festivities, including decorating the house, singing Christmas songs, and teaching Holly how to ice-skate. The show was quickly renewed for a third season, again utilizing Telefilm Canada’s fund and CBC’s distribution and studios. The show continued to look for international licensing deals as well. With the show’s reputation and success continuing to grow, the Disney Channel was more interested than ever in licensing the program, as its US competitor Nickelodeon had already snagged hit Canadian-produced shows such as “Fred Penner’s Place” and “The Elephant Show” for its lineup. “Under the Umbrella Tree”’s low production costs and high production quality was also a huge selling point. The show did eventually reach an agreement with the Disney Channel to broadcast the show to their cable audience. The first three seasons of the series were already complete by the time the Disney Channel introduced its viewers to Gloria, Jacob, Iggy, and Holly when the show debuted on the network on May 7th, 1990. The Disney Channel aired the series every weekday, pairing two 15-minute episodes together as a single half-hour block. The series was renewed for a fourth season, but the same week the show premiered on the Disney Channel, production on the fourth season was shut down. The culprit was again Telefilm Canada, who had not delivered the production funds that had been agreed upon. An intense weekend of negotiations between Noreen Young and government funders took place as Young attempted to convince Telefilm Canada to back the remainder of the fourth season. Luckily, an agreement was reached, with one devastating caveat. Telefilm Canada would back the rest of season four, but they made it clear that they would not support a fifth season of the show. Telefilm cited the fact that “Under the Umbrella Tree” had failed to make a profit in its first three seasons. Despite its popularity and international sales, 98% of the show’s earnings went to repaying Telefilm. This was mostly due to the CBC barring commercials on children’s programming. On top of this, CBC shows were not allowed to merchandise their characters. With Telefilm out and no funding for a fifth season, CBC could not continue their support of the show either. Young, the cast, and crew completed production of Season Four, which would certainly be the show’s final season and the last that children would see of “Under the Umbrella Tree.” However, in a welcome turn of events, Under the Umbrella Tree had proved immensely popular with American audiences, and the Disney Channel desperately wanted more of the show. As a result, Disney agreed to finance a series of seasonal specials. These half-hour episodes covered such topics as Valentine’s Day, Back-to-School, and Mother’s Day. Originally planning only four specials, Disney eventually ordered 10 in total. In these later specials, more diverse sets and locations were utilized. The ambitious special episode “Baseball Fever” took the group to Jacob’s baseball game complete with a baseball stadium set, baseball teams, and audiences of puppet fans. Holly umpired the game and ejected Jacob after he struck out and argued against her call. When back at the house, Jacob imagined visiting the Toronto Blue Jay’s stadium and learned lessons in sportsmanship from his baseball hero, Blue Jay Outfielder, Devon White. “Listen, Jake. The most important thing about sport is doing your best and having fun” “It is?” The team traveled on location to the Sky Dome to shoot the episode at the Blue Jays home stadium. As the “Under the Umbrella” team continued production on the specials, Young kept the characters busy by presenting a series of Live Easter “Under the Umbrella Tree” shows at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. The CBC continued broadcasting the “Under the Umbrella Tree” series until 1993 when their rights expired. Reruns of the show continued broadcasting on the Canadian channel YTV and the Disney channel. Eventually, Disney stopped ordering new specials, with more than enough “Under the Umbrella Tree” episodes to rerun indefinitely. Production ceased for the series in March of 1994, and Holly Larocque, Bob Stutt, Stephen Brathwaite, and Noreen Young put on a live farewell performance of their characters to benefit the Nepean-Kanata Family Resource Center. That June, Noreen Young was named to the Order of Canada for her contributions to the performing arts. The Disney channel continued to air the Under the Umbrella Tree’s 270 episodes and 11 half-hour specials in rotation until the channel switched from ad-free premium cable to commercial basic cable in 1997. Although Disney halted airing the show, they continued holding the broadcast rights for “Under the Umbrella Tree” until they expired in 2005. After this, Noreen Young assumed full rights for the show. In 2006, Young released eight DVD volumes of the series. Each DVD contained multiple episodes, and the first four also included newly recorded introductions featuring Iggy, Gloria and Jacob. “I’ve got to see this.” Noreen Young also continued supporting the puppetry arts through “Puppets Up!” a festival she organized in her hometown of Almonte, Ontario. Characters from “Under the Umbrella Tree” and Noreen Young’s other works were frequently used to promote the festival over its 12-year run from 2005 to 2017. In 2018, over thirty years after the premiere of “Under the Umbrella Tree”, Noreen Young made selections from the series officially available on the Canadian youtube channel “Encore+”. However, despite the DVD releases and releases on Encore+, much of the series 270 episodes are considered lost media. In fact, over half, a whopping 140 episodes cannot be found on DVD, Encore+, or through other official and unofficial uploads. That said, as of early 2022, Encore+ is continuing to release new episodes of the series on the YouTube channel, so many fans hope that one day all episodes of the show will be made available. While fans continued to search for the old episodes, they were surprised with a brand new one. In September of 2020, the cast of “Under the Umbrella Tree” reunited for a new special to promote the importance of wearing masks during the covid-19 pandemic. Although shorter than a full episode at less than 5 minutes, “The Mask Special” as the episode was named, picked up where the series left off with Gloria, Iggy, and Jacob at the Umbrella Tree house. Holly also returned for the special, although virtually via video chat, as she was self-quarantining at her friend’s apartment at the time. Holly and the trio taught the importance of wearing masks while outside, social distancing, and thoroughly washing your hands. Iggy also sang a song he made to help keep yourself safe. “Virus, virus go away. On my hands you cannot stay.” The special recreated the Umbrella tree home through the use of green screen and background images captured from the original episodes. On December 22, 2021, Iggy, Gloria, and Jacob, would appear together for a brief holiday video presented on the Encore + channel. All of the original performers, Bob Stutt, Noreen Young, and Stephen Brathwaite returned for the video. These reunion specials are just a small bit of proof of the huge impact that “Under the Umbrella Tree” had on its audience, both in Canada and around the world. From the start with “Hi Diddle Day,” Noreen Young’s love for puppetry and the brilliance of her unique art style has been evident, and “Under the Umbrella Tree” serves as the landmark example of her talent. Despite the limited budget, Young and the talented cast and crew were able to create an iconic and irreplaceable institution of Canadian Children’s Television. To many children, Gloria Gopher, Iggy Iguana, Jacob Blue Jay and Holly Higgins were friends as real as their neighbors next door. With lessons to be learned and fun to be had, the classic sitcom antics of the series showed just what a wonderful time it was, to be with friends, Under the Umbrella Tree. DefunctTV is brought to you by Privacy.com. With Privacy.com’s virtual cards, you can control your subscriptions and recurring payments like never before. This has really been an incredible tool for us at DefunctTV as we are constantly signing up for random streaming services to watch niche television shows, and with Privacy, we can put spending limits on the Privacy cards to make sure that even if we forget about a subscription we won’t be overcharged for it. And I know that my financial information is safe and secure with Privacy.com’s military grade encryption. So take back control of your payments at Privacy.com/Defunctland and for my viewers, new customers will automatically get $5 to spend on your first Privacy.com purchase. For a limited time only. That’s free money that you can use to sign up for a streaming service. Go to Privacy.com/Defunctland and sign up now.

Channel: Defunctland

Views: 439,649

Keywords: defunctland, kevin perjurer, theme park, abandoned, defunct, history, disney, disneyland, attractions, on ride, lights on, canadian television, tv children's history, pbs kids, disney channel, old disney channel shows, disney channel history, under the umbrella tree history, under the umbrella tree, the disney channel old puppet show, canadian childrens shows, old canadian shows, television history, childrens television shows history, defuncttv, defunctland tv, defuncttv history

Id: H6_Ya6-HPcI

Length: 25min 49sec (1549 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 28 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/magicblufairy]

Holly sang at my parents wedding. She and my dad used to act in plays. I can't remember if they were with Ottawa Little Theatre or Orpheus. I am sure there are pictures of her somewhere at my parents house.

[u/CrepesForEveryMeal]

When I was around 7 years old, I was trick or treating in a neighbourhood near me. Imagine my surprise when HOLLY opened the door and gave me candy!!

[u/timmyrey]

This was a real treat to watch. I loved this show as a tyke, and the nostalgia is very intense. It's remarkable how a person "remembers" certain things even after so many years. Mrs. McMurtry's face, for example, always frightened me as a kid, but I had forgotten about it until seeing her just now (and she still frightens me lol). Amazing how childhood memories are still there in the recesses of our minds!

I also had no idea that UTUT was an Ottawa-area production! Thank you for posting. This has really made my day in terms of food for thought.

[u/Geek42]

If you enjoy puppets and Noreen's work, we are running the Puppets Up! festival again this year out in Almonte(Full disclosure, I'm site manager).

https://puppetsup.com/ - tickets on sale now.

[u/housemouse16]

I met Holly once when I was about 13-14 years old. It was super random - I was camping, and she happened to show up to drop something off to someone else that was there. It took me a second to figure out how I recognized her, but once I did, I was pretty excited and she was super nice while I was fangirling haha (I really loved the show as a kid!) :) She went back to her car, popped the trunk, and had a box filled with promotional postcards for the show. She signed one for me and the other girls I was with.

Thanks for jogging this memory!

[u/DavidMerrick89]

Haven't had time to watch the video yet, so apologies if it already touches on this, but Sandy Hill folks might be interested to know that Jacob Bluejay's performer Stephen Brathwaite went on to design the "ruins" in Strathcona Park!

[u/Handzus19]

I liked Jacob as he reminded me of the Toronto Blue Jays! LOL.

[u/jane_margolis]

Holy childhood memory unlocked! Everyone I've asked about this show says they'd never heard of it.

[u/ThinCustard3392]

I was babysitting at a friend's house as she had to attend her Dad's funeral. Holly was her friend and when she arrived at the house my young daughter was astounded and asked "how did she get out of the TV"? 😝