The World on a String: We gave away the innocence

Those of us who grew up before the animated talking turd of South Park or even - imagine - before being advised on how not to have a cow, man, by the juvenile delinquent Bart Simpson, learned a portion of our life lessons from silly puppets.

Inanimate objects of plaster, foam, stick and string that they may have been, they were mentors and confidants. The Muppets, or Sesame Street. Sweet, patient, nonjudgemental little beings. Where have they gone?

Before them, it was people like dear old Duane Ellott and "Floppy" for 30 years (I was sad when the man passed away; the fuzzy wizecracking mutt resides silently in the Iowa State Historical Museum). There was Betty Lou Varnum and her "Magic Window" with Catrina Crocodile, based out of Ames. It ran for an amazing 43 years - the longest of any children's show in history. Anybody remember Fran Allison and her "Kukla, Fran and Ollie?" Shari Lewis and Lambchop? Or Captain Kangeroo and his tempermental "Bunnie Rabbit?"

Of course, puppets were not all sweetness and light - urban legend has it that the H.R. Puffenstuff characters were all one big drug metaphor, and the Gorch puppets of the earliest days of Saturday Night Live were quite obscene.

There was an amazing puppet theater that traveled the Iowa schools circuit in my childhood days - before the internet, high-def multi-media and Britney Spears, we were duly impressed.

The mysterious black curtain was so captivating that we could hardly contain ourselves waiting for a show to begin, and the colorful, undulating life-size puppets made for one of the coolest afternoons of the school year.

Even today, the grand Eulenspiegal (say oil-en-speegal) Puppet Theater Company from West Branch carries on the tradition, traveling far and wide to teach Iowa schoolkids about the tradition of puppeteering.

I was reminded of our strings-attached heritage the other day while doing a story about the famous Storm Lake puppeteer Margo Rose, who brought Howdy Doody to life in the earliest days of television.

Peering into a showcase at the Witter Gallery, the puppets made by Margo and her sister Dorothy from a lifetime ago looked right back at me, smirking. The artistry is pretty amazing - each has a personality of its own, even in silence. In a world of computer-generated animation, there is nothing with the subtle character of these simple artistic creations.

Puppets were used to wildly entertain and gently teach as far back as the Rennaisance, but perhaps no age was ever as puppet-infested as the one I grew up in.

I've wondered if it did anything odd to us - a couple of generations of kids who were educated, entertained and socialized primarily by puppets.

Does all this unconsciously condition us to allow our strings to be pulled by others, even our government? Do all those formative years staring at puppets being manipulated make our generation feel that our own behavior is somehow out of our own hands, that we need someone or something else to orchestrate our happiness - or that there must always be someone else to blame for our misbehavior? It sometimes seems so, from pro sports to Congress.

I was researching pupperty

online for my story when I came across a couple of old vidoes of Kermit the Frog, including his signature song, "It's Not Easy Being Green."

I had forgotten this creature, the Muppets and the like; put away with the rest of the immature snips, snails and puppy dog tails of childhood innocence in the Jurassic age.

It occurs to me, though, that it really isn't easy, probably, being brown or black in a world of primarily a different shade. Disabled. Different. Picked last in dodgeball. Too big or small to fit in. Confused, awkward, lonely or lost.

Sometimes it just plain is not easy, being...

Pretty wise stuff, for a felt frog.

I once ran into a man who went to school with Jim Henson, the creator of the Muppets and a disciple of Rose and her husband. The guy told me how Henson used to make wooden-headed puppets in spare time in high school shop class. A teacher of Jim's insisted that he put aside such idiotic foolishness and take up a course of study that might allow him to be something one day.

Remember the Muppets Show, or the Disney World 3D version, with the two crotchety old farts who sit in a balcony and have nothing but criticism for everyone and everything? You guessed it - the short, fat old bloke IS that teacher...

"The most sophisticated people I know - inside they are all children," Henson once said. "If our 'message' is anything, it's a positive approach to life. That life is basically good. That people are basically good,"

It was a simpler time. I don't suppose that philosophy will be selling on prime time anytime soon.

When Hensen died suddenly of pneumonia, his family found that he had left behind a letter for each of his children. Somewhere in each was this advice:

"Please watch out for each other and love and foregive everybody. It's a good life. Enjoy it."

What passes for childhood entertainment today is brain-numbing pablum perpetrated by actors in stupid suits mindlessly pandering to dull-eyed children left to be babysat by the TV or computer or DVD player. It's about how many Happy Meals we can sell.

Cartoons, music, movies and games dump on children with violence, hate, humiliation, sex, bad language and then more violence. Even the "children's movies" these days can't get a "G" rating. Children under 5 spend more time watching TV than any activity beside sleeping, a recent study proves/

What happened to imagination, I wonder? We give up their innocence so early. "Kermit" and the gang wouldn't have a chance today. They are too gentle, too nice, to survive in our drive-by-shooting of a media world.

When Jim Henson died, his family received a letter from a small girl that they have kept to this day.

"God," she wrote, "must have needed Muppets in heaven."

The more I look around at what we are doing to our children these days in the name of entertainment, the more I suspect that maybe we need them down here again, too.