Depraved Kids' Show Host: Difference between revisions

 

Kids' show hosts. They laugh, they sing, they smile, they bring joy to children all over the world... at least, on the surface. But beneath that shiny, happy façade lies the Depraved Kids Show Host, a character you would not, under any circumstances, want your children around.

 

 

This trope plays on the irony of a jovial character who interacts with children actually being a horrible person. As such, it's related to [[Monster Clown]] and other like tropes.

This is especially popular in [[Real Life]] [[Urban Legends]], the insinuations of which can ruin someone's career. For some reason, people just can't believe that a right-thinking adult would want to spend his life teaching kids manners and helping them grow as people. Fred Rogers would respectfully disagree; this is generally ''not'' [[Truth in Television]].

 

{{examples}}

 

* This is the backstory for the modern incarnation of the ''[[Superman]]'' villain [[wikipedia:Prankster (DC Comics)#Modern Age version|The Prankster]].

* ''[[Sandman]]'': "Hey kids, Dino the Dinosaur is trying to tell me something. Gee, Dino! I didn't know it was Terry Pteranodon's birthday today. Should we bake him a cake? And you want to tell me something else, do you Dino? We're all going to die. Dino says we're all going to die. Dino told me. He says we should slash our wrists now, and remember to slash down the wrist, boys and girls, not across the wrist." PLEASE STAND BY, [[We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties]].

* Hazel and Cha-Cha from ''[[The Umbrella Academy]]'', sort of. See the back of issue 3: "The Hazel and Cha-Cha Show: Who needs drugs when you have cookies and guns?" And really, with those big cartoon characters heads...? The two are basically what the hosts of a kids show created by Quentin Tarantino would be like.

* ''[[Mad Magazine]]'' did a typical kiddie show parody starring one Uncle Nutzy, physically based on rude stand-up comic Jack E. Leonard, running a show featuring mindlessly violent cartoons and boot-licking sponsor worship. At show's end he's on the phone with his wife, angrily admonishing her for letting their kids watch his show.

* ''[[Viz]]'' has the character of "Roger Mellie, the Man on the Telly," a foul-mouthed alcoholic and perverted TV presenter who in several strips lands a job on kids' TV and inevitably reverts to type in front of the horrified audience.

* Clown from the ''[[Hellraiser]]'' comic series was originally a Saturday morning show host named Winky Dink who wound up becoming a Pseudo-Cenobite, charged with keeping the children who wind up in The Labyrinth occupied so they don't run amok, causing chaos. He does so through pretty disgusting ways (not entirely by choice though, since Leviathan punishes him if he does anything remotely pleasant). A later story reveals he'd been upgraded to a complete, overly-sadistic Cenobite at some point, having finally gotten his "routine" right.

 

* There is an excellent (if [[Nightmare Fuel|extremely]] [[Paranoia Fuel|scary]]) [http://de.jihad.net/lib/bull-dotb.txt fanfic] wherein Barney the dinosaur was some incarnation of a demonic being that reappeared every few centuries to wreak havoc. At the start of the fanfic, he held a special broadcast to persuade his young viewers to murder their parents and any other adults around, then inducted them into a cult. When any of them reached 13, he killed them (or worse). Gah.

** Flashbacks also show that he helped the Black Plague spread, and also saved Adolf Hitler during [[WW 1]] and set him on his path.

 

== Film ==

* In ''[[Death to Smoochy]]'' every host is deranged, and the whole industry is backed by the mob. When pushed, even Smoochy reveals some anger management issues.

* Floop from the first ''[[Spy Kids]]'' film was villainous, but really [[Harmless Villain|harmless]]. He's mostly a [[Cloudcuckoolander]] getting played by the [[Big Bad]], and turns on the [[Big Bad]] when asked nicely.

** Even before he turns, he clearly cares more about the quality of the show than about the plans of world domination. {{spoiler|When he turns a spy into one of the creatures on his show, the first thing he comments on is how the new "character" will be a holiday rush favorite.}}

 

== Literature ==

* Somewhat meta example: Uncle Jingle, host of an insanely popular 'Net kids show in [[Tad Williams]]' [[Cyberpunk]] novel ''[[Otherland]]'', is more or less a nice fellow, if heavily [[Merchandise-Driven]]. (In fact, he's actually played by actors working in shifts, since the show is on 24/7.) However, the character itself was inspired by the [[Monster Clown]] figure Mr. Jingo who haunts the [[Big Bad]]'s nightmares.

* ''[[Shel Silverstein|Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book]]''

* In ''High Society'' by [[Ben Elton]], Tommy mentions that almost every children's TV presenter he has met was a heavy drug user, which he imagines is because it drives them insane to constantly have to act perky and cheerful for their audience.

 

* In the ''[[Frasier]]'' episode "Juvenilia", Frasier is railroaded into a harsh interrogation from the three hosts of "Teen Scene".

** And then there was Nanny G, Frasier's first wife. She had become a Raffi-style children's entertainer in the meantime. During a concert she gave, she started singing a song that Lilith immediately interpreted as sexual, but Frasier explained as being sung to a child... until the next line...

* Shirty the Slightly Agressive Bear from ''[[The Late Show]]''

* Pate Biscuit from ''[[The Big Gig]]''

* From Finnish sketch comedy, there's the legendary "Nasse-setä" who is chronically hung over, and irritated at the anatomically incorrect drawings kids send him, taking offense at exceptionally large nose holes and lack of an actual nose in one of them and coming to the conclusion that the kid who drew it is a lazy slob who doesn't bother to draw any noses, let alone blow them because "you can't possibly blow a nose like this neatly!". His [[Catch Phrase]] was "Nasse-setä on harvinaisen vihainen!" [Uncle-Nasse is exceptionally angry!].

** Then there was Touko-Pouko from ''Studio Julmahuvi'', the [[Show Within a Show|Show Within A Shows]] [[Butt Monkey]] children's host with a severe case of lazy eye, hair resembling a clown's wig minus the silly colors and a deeply disturbed personality. In his segments he might be dressed as Tarzan, an indian, riot police, a ninja or an astronaut. His idea of a good home activity might also be making a soul out of barbed wire and silly putty and comment how "we all have one inside of us, a misshapen ugly lump like this".

* An episode of ''Mathnet'' featured Vicious Vinnie, a villainous children's show host who taught kids incorrect information like that Chicago was the capital of Illinois.

* "Tia Penha" (Aunt Penha), one of the many characters of Brazilian Comedian Marcelo Médici, is a gender flipped version of this. But unlike other examples, she's an outright [[Jerkass|bitch]] even on air. She [[Grimmification|subverts upbeat children' songs]] by [[Kill'Em All|telling that everyboy died in the end]] and that everybody WILL die ([[And Your Little Dog, Too|your mommy included]]). She's also particularly fond of telling some truths about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

* ''[[Laugh In]]'' often featured the demented "Uncle Al, the Kiddie's Pal!" who was usually hungover and kept cracking bad double-entendre jokes and running around like a maniac.

* ''[[SCTV]]'' had ''Muley's Roundhouse'', featuring ol' Muley, who sulks and mopes throughout his program, in addition to critically ignoring the trains on his watch. This includes his criticism of the children's artwork sent to him: "These are the worst ones yet! You probably send the good ones to people you like!"

* ''[[Little Britain]]'' has the character of Des Kaye, the disgraced former host of a children's show called "Fun Bus." It's eventually revealed that he was fired because a child [[Eye Scream|lost an eye]] while appearing on his show, and the ''Little Britain'' live stage show hints that Des's "Hide the Sausage'' audience participation game might also have had something to do with it ...

* In universe, Jane from ''[[Coupling]]'' ''almost'' became this... she had the depraved part down pat, it was just the "Kid's show host" part that was up in the air... after all, her sidekick was a sock puppet named Jake the <s> Penis</s> Truth-Snake.

'''Jake:''' Oh, shut up, you deluded bitch! }}

* Inverted by [[The State]] with "Blueberry Muffins in the Morning," a show proposed by Blueberry, a children's television producer who looks and acts like a clown in real life.

'''Tina:''' And spent it on a large amount of ''special powder''. This powder, like the holiday center, is designed to make people feel very happy... }}

* ''[[Sherlock]]'' villain, [[Psycho for Hire]] [[For the Evulz|(And Fun!)]] and [[Complete Monster]] Jim Moriarty is also a children's television presenter under an assumed name {{spoiler|for the purposes of his evil plan to kill Sherlock Holmes}}.

 

== Radio ==

 

== Urban Legends ==

** Barney is a [http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/barney.asp crack dealer. Also, he committed suicide. In his costume!]

*** Don't forget that he swore at a kid that stepped on his foot. On live national TV.

* Equally supposedly, one of the people on ''[[Bananas in Pajamas]]'' was replaced after drunken brawling. This detail often appears in these stories, probably because you ''can'' replace an actor in a suit more easily than another kind of host.

* You don't even want to hear some of the stories that went about involving Jimmy Savile, host (among other things) of 80's UK children's programme ''Jim'll Fix It''. Suffice to say that they involve a supposed stint working in the mortuary at a children's hospital (he was actually a porter at Broadmoor secure hospital), and leave people to work it out from there...

 

== Video Games ==

* Captain Cutlass from ''[[Critical Depth]]'' was a nautically-themed kids-show host turned actual [[Pirate]].

* Crotchy the nutsack from ''[[Postal|Postal 2]]''.

 

 

== Western Animation ==

** And ''still'' manages to be one of the good guys in comparison to his sidekick, Sideshow Bob, although he's [[Wicked Cultured]] and has a decent side.

*** It didn't backfire, it actually caused a public outcry... For a day. Then Kent Brockman made the same flub while ''reporting the Gabbo story'', everyone got angry at HIM, and instantly forgot about Gaboo. In the world of the Simpsons, it's true that the [[Viewers Are Goldfish]].

* ''[[Rugrats]]'' had a rare female example: The host of a show Angelica wanted to be on turned out to hate kids and actually [[Sound Effect Bleep|swore]] about what she thought about the kids on her show when she was offstage. Angelica overhears this, and later goes on the show, then is asked what the hostess thinks of the children. [[Hilarity Ensues]].

* ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' had a parody of this when the old host of the ''Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?'' game show goes crazy after finding out his girlfriend is cheating on him. He drives them to her house and makes them memorize the day they met, the day she said she loved him. The skit ended with him crashing his car and dying.

* In the [[Family Guy]] episode ''Road to Europe''. It is revealed that the characters on a show Stewie likes are Depraved Kids Show Hosts.

 

== Real Life ==

* On at least one occasion, IIRC, the mascots at Disneyland have behaved badly.

** Well they've been accused of doing so often enough.

* Richard Bacon was fired from ''[[Blue Peter]]'' following a drug scandal. A later [[Reunion Show]]-cum-[[Panto]] featured him as the (off-screen) baddie.

** Thanks to this Bacon managed to play with his "bad-boy" image and move over to the more adult show ''[[The Big Breakfast]]'' and not fall off the face of the earth like most Blue Peter presenters.

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-14bkh18G1Y Dara Ó Briain, speaking from personal experience, claims that this is ALWAYS the case.]

* Brazilian children show's host Xuxa, before her success, acted in the film [http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amor_Estranho_Amor Amor Estranho Amor] ("Love, Strange Love"), in which her ''character'' had sex with a 12-year-old boy. The film is actually an artsy film, but when the internet discovered it, they treated it as a disgusting act of child pornography. Xuxa already had a lot of haters, and her popularity kinda plummeted.

* In January 1965 on his morning children's show, the performer [[Soupy Sales]] suggested to his young viewers that they find the wallets of their sleeping fathers and take out "some of those funny green pieces of paper with all those nice pictures of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Alexander Hamilton, and send them along to your old pal, Soupy, care of WNEW, New York.". He also said: "Hey kids, last night was New Year's Eve, and your mother and dad were out having a great time. They are probably still sleeping and what I want you to do is tiptoe in their bedroom and go in your mom's pocketbook and your dad's pants, which are probably on the floor. You'll see a lot of green pieces of paper with pictures of guys in beards. Put them in an envelope and send them to me at Soupy Sales, Channel 5,New York, New York. And you know what I'm going to send you? A post card from Puerto Rico!". The reaction from outraged parents came fast and furious, and WNEW-TV pulled Soupy Sales' program off the air by the following Monday. Anyways, Soupy Sales program resumed broadcasting two weeks later, and his program ran on WNEW for close to another two years.

** The assertion after-the-fact was that he was testing to see just how much attention parents were paying to what their kids were watching. The [[Unreliable Narrator|jury's out on whether that's the truth, though]].

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Characters As Device]]

[[Category:Parody Tropes]]

[[Category:Villains]]