I recently purchased both Legend and The Dark Crystal on DVD. Both of these are movies that I remember fondly from my childhood, though upon recent viewing, I don't know why.

Both of those films, like many others from my childhood, are incredibly dark. When I really thought about it, I watched some really fucked up movies as a kid. I grew up watching movies like Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Dick Tracy . All films that were incredibly dark and probably not really suited for children. But the one that takes the cake from my childhood is the Sesame Street classic Follow That Bird . Talk about a film that could fuck a kid up. Big Bird is evicted from Sesame Street, and then taken in/kidnapped by a traveling carnival. When Big Bird, who has been painted blue, is sitting alone in a cage in the dark, despondently singing "I'm So Blue," I'm not sure it's possble to avoid the emotional scarring. Didn't the people at the Children's Television Workshop think we had dealt with enough when Mr. Hooper died? Did we really need a depressed Big Bird too?

I guess that these films, in a way, made me the person I am today - a jaded, cynical, bitch. I mean, really, I watched The Fox and The Hound as a child which is quite possibly the most depressing Disney cartoon ever made. What were my parents thinking?