After polling everyone on the planet, I've come to realize that there ain't a single person alive who hasn't played with a Mr. Potato Head. It's just a given. Everybody's owned one, everybody's delighted in putting his nose where his ears belong, everyone's lamented over what secret tiny treasures they'd stash in his ass compartment under duress -- face it, we all love Mr. Potato Head. He's a special kinda guy, and you can't spell special without half of spud.
Over the years, Mr. Potato Head's popularity ultimately birthed him some playmates. The most well-known example is Mrs. Potato Head, but don't forget the others. During the 1960s, there were even official Potato Head cousins, modified from oranges, apples and others fruits and veggies. The dude even had a toy car with rearranging parts. During a short renaissance period in the mid 80s, Hasbro shoved the reigns down their pants and claimed responsibility for all Potato Head-related dealings. The toys became more prominent, with more offshoots and "special edition" sets. I don't think it was successful at making ol' P.H. any more popular than he already was, but at least it proved that he could clean Mrs. Potato Head's pipes from time to time: presenting the Potato Head Kids!
Ooodles and oodles of Potato Head Kids. Each had its own name, personality and assortment of rubbery body parts. An attempt to make the Potato Head franchise seem as collectable as action figures, Hasbro even went so far as to give the spuddy buddies playsets and vehicles. Toy stores found themselves in the precarious position of needing to devote three aisles of shelf space to Potato Head crap. It wasn't a very long-lived trend, but you can't fault Hasbro for not trying hard enough. Hell, they even negotiated the sick bastards onto their very own cartoon show. Winded from doing that, Hasbro passed on coming up with a clever name. The show was called The Potato Head Kids.
That's why I'm here today. God sent me to derail any lingering notions that a cartoon about Mr. Potato Head's children is a decent idea. It ain't. It's an idea that should've never been hatched. It's an idea that briefly turned Saturday morning television in 1985 in a chilly game of Russian Roulette, with children recklessly flipping channels a mere few clicks away from landing on an animated series capable of driving anyone insane within six seconds.
Packaged with the My Little Pony cartoon, The Potato Head Kids was poised to reap rewards aplenty. Every character on the show (all 800 of 'em) had an accompanying toy for kids to beg for, and it's hard to imagine that the production costs for a show that was produced so poorly could've been too high. I can't say for sure that it was a terrible failure -- enough people seem to remember it, and of those, a disturbing percentage seems to remember liking it. It's here that I remind myself that the show was intended for four-year-olds, a target demographic whose primary concern is lingering too close to scent-mocking family members after shitting themselves. It's all in the context.
Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head often appeared, but they were far from the focus. Actually, Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head are just general generic characters, assuming roles ranging from "Farmer Potatoes" to "Teacher Potatoes" to "Parent Potatoes" depending on what the kids felt like doing on a particular day. The stories were all about the kiddies, and there were thousands of 'em. Each with their own nuances and character flaws, it's only as a collective that the Potato Head Kids seem capable of crossing streets without royally fucking up. On the flipside, name me some other potatoes who can surf or facilitate dancing contests.
Anyway, the stories run for only twelve minutes or so a piece. I'll give them credit, though -- more insanity is packed into those twelve minutes than most other cartoons have in their half-hour shows. Here's a closer inspection of one such episode, entitled Surfin' Potatoes. Yes, they surf. If you've never experienced The Potato Head Kids, now you don't have to:
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We kick off with the kids hitching a ride with Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head for a fun-filled day at the beach. The celebrity cameo is a total tease, as the bigger potatoes simply drop the children off and head out for another spectacular but gratingly unseen adventure. The kids, as would any pack of baby groupers after finding their mother with its head bitten off, immediately assume a pecking order. I'd tell you who leads and who follows, but they all had terrible nicknames that I forced myself not to remember. The names aren't really important for this specific episode, as it's as character driven as Battlebots' "Live From Egypt" Christmas special.
By the way, that's the car I mentioned earlier. They actually had a toy for that thing. The kids arrive at the beach, happily rolling around in sands that were never a famously conducive environment for potato health. Sadly, no bikini dress-up for the girl spuds. Of the episodes I've seen, the kids never once take advantage of the fact that they can interchange their body parts. Believe me, if we could trade eyes, you'd have a new neighbor. Hope you like Meredith Brooks' live cover of Sweet Chariot blasted at 3 AM. Sometimes we sing along.
Within moments, the kids notice a dolphin tangled in suspicious netting out in the water. Revealing themselves as sort-of-superheroes, they quickly hop into the shallows, swim out to the dolphin and set it free. Seeing the Potato Head Kids swim is a sight I won't soon forget. Kinda makes me wonder if Japan has any weird cartoons out where pieces of broccoli have water balloon fights with female teens who have tentacles hanging out of their crotches. Until someone provides proof of it, this swimmin' potatoes shit is the greatest thing I've ever seen.
Wait, second greatest. The gold trophy goes to what happened next. Our friendly dolphin is appropriately thankful for the help, letting out what's supposed to be the Standard Dolphin Noise. Can't really put it into text, but you know what I'm talking about. Instead of the Standard Dolphin Noise, we hear something a little more akin to a spider monkey breaking wind while rubbing walnut shells together. Justifying the mystery, I suppose it's cheaper to train a spider monkey to fart and rub nuts together than it is to hire another voice actor who specializes in Standard Dolphin Noises. Just to ensure that everyone understands how insane this was to watch, the dolphin's final gesture is a slapping of fives with one of the lead Potato Kids. Must be the Standard Dolphin Five.
After sharing a tearful goodbye with a comparatively tiny dolphin, the kids must decide which beach activity to indulge in. One of them suggests building a sandcastle, because the local paper is giving out prizes and printing pictures of the winners in a big castle-making supersand contest. This was a marvelous idea, since Potato Head Kids are apparently capable of constructing eight-story sandcastles with real working drawbridges in under thirty-five seconds. The scene was moreover a showcase for the different kids' personalities to shine. Example: the one wearing a cowboy hat only talks about lassos. Another example: the girl wearing the pink derby's favorite character in Lord of the Flies was that kid who liked lizards. She never outright said it, but c'mon. Potatoes who wear pink derbies loathe what they can't spell, and I doubt that there's a single spud alive who knows how to spell Balthazar.
In other words, there's just not much to say about potatoes who build sandcastles.
Every cartoon needs its villains, and in The Potato Head Kids, it's a ragtag bunch of punk teens who HATE POTATOES! Can you believe that? They're not just evil. They're the potato-hatin' kinda evil. What's the difference? Well, a bad guy might do some bad stuff, but these jerks'll do bad stuff while yelling about how much they hate potatoes. Straight from the deep end of the seventh layer of Hell, meet your no-good-doers.
The orange-haired freak is the leader of the bunch. I think his name was "Grease," but it could've just as easily been "Scab," "Charred," "Grunge," "Snake" -- something with fear-inspiring connotations, no doubt. His crew is inconsequential for the most part; they're just there so Grease won't look like a fool trying to take on 40 potato monsters by himself. Driving a bunch of devil wheelers, the punks make short work of our heroes' awesome sandcastle. The P.H. Kids act like their lives are over because of it, but really, if they can build another as quickly as the first, we're just a few seconds away from the cowboy potato saying "hey guys it's like nothing ever happened!" Only he'd say it more cowboy-like. Add a heehaw at the end.
The kids (potato, not human) quickly regroup, reinforcing their second sandcastle with a hidden pit. When the goons drive over, they crash in a big pile twenty-five feet into the Earth. This would kill a person under normal circumstances, but within the confines of The Potato Head Kids, our villains only seem moderately annoyed.
Whenever good triumphs over evil, people should shout a catch-phrase in unison. In this case, the heroes join hands and belt out the laziest slogan since Purdue's "It's Chicken" campaign: "POTATOES!!!!" Yup, that's all they say, but don't be disappointed -- they say it with loads of glee. And they say it friggin' often. As you'd suspect, the scripts for this show looked more like prop scripts used in ironic films about Hollywood. Nothing on the pages had any discernible meaning, but there sure were a lot of words. The Internet is a goldmine for such relics, and I've been fortunate enough to locate one of the episode scripts. May it change your lives.
Grease, frustrated at his failure to maim and kill the Potato Head Kids, opts on a man-to-spud meeting to issue a challenge. It'll be his team versus the potato team in a surfing contest. If not for the episode title, I so wouldn't have seen this coming. The lead potato (noted by the way he shoves himself in front of everyone else) accepts on the kids' behalf. In Potatoland, democracy is but a fantasy. What if Cowboy Tater didn't feel like surfing?
Anyway, I admire the way they had Grease approach a troop of alien potatoes with musings on a surfing contest without the slightest trace of irony or obscenity. If you're creating a cartoon like this and manage a sense of subtlety, you deserve a prize no matter how much it sucks. Oh, see the kid with the blue crown in the first pic? I just ate him.
Okay, now we're ready to party. Every episode of The Potato Head Kids features a song number, which takes the kids to a kind of alternate reality where they do weird things that don't follow the same continuity of the show. In this case, it's the "We're Surfin' Potatoes" song. I'm not going to tell you the lyrics, because the title contains them in their entirety. What's more important are the shots of the kids, driving cars around entirely different environments and doing all sorts of Mary Poppins flying tricks with a collection of 36 identical magic umbrellas. When they stopped singing, I woke up in the stomach of a unicorn and pleaded with Friggy Froggy to send me back to Pluto.
When the singing subsides, we return to our regularly scheduled programming. Turns out it's not much better. The teams have adequately prepared for the surfing competition, and one of the goons on Grease's team changed bathing suits because winners never wear orange. The Potato Head Kids are ready to prove their surfing prowess, and I can't believe I just said that.
Of course, being a bad guy and all, Grease hops at every opportunity to cheat. Under his instructions, the goons try to trip up our heroes, never succeeding. The stupid kids are going for a clean sweep, causing many more instances of potatoes yelling "POTATOES!" I'm at a loss for gourds. The only thing that can take this to a higher level of surreally is a shark attack, and sweet Jesus, we're about a minute away from exactly that.
After his team fails, Grease makes one last ditch attempt to win the contest. Everyone, potatoes included, screams for him to return to shore, because there's some hugeass wave heading in that's sure to rip his head off. Blinded by the competitive spirit, Grease hears nothing and continues his trek towards doom. The kids don't agree with Grease's morals, but they're not about to stand idly by when a human being drowns. Especially while they're on television.
You'll be surprised to learn that Potato Head Kids are nearly aquatic by nature, swimming and working through the water with the finesse of a sea turtle. In fact, they don't even really swim, but rather effortlessly float towards their target at any desired speed. Some would call this laziness on the part of the animators. I call it a superhero's superpower revealed. I bet they can make oceans do math homework, too.
The big wave has come and gone, and nobody died. Nature ups the ante with her top card surefire gonna-kill-you disaster maker: the shark.
Two Potato Head Kids and a man's ass express fear in the first pic, while in the second, a shark arrives and confirms his species as Prototypicalus Animatingnus, otherwise known as the common cartoon shark with the usual mean face drawn on. Fu Manchu optional, but kinda preferred.
Anyway, the shark's dominance isn't legendary in its length, so don't go getting all into him. Grease and the potatoes (name your band that, I guarantee you a Top 40 spot) find salvation in the form of a dolphin rescue league...
Yes, it's the same dolphin the kids rescued earlier, and he's brought friends! The mammals waste no time spearing Mr. Shark straight out of the water and into an early grave. Incredibly enough, this is the only point of the show where anything even remotely mimics reality. When a group of dolphins headbutting a shark six feet out of the ocean is the most close-to-home aspect of your show, rest assured, the board's gonna make sporadic drug testing mandatory in the office.
Is it wrong that I smiled when the dolphins saved the day? I know, it probably is. I wasn't smiling because the kids were safe, though -- I was just happy that the dolphins had something to be proud of. Because lemme tell you, dolphins wear pride like a lady does mink. These are some awesome dolphins. They should've made the show about them instead.
In the moment that almost makes me want to praise this video rather than let a pack of wild ferrets piss on it, each of the Potato Head Kids shacks up with a dolphin for a massive, otherworldly slapping-five event. It's like watching a 90210 episode where every member of the cast arrives at the Peach Pit simultaneously. The potatoes and dolphins slap five for a good two minutes, so if you're wondering how long I can hold an orgasm for: 120 seconds. I loved this scene.
Sadly, the dolphins head off afterwards, never to be seen or heard from again. Why the fuck couldn't one of the kids tag the things before saying goodbye? These potatoes need to think ahead.
Effectively giving this twisted story a clear beginning/middle/end, the kids wind up winning that ol' sandcastle contest. One of them notes that the newspaper also wants to run a story on how they saved Grease from drowning. Huh? How'd they find out? There's nobody else at the beach, and it's not like Grease is one of the big community socialites or anything. And if they're gonna run that story, I better see a mention of those dolphins. Hello, remember the shark??
Surfin' Potatoes ends here, and this was just not at all what I expected. In some ways it's better, though. While not exactly an opus of the medium if we're throwing it at kids on the ever-important Saturday morning lineup, it's pretty hilarious to watch after six glasses of wine and this bottle of pills I found. Hee hee, talking potatoes.
Then again, you might not believe me when I say that all of the episodes were this insane. Surfin' Potatoes wasn't the rogue of the season, like when Alex Keaton's friend died and he spent seven weeks penning a stage drama starring his father. The Potato Head Kids were always nuts, and here's a quick look at another episode to prove it...
In The Great Candy Caper (or something along those lines), the kids are seen running a local newspaper from a treehouse-turned-newspaper factory. They eventually lead an investigation to find out who's been stealing candy from the nearby Potato Head Candy Factory, which may as well have a guy named Billy Bonka greeting visitors outside because it's that much of a rip-off. The kids end up getting in a huge fight, ultimately taking us to the worst animated food fight in history, where a bunch of cartoon potatoes and dogs take turns falling into giant vats of caramel. Along the way, we learn that Mrs. Potato Head is a candy chef, and that baby Potato Head Kids don't have arms. Somewhere in the midst, there's a song number about giant lollipops.
Maybe The Potato Head Kids isn't such a bad show after all. Yeah, I think I'm gonna flip flop. Recommended, it's just too strange to pass up.
