evil but bookmarked any way.

What she said.

I think 2 creatures saying Meep or bwoop or something similar.

I think you mean dit-dit-dit-dit uh-huh uh-uh?

The Martians! I loved the Martians.

It's sort of odd, realizing how much pop culture people miss out on by not being American parents. (Or former American children; the Martians and muh-nuh muh-nuh are from my childhood, not my kids'.) But there are millions of adults out there mercifully ignorant of "Elmo's Song" and HOW I ENVY THEM. They have never seen Barney give anybody a hug. They have never heard their children singing the theme song from "The Ketchup Vampires". How I wish I were making that up.

Liar, liar, pants on fire
There's no such thing as a Ketchup Vampire!

realizing how much pop culture people miss out on by not being American parents.

It's funny because people here keep talking about how Americanized our society is, how we get too much from tv and almost all our tv from the USA and the like.

I know that Barney was dubbed (horribly) into Hebrew, so there must be Israeli parents who hate him as much as Betsy. But the version of Sesame Street we got never had any Elmo in it, so no "Elmo's Song", and no "Ketchup Vampires".

The muh-nuh muh-nuh is from my childhood (which, as far as I know, happened some time after Betsy's, and some time before her kids'), and I think the Martians were in the "Sesame Street" we did get, but still. So either it takes some time for the cultural references to sift through, or there is still quite a difference that we (I mean, the UnAmericans, at least as much as I can speak for them, so just this one) are not aware of.

Um, topic. Awareness of current grown-ups tv shows in the USA is much more widespread in later years, more, I think, than children's shows.

"Ketchup Vampires" is actually a weirdie; it's a VHS tape we had, dubbed from the original German (!). It was a present from the grandparents.

I know that Barney was dubbed (horribly) into Hebrew,

It started out that way, in English, Nilly

so there must be Israeli parents who hate him as much as Betsy.

But the version of Sesame Street we got never had any Elmo in it, so no "Elmo's Song", and no "Ketchup Vampires".

I don't know the Ketchup Vampires, either. I'm a little younger than Betsy. Her kids are slightly older (just a couple of years older than Ben, I think) than mine. I don't know how I missed them.

It's sort of odd, realizing how much pop culture people miss out on by not being American parents. (Or former American children

I've never been either, but it only means I can avoid them if I choose. But I know the references, and they have meaning to me. We got a subset of American TV in Jamaica, but it's not like we had more than a couple hours of local programming a day. Not much to compete for brainspace.

"Ketchup Vampires" is actually a weirdie; it's a VHS tape we had, dubbed from the original German (!). It was a present from the grandparents.

Is it Sesame Street, or just another children's show?

But I know the references

There are USA things I know only the references to, never saw the actual thing, and still am able to recognize references - like, "Gilligan's Island" (sp?), for example, or "The Brady Bunch".

There's a foreign PhD student here, who grew up in what used to be East-Gernany. One day, I don't remember why, I was talking about the Muppers (not that I need that much reason to put my geek on when it comes to my first tv love), and it turned out he has never seem them as a child, only as an adult. We played for a while with Google before we were able to find some pictures of stuff from the puppets show that he remembered as a kid. It was so strange, because I was used to me being the one who is furthest from the center.

When it comes to grown-up tv and movies, there is very little original Israeli material, even less than that is any good, and most of the good stuff is quite recent. For children, however, there's a long and beautiful tradition of tv shows, both for entertainment and educational, on top of all the dubbed stuff. The collective memory of people round my age is full of that (a bit less in later years, though, as the variety grew larger and the quality grew lower).

Um, I can't even pretend I can make this in any way connected to the thread title.