In the 90s, puppets essentially became the overlords of educational television.
Sure, Jim Henson really solidified this back with the creation of Sesame Street, but it wasn't, in my opinion, until the 90s that it really took hold. Suddenly, there was an influx of edutainment that was bursting at the brim with puppets. Whether it was something like Mr. Rogers, where the puppets were more of side characters, or something like Lambchop, who was the star, puppets teaching kids became as normal as 80 year old women with bad hairdos teaching kids. But none stick out in my mind as such a fever dream as Timmy The Tooth.
I can't remember who it was who originally gave me the Timmy The Tooth VHS I had, it may have been my mother, it may have been my grandmother, that knowledge is forever lost to me, but I can say that whoever was responsible for it shouldn't have been involved in childcare, because Timmy The Tooth is simultaneously completely fine and absolutely horrific. Looking back these days, as a full grown adult with a set of serious dental problems (not that those are anything new, I've had them forever and I'll even go through them in more detail later on), it's kind of ironic, in retrospect, that I was introduced to this series.
To understand my dental health, you'd need to understand my overall health, and that can be summed up with one word: mutant. I am a mutant, plain and simple. My toenails don't grow in correctly, I cannot smell and as a little girl, I had too many teeth. Basically, I had adult teeth growing in while my baby teeth refused to fall out, and even beyond that, I just had extra teeth. Because of this, when I was in, oh about 4th grade I'd say, I was taken into surgery to have them removed. And not dental surgery, in a dentists office, oh no, a full fledged surgery in a hospital where they had to knock me completely out for hours to complete the job. After this, I was forced to get stitches in my gums. Having those stitches later removed is hands down quite possibly the most painful thing that's ever happened to me, physically speaking.
These days, while I don't have as many teeth as I used to, that's partially because they fixed it but also partially because my teeth are simply corroding out of my skull. And while I'm not going to pretend I was ever great at dental care (the texture of toothbrushes, the taste of toothpaste and the inability to deal with the pain of flossing prevented me from taking much care at all if any of my teeth) I'm also going to state that it's become such a problem that I recognize I'm really at risk because of it. Two of my bottom molars have enormous cracks and are wearing down to near nothing, while a molar on the top is cracking and chipping away as well. It's a bad scene, is what I'm getting at. And I make virtually no money despite churning out all the content I create daily, so my options of ever having this rectified are next to nill.
This is why I bring up Timmy The Tooth.
Because Timmy The Tooth is not just your run of the mill edutainment featuring puppetry. Timmy The Tooth is dental propaganda, pure and simple. It's propaganda disguised as edutainment, plain as day. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that, I mean, after all the worst thing you could teach children to do is brush their teeth, but what really irks me about it is that they act like that's not what it is. If you're going to do this sort of thing, at least be upfront about it. At least be open and admit to it, and don't try and hide behind this guise of "oh no, we just want to entertain some kids!" because that's where you start to break down, ethically. Not only does this sort of thing create inherent distrust among anyone trying to teach you something, but it also makes you begin to question the genuineness of edutainment itself, whether it's something you really should be absorbing or if it's simply propaganda.
Now, I recognize that this is a pretty weird hill to die on. But I almost wonder if I hadn't been exposed to something like Timmy The Tooth if I would've been more inclined to take better care of my teeth. Children do the opposite of what you tell them to do, so if you tell a child something is greatly important, their first natural instinct is to simply not do that thing. Because, let's face it, kids are dicks. What's more, I only ever actually saw a singular episode of Timmy The Tooth, and yet it had that much of an impact on me that, 20+ years down the line, here I am writing a blog post about it. It'd be hard to argue that these things don't create long lasting impressions. But as creator myself, I try to steer away from simply using my work as a mouthpiece (not to be cute), and instead write - when writing fictional characters anyway - characters to be their own people with their own opinions, if those said opinions don't necessarily line up with my own.
So to see someone create something that's meant to be good harmless fun, and again, I reiterate that teaching kids to brush their teeth is hardly the worst crime in the world, actually be something with a slightly more sinister undertone to it kind of irks me, as a creator. Nevertheless, I'm not sure what this post is ultimately trying to say or what my real argument actually is. I never ran into anyone else either who watched Timmy The Tooth, so it seemed all the more creepy that it was shown solely to me and me alone. I recognize this is obviously not the case, as it was something a lot of people did see, but I personally never ran into anyone in my day to day life who ever saw it or if they had, had remembered it.
Like a good portion of my teeth, I no longer have my VHS tape anymore either. It too has been lost to time. But the memory will linger, and live on, for better or for worse.
And for what it's worth, it gave me something to talk about on here, so thanks, I guess, you terrifying oral nightmare.
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