[idworks1]

Interestingly enough, I watched this growing up in Saudi Arabia. In the late 80s, early 90s there were only 2 TV channels.

Channel 1 was in Arabic. Channel 2 was mostly English and had a lot of old school American programs. We watched sesame streets, the electric company, old episodes of Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes.

I can't say it taught me how to read, but it taught me English for sure.

> Take the detective character Fargo North, Decoder (get it?), who would solve missing letter mysteries. "Kids don't know Fargo, North Dakota," Fowles points out.

There was a show my wife watched when she was a kid in Florida. One of the main character was called LaCienega Boulevardes. It sounded like any other name. Until a couple years ago she moved to California. She started laughing hysterically when we drove on La Cienega Blvd.

[jedberg]

As someone who is a native of Los Angeles, and spent many childhood drives on La Cienega, I love this story. I had to look up the character -- looks like it was an animated series called The Proud Family that ran on Disney in the early 00s, and was created by an LA native.

Growing up in LA I could see a lot of influences from my local area in media (and in the 80s a lot of stuff was filmed in LA too so I'd literally see local spots in movies). But it never occurred to me that the LA inside jokes wouldn't really be inside jokes to people outside of LA.

[hahamrfunnyguy]

I think it's a good thing though. Parents could watch with their kids and still enjoy it. From what I've seen of today's children's programming, it's not very enjoyable for the parents. I guess it doesn't really matter, most parents just give their kids a tablet.

[WalterBright]

SpongeBob (at least the first couple seasons) was aimed as much at parents. The slapstick was for the kids, the sly snark for the adults.

Kurgan doing the voice for Mr Crabs was just the strawberry on the shortcake.

One bit was when they were on a boat. The name of the boat was on the prow. In a couple of shots, the first letter of the name was cut off by the edge of the screen, and your mind filled it in as a vulgar word.

Now that's some A-level snark.

[xyzzy21]

La Cienega Blvd in LA indeed used to be a swamp.