Comments | gaffetheorist: Hm.

gaffetheorist

Hm.

Apr 14, 2005 18:20

I was announcing to my class that there was going to be a quiz next Tuesday, and joked that if there was anything they didn't want on it, they should let me know so I could be sure to include it. Some laughs, some groans, about what I expected. I then made a further comment about how they could try and pull a Br'er Rabbit and the Briar Patch ( Read more... )

Comments 5

Please don't throw me in that briar patch, Br'er F leachboy April 14 2005, 17:34:55 UTC

Please don't throw me in that briar patch, Br'er Fox

I know what you're talking about.

mynatt April 15 2005, 13:03:30 UTC

I get that reference, too. Strange that your students didn't... I hadn't thought that watching Disney cartoons qualifies as an unusual North American childhood experience.

gaffetheorist April 15 2005, 17:36:32 UTC

I suppose one difference is that the "kids" in my class were actual children when The Little Mermaid etc. came out, and so might not have had the same exposure to "classic" Disney, having been the target demographic for "Disney nouveau", if you would.

Also, I don't know about you but my parents' TV got about twelve channels when I was growing up, and at least two of those were French-language. Could limited choice in alternative programming be a factor?

leachboy April 15 2005, 19:23:57 UTC

I'm think you're onto something with the alternative programming. When we were kids, we had Saturday morning cartoons, after-school cartoons, a few educational shows on PBS (I loved "3-2-1 Contact"), and that was about it. I remember getting Nickelodeon sometime around 1983, but it was only on the air for half a day, sharing a channel with Arts (which later became A&E). I'm not sure when the Disney Channel came on the air, but for a long time it was a premium channel ( ... )

I never saw the cartoon! sclark223 April 22 2005, 12:45:47 UTC

Can you believe it? But we didn't see many movies when we were kids. I did however have a record (yes, vinyl!) and storybook from the movie. Plus I had a grandmother who loved the Uncle Remus stories, and used to read them aloud to us, so I certainly know about Brer Rabbit. One thought on the subject is that the books and movie may have fallen out of favor for a while, because it was thought that they made fun of Southern African-American dialects or something. I seem to recall that you couldn't find the book for a while, and it has only recently seen a reprinting.