I don't think there are enough truly scarring shows on the teevee today.
Let me give you a little background here. Every once in a while, out of the blue, I get a flash of a despicable earworm that goes a little something like this:
Chico, Chico Rainmaker
And that's it. I can't remember any more of the song. And the worst thing is that any of the following teevee memories can bring it on: Zoom, Electric Company, Big Blue Marble, the peculiar Vegetable Soup or Villa Allegre. In some way, all of these programs are linked to the hideous reality of Chico, Chico Rainmaker. They were all PBS shows in my younger days.
You can imagine it as an episode of $25,000 Pyramid where the "giver" says "Zoom. Electric Company."
The answerer is blank. He spent his younger days playing in the warm sun, surrounded by friends.
"Big Blue Marble. Vegetable Soup."
He doesn't have an answer. The feel of the grass beneath his warm, small feet and his butterfly collection have clouded hs mind.
"Villa Allegre...Villa....Allegre."
Nothing.
"Da-Dada-Dadada-Da-Dada-Duh Da-Duh Da!"
Nothing.
"Oh forget it."
And Dick Clark would come over and console the losers, finally making the answerer feel inadequate for not saying "Shows on PBS when Kafkaesque was a child." And the celebrity would be pissed. Like you've never seen Nipsey Russell get pissed. He'd break that little railing, and using one of the cheap plastic bars that probably arent wrought iron, he would leap to the display board, the board that will forever mock him, and beat the hell out of it.
Where was I?
Yeah, Chico Rainmaker. It was a 70s series actually called "The Boy with Two Heads", about a little boy who had a disembodied shrunken head in a little box. And the little head talked. And...it would make it rain.
Did I mention its name was Chico? It all makes sense if you think about it that way.
But my point is kids today with their Teletubbies and their Olsen Twins will never know the pleasure of waking up screaming that a little head in a box was going to make it rain. That's what I'm saying.
Anyhow, here's the trauma for you:
IMDB listing
Les Amis de Chico (French Chico appreciation page)
Discussion Site for Survivors of Chico