The difference between a toddler’s pop-cultural proclivities and that of a pothead’s is marked by a fine line, which is why Teletubbies and Sid & Marty Krofft’s hippie-era H.R. Pufnstuf have resonated as well with college students as with their nieces and nephews. So it’s no shocker that young-adult net MTV2 — currently in the midst of a three-month “freeview” — is top-loaded with children’s programming both real (Pee-wee’s Playhouse) and faux (Wonder Showzen).

The former is an Emmy-winning classic unfairly buried after Paul Reubens got entrapped in a blue-movie house. (Besides the Kafka-esque ridiculousness of his arrest, the mere existence of such a cinema demonstrates how long ago this occurred.) Anyway, it’s about time the Playhouse was reopened.

For those who don’t remember its 1986-1991 run, Reubens has described the show as “a celebration of nonconformity” and its world is gleefully subversive. Begun as a stage show with cult LA comedy troupe The Groundlings and test-driven as an adult-oriented HBO special, the 45-episode CBS series was replete with colour-blind casting (it was arguably the most multicultural show of its era), sexual innuendo (hello Miss Yvonne!), subtle drug references (beatnik puppets, talking furniture, whipped cream–addicted stop-motion foodstuffs) and music by Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh, Todd Rungren, Danny Elfman, Van Dyke Parks, George Clinton and Cyndi Lauper (who sang the theme). It featured roles for Phil Hartman (Captain Carl), Lawrence Fishburne (Cowboy Curtis) and Jimmy Smits (as a robot repairman for Conky).

Reubens, who made a memorable cameo as an inbred Euro prince on 30 Rock last season, has been talking up a Playhouse road movie for ages but since that appears stalled for the time being, the TV original will do just fine. Feel free to watch it with youngsters — over whose heads the double entendres will sail — but keep kids far from Vernon Chatman and John Lee’s crazy-amazing Wonder Showzen.

Before each episode is a South Park–ish warning about “offensive, despicable content that is too controversial and too awesome for actual children.” It’s no joke. Having aired in the US in 2005-2006, this Sesame Street satire combines puppetry, cute kids reciting jaw-dropping dialogue and politically incorrect outrageousness (the cheerful music video tribute to slaves “who built America!”).

And, if the Krofft show was inspired by a few tabs of blotter, Showzen seems soaked in a whole vial of liquid LSD. Hence the “D.O.G.O.B.G.Y.N” cartoon about a dog who delivers babies with its teeth; the suicidal, low self esteem-suffering Number Two; a drunk bible dancing with a Quran; and the infamous “Patience” episode which midway through stops and plays back in reverse.

The best recurring bit is “Beat Kids,” in which precocious preteens (usually trench-coated 12-year-old Trevor) interview adults, asking a butcher, “Who will pay for these steaks, y’know, spiritually?” and doing an impression of an old man at a racetrack: “Gamble, gamble, gamble, die.”

 

The kid Q&As also kill, as adorable tykes answer “carelessness” when asked where babies come from, claim America is No. 1 thanks to “white wine, white women and hate crimes” and sagely explain that heaven is “where drunk daddies drive to.”

After griping for ages about the absurdity of the feds forbidding MTV Canada from playing music videos (because of its “talkTV” licence), I hate to praise MTV2 for anything other than video plays. But while I dig watching Gnarls Barkley’s heart-wrenching “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul” video on a lazy Sunday morning, I’m even more blissed by the stoner-friendly, non-music programming on MTV’s spinoff station.

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