Entertainment & Arts

A take for my vanishing childhood.

As the previous one, this take is more about venting, letting go of unpleasant feelings.
A take for my vanishing childhood.

I'm french, which is important for that take because what I'm talking about isn't known anywhere outside of France.

When I was a kid, there was this show, called "Le Club Dorothée", named after its main presenter, Dorothée (the blonde in the middle). It was basically a kid show, but modeled from adult shows. Everything was made to entertain kids.

There was anime, series, music, games with a big kid audience, gifts... The show was so great that it lasted no less than 10 whole years, from 1987 to 1997. They had a dedicated music band called "Les Musclés", and every Wednesday you had a big live show from morning to the end of the afternoon, full of music and anime.

"Le Club Dorothée" was in fact such an institution, and its presenters so famous and dedicated, that most kids who have watched it compare it to a second family, and Dorothée as a second mom. Those people were part of our lives, and spent 10 years entertaining us every day, in the morning before we went to school, and in the afternoon when we were back from school. The day it stopped, many of us cried, for real.

The show had many cheesy and even cringy parts, even for the kids we were. The team often went on made up "adventures" where they went to seek some "artifacts" to save the world and stuff. And for that, they traveled around the world, showing us so many places. Sometimes they went to the US, then they went to Africa, then on some tropical island. We followed there and they showed us all those places, meeting with animals, and the locals. Yes, their adventure was cringy and fake, but damn we loved it.

The show also had some "mini shows" inside, talking to us, kids, about serious topics, but in a way we could understand. They talked about ecology, charity, science, animals... They covered many topics that TV, until then, considered as "adult topics". It wasn't just entertaining, they were teaching us something concrete, and they were helping kids in needs.

If I write this take today, it's because one of the main presenter, Ariane (the brunette) died yesterday. She's actually the second of the team to pass away. Corbier (on the right with the beard) died last year. 2 members of the "Musclés" passed away too in the past 3 years.

And it feels like, everytime I hear a new about that, it's a huge blow to my childhood. To everything I loved as a kid. I spent so many times with them, and they're leaving one after another. This scares me as much as it pains me. Soon they'll all be gone, and there won't be anything left than distant memories and a few youtube videos.

It feels like my childhood is killed a bit more each time one of them disappear. I hate that feeling. I'm making a point of remaining a child at heart, and keep that part that many adults lost. But it's really hard.

Some will say that those people are nothing but entertainers doing their jobs, and maybe it's true. But they did it so well that they made us, kids, feels like we were important, like we were worth making the efforts of entertaining and teaching us, in a time were people saw kids as adults in the making. They told us "You kids deserve your own show, dedicated to you, made for you, with what you need and what you like". And they did everything needed to make it happen. And they succeeded. To the point that, more than 20 years later, no kid show ever reached the same level.

I feel sad and tired today. Got ripped of another piece of my childhood, and it's really not a pleasant feeling.

A take for my vanishing childhood.
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