"The Friendly Giant"

The things you can find on the Internet - it's truly amazing!

Years ago, when I was very small, one of my favorite TV shows was "The Friendly Giant." The format was quite simple - a friendly giant would invite you into his castle, put out chairs (dollhouse furniture, but as a child you were supposed to believe it was real furniture and looked small because, well, he was a giant, of course) for his young visitors to sit in, and then he would visit with a chicken named Rusty and a giraffe named Jerome (hand puppets, but if you were a child, you imagined they were real). The series was so gentle, so sweet, so simple, and the Giant (Bob Homme) had such a soft, friendly, gentle, soothing voice. He played a recorder, and the theme music to the series was done with a recorder and a harp, adding to the overall sweet and gentle feel of the show.

I watched this series all the time as a young child, but never saw it again after we moved to Arizona when I was 6. I never ever forgot it over the years, though, and have always wished I could find some way to see it again.

So this evening when I found several lengthy clips from it on You Tube while searching for other things, I have to confess, I sat in front of my computer crying! There was everything I remembered - the recorder music, the Giant's castle with the drawbridge, the tiny furniture, his soft, melodious voice, everything. It was as if I had stepped into a time machine and gone back to my earliest childhood.

Could today's children enjoy something like this? My own 8-year-old grandnephew loves action-packed, loud and noisy video games. He never saw Mister Rogers, or Romper Room, or Captain Kangaroo, and would have no idea what those were. I can't help but think his generation is the poorer for having missed out on all of this.