The Dark Origins of Children’s Programming - Part II
Show Notes and References

Throughout the 70s and 80s, thanks to the relative independence of generation x and their latchkey kids, there was a devastating and terrifying increase in the number of children all across the nation going missing.

Now, for whatever reason, there was a boom in high-profile crime throughout these decades. We’re talking organized crime families, mafia, running big cities like New York and Chicago. We’re talking serial killers and an increase in violent crimes against women. And, for our purposes, we’re talking child predators and an increase in violent crimes against children. I’ll insert a trigger warning for these topics now, but we don’t plan to go into too many details, for our sake just as much as yours.

Sensationalism in the 1980s: Disappearing Children

As the media is want to do, they took a few of the more sensational cases and began force-feeding every detail to anyone shocked enough and mesmerized enough and afraid enough to sit there and watch these investigations unfold, like slowing down to get a really good look at a car wreck as you pass it by. There were PSAs from GI Joe characters and McGruff the Crime Dog. Made for TV movies about child abuse and abductions. It was ingrained deep in the collective unconscious and led to a kind of mass hysteria. Parents were fingerprinting their children in case they went missing. Daycare providers started being accused of more and more heinous crimes, literally like performing satanic rituals on toddlers. The news pumped out more of these kinds of stories, fueling the fire, until America displayed a general obsession with the idea of a child being harmed, or worst case scenario, vanishing.

Without going into too much detail, these higher-profile cases include Etan Patz, Johnny Gosch, and Adam Walsh, the son of John Walsh who became the host of America’s Most Wanted, and who now serves on the board of directors for The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which plays a major role in our narrative today.

In 1984, Anderson Erickson Dairy company printed the images of two local paper boys who had gone missing on their milk cartons—Johnny Gosch and Eugene Martin. This was viewed as a brilliant idea, seeing as how pretty much every family bought milk, right?

A similar program popped up in Chicago that same year, and then The National Child Safety Council seized the idea and created a nationwide program called the Missing Children Milk Carton Program. Etan Patz, who I mentioned before, was one of the first printed on the side of a milk carton. By March 1985, almost half of the independent dairy companies in the US had adopted the idea. Now, before you think these were all guardian angel type companies looking out for the safety of the children of the nation… let it be known that for many of the years while this was happening, these companies “public service” tax breaks for printing the images of missing children on the sides of their milk cartons.

The sad reality is that it wasn’t very effective, despite what people may have assumed. In fact, one of the only children it actually helped was Bonnie Lohman, who actually saw her own face printed on the side of a milk carton, and was a likely the main inspiration for the novel called ‘The Face on the Milk Carton’ by Caroline B Cooney, which we will cover as a book report one day. She was among the very few who were actually found. The only reason it worked is because she was taken by her own mother and stepfather. Relatives. They didn’t really do all that much to keep her a secret, so when her face appeared on the side of a milk carton, it was almost too easy. But that was a rare scenario. Most of the others weren’t that lucky, and are still missing today.

Milk Carton Kids Make Breakfast Traumatic

A concern arose that seeing the faces of so many missing children was a frightening and potentially scarring experience for a lot of young children, sitting there eating their morning bowl of cereal, trying to read the back of the cereal box and not take too many glances at the sad, smiling faces of children who had mysteriously vanished, because if it happened to another kid, then it could happen to me, right?

Now, whether or not it actually had this traumatic effect on the psyche of late GenX and early GenY, it did popularize the concept of “Stranger Danger,” which has permeated and saturated our culture. Even with all the movies and PSAs and new reports, it was the ominous haunting image of a missing child’s face on the side of a milk carton that was decidedly the most effective scare tactic in raising awareness for not only the number of missing children, but also helping to broaden the general definition of what a “missing” child constituted, from runaways to non-custodial kidnappings to stranger abductions, as well as promoting the concept of “stranger danger” to the point it became a household term then and is still used today when referencing any sort of unfamiliar person who makes you uncomfortable.

Stranger Danger was real. I mean, there was a Berenstain Bears book called “Learn About Strangers.” People still talk about it. I’d say, as a culture, we are much more aware of “strangers” nowadays than we were before the 80s and 90s. Whether for better or worse is not for me to decide; all I know is I don’t trust anyone if I can help it.

This program fell out of vogue in the 90s, probably because these companies started losing their tax breaks, but also because that’s around the time most dairy companies began replacing paper cartons with plastic cartons, anyway. It only lingered around until the AMBER Alert system was created in 1996, and thank God for that because it is a much more effective solution.

However, before the AMBER Alert System, in the darkest days of latchkeys and milk cartons, there was one high-profile abduction case we need to talk about.

Jacob Wetterling’s Disappearance

Jacob Wetterling. 11 years old. Taken from the dead-end street he lived on in the small town of St. Joseph, Minnesota.

The story of how it happened was so terrifying that even with the constant barrage of missing children’s faces on milk cartons and seemingly regular stories on the news of child abductions and child murders, people considered this story to be the stuff nightmares are made of.

To give you an idea of the far-reaching cultural effect this had on that generation, Jacob’s kidnapping is one of the main reasons why season 1 of Stranger Things, the epitome of 80s nostalgia, was centered around the plot point of Will Byers going missing. In fact, the manner in which Jacob was taken directly inspired certain visuals in the moments leading up to Will’s disappearance in the pilot episode.

It’s terrifying.

It happened on Sunday, October 22nd, 1989, around 9:20 PM. Jacob, his brother, and his friend had gotten permission from Jacob’s parents, who weren’t home at the time - they were at a get together at a friend’s house - to ride their bikes to town to the Tom Thumb so they could rent a movie. It was a dark strip of road with nothing but gravel driveways, corn fields, and woods. They wore reflective jackets and carried a flashlight. They’d be able to see any cars coming or going, and they’d be seen in return. In fact, many of their friends and neighbors said they saw the boys traveling up and down the road that night. They should’ve been safe. But on their way home, it had gotten dark. The figure of a man stepped out of the corn field and into the road. He was dressed in all black. His face was covered. And he was walking toward them.

I won’t go into too many details here, but he told the three boys he had a gun. Stop. Turn around. Close your eyes. He told Jacob’s brother and friend to run off and not look back or he’d shoot, so they did that. When they felt they were at a safe enough distance, they looked back to see what was happening. Just like that, the man and Jacob had vanished from sight. Jacob was gone, and he was never seen again.

The man who did it confessed twenty-seven years later, but I won’t get into that. If you want to know about this, there’s an absolutely incredible podcast called In The Dark that covered this story at great lengths in their first season. I highly recommend it, because it’s one of the reasons we have this podcast in the first place, because listening to it for the first time years ago opened my eyes to a lot of the darkness that inspired many of the common tropes in the entertainment I consumed as a child.

Those are more of the details we’re here to discuss. Long story short, law enforcement knew Jacob’s abduction was probably sexually motivated. So they got to thinking - “man, how great would it be if we could just look up all the convicted sex offenders in the area, figure out which ones had committed crimes against children, and go ask them what they were doing the night Jacob was abducted”… Right? What an idea.

Sex Offender Registries Become Mandated

The concept of a sex offender registry was nothing new, but not every state had one because at the time they weren’t federally mandated. So Jacob’s mom Patty used her involvement with The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to start making strides toward establishing this sort of thing.

The Jacob Wetterling Act was introduced in 1993 in congress by a Minnesota rep, which was originally intended to only be used by law enforcement - it was never meant to be made available to the public. The bill said that each state would have to verify the addresses of sex offenders living in that state each year and maintain a registry.

Before the bill could be finalized, a 7-year-old girl named Megan Kanka was the victim of a previously convicted sexual offender who lived across the street from her. The parents said they didn’t know he was a sexual offender, so before the bill was finalized they added a line stating that law enforcement may notify the community upon release of a sex offender back into the public. So, this bill passes in 1994 as the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children Registration Act.

But. In 1996, Megan’s Law was enacted. Previously, the community notification had been phrased in the bill as a voluntary act - this made it mandatory. Now law enforcement HAD to notify communities of released offenders. This perpetuates “stranger danger”, because now people can know when a sex offender is living among them. And suffice to say, most people have always had a hard time differentiating between a sex offender and a sexual predator.

From there, the restrictions placed against the rights of sex offenders grew ever more extreme throughout the 90s. It told you where you could live. Where you could go. And what you could do. One of the most macabre examples is known as the No Candy law. It specifically pertains to how a sex offender, no matter what offense they may have committed, must behave on Halloween night.

Examples include:

You should not go with a child to treat-or-trick or attend any function where children are gathered, even if it is a private residence
You are not allowed to put on masks or costumes
You should not place any Halloween decorations either inside or outside of your home
Your porch lights should be off, front doors and blinds/drapes closed on Halloween night. No member of your family is allowed to open doors to trick-or-treaters
You are not allowed to give treats or candy to any children or attend any home or location involving the distribution of treats on Halloween night. This as well covers anyone who lives with you in your registered place of residence
You are not allowed to have a party at your home on Halloween night
You should not go to hayrides, haunted houses, corn mazes, or any other activity associated with Halloween
You should stay in your home on Halloween night or attend an educational program with your parole officers if required to do so. The only exception to this rule involves a situation where you have to be somewhere else for a just cause for instance for medical or employment emergencies
Post a sign on your front yard that says “No candy or treats at this residence.”

As children, we both have vivid memories of being told to avoid dark houses on Halloween. But we weren’t explicitly told why. Kalyn has doubts her GenX parents were even fully aware of the reasoning for this. Regardless of whether it was a conscious understanding on everyone’s part, it all became part of Halloween lore - and is a chilling realization decades later.

The main issue with this registry, aside from it being public knowledge, is that it doesn’t just stop with people who have committed crimes against children. In fact, there are children who are registered sex offenders for various developmental missteps, some as young as 8-years-old. Other absurd examples include public urination and texting a nude to the person you’re dating.

And this is for life, folks. Murderers aren’t even put on registries.

But. Again. That’s not what we’re here to talk about.

Safety Bumpers on Children’s Advertisements

In 1990 Congress passed the Children’s Television Act that forced the FCC to regulate advertisement in children’s programming. There was also a call for more educational and informative content, as well. Now, there couldn’t be a commercial for a toy airing during an episode of the show the toy was based on. There also had to be a clear separation between the show and the commercial, telling kids that the show was pausing and the commercials were about to begin. Remember the bumpers before and after commercials on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network? Those were brilliant, and were often used as commercials themselves to promote other shows on their network — SNICK had a bunch of those bumpers.

Of course there were loopholes, and many networks would find ways around it. Some broadcasters would air reruns of old shows instead of having to pay to create educational content, claiming shows like “The Flintstones” and “The Jetsons” covered moral and social issues…

So basically, in short, the content we grew up on was literally created for us, catered to us because major corporations knew they could make money off of us. And it worked. And our parents let us watch it, and we were happy to do so. And now, because they mastered the art of children’s programming, I mean absolutely perfected it, we’re nostalgic for content that was massively commerce driven. But would I change anything, knowing that most broadcasters were, at best, indifferent toward me? That’s a big question I’m not sure I’m ready to answer.

All I can say is, thankfully we as 90s kids had networks such as Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon, who seemed to care somewhat for our adolescent well-being, and whose origins we will cover in future episodes.

Darker Content Emerges from Real-World Fear

Our main point today is how all of this fear and exposure to such extreme reality influenced not only the sorts of content found in all of the children’s programming following this era of history, but also how it darkened the collective unconscious.

This stranger danger fear bled into most of children’s horror throughout the 80s and 90s - many, if not most, of the villains are adults who prey on children. To provide an example, 10/13 Are You Afraid of the Dark episodes in season 1 feature adults who prey on children in some way. And it doesn’t just stop there. So many of the shows and films we’re going to cover feature adults who prey on children.

Patty Wetterling, Jacob’s mother, said it best. She said that “Parents think putting that fear on their children is effective, that the more afraid they are, the safer they’ll be. And that’s just not true.”

Here’s the main takeaway from the darkness and danger of the 80s as it bled into the 90s: parents were okay with children watching more and more TV because it meant they were home and inside and safe. It was alright because they had the TV to entertain them for a few hours. There were hotpockets and bagel bites and pizza rolls and microwave popcorn and all kinds of junk foods that were so simple to prepare, even a child could do it. Microwaves and toaster ovens.

Kids had everything they needed, and they were safe as long as they kept the doors locked, didn’t answer the door for anyone, and didn’t go outside.
It didn’t matter that children were becoming antisocial or prediabetic or developing attention deficit issues - it didn’t matter, because they were, for the moment, safe. And nobody wanted anything more than for their children to be safe. It was a sigh of relief to know where your children were, and although relief is the greatest feeling, it allows for complacency. Parents settled, accepting it as better than the alternative. And a lot of children were just as okay with that, because the programming was being catered directly to them, reminding them that although the world is dangerous, in here, with the glow of the TV screen, you’re safe.