Candle Cove: A one-hit wonder (1971)

(Note: In case it’s not already obvious, this was my failed attempt at a “scary” post. I don’t think it worked. Well, enjoy it anyway.)

Hey folks, I know we just had a post on Tuesday per the usual schedule, but I just had to get this one out to you. This series has just been driving me bonkers – you know how I love that ’70s media. Oh, but before I begin, I’d like to thank you all for a fantastic October. This last Tuesday broke Hopped on Pop’s record for number of views in a single day, previously held by the day when I published an article about Adventure Time (apparently you guys really like Frederator-backed cartoons!). You guys make this worthwhile. Thanks for reading. And with that, let’s begin.

Anyway, Candle Cove was a super-trippy children’s show from the early ’70s that only lasted one season. But since then it’s been actively remembered on the Internet, so here we are! It was a local attempt to shout over the roar of the Yellow Submarine generation, and a reach for popularity over and above Sesame Street. In the few episodes that were broadcast, we meet Janice, an ordinary little girl who doesn’t want to be an ordinary little girl; she wants to be a pirate. Lucky for her, she meets Pirate Percy: the worst pirate ever! The rest of the show is them going on pirate adventures in this bizarre dreamland where they meet ghoulish monsters such as the Skin-Taker, all the while their talking ship the Laughingstock gives them eerie, cryptic hints as to the adventure at hand (all while looking out at the camera, not at the characters).

It started out just kinda drugged out and eerie, but for the most part pretty harmless. And then, the last episode happened:

And just like that, it was gone. I won’t bore you with the details, but for the next thirty-some years, Candle Cove was forgotten by all those except the original generation of kids who watched it. Who knows why it popped up on the Internet again, on NetNostalgia of all places? I mean, who would wax nostalgic for that?

So I thought until I watched some of the episodes for myself. Episodes one through eleven, although clearly intended for children are…well, weird. But as far as being “traumatizing” as the last episode is famous for, they’re really not that bad. It’s totally on drugs but it’s kinda educational and it’s like…edgy Sesame Street. That’s the best comparison I can come up with, anyway. No “C” is for cookie or any of that crap, and there definitely is some fridge horror/nightmare fuel to be had (i.e. stuff that would go over most kids’ heads but will make an adult crap their pants). We’re talking about the early Seventies here! The hippies were only just beginning to ffffffade away, and the psychedelic fad was still in large part hanging over the culture even though it wasn’t quite the dominant force it had been just a few years before. But at the end of the day, what you’ve really got here is a little girl who’s not a bad actress given her age, a few cheap puppets, and laughably low-budget sets. And the calliope music. Kinda goofy, mostly blech, and I guess in some ways pretty creepy. But I’ll leave that for you to decide.

Not much else to say here…after all, this is essentially a one-season wonder with a cult following that’s scared out of their pants by it and yet somehow can’t get enough of it. I guess if I had to rate this show, it’d be a 7 out of 10. Anyway, I can’t put any more episodes here (because that would be piracy – ba dum tish), but instead I’ve left below a short clip from around the end of the pilot episode. You can find the rest all across the rest of the Internet. See you again on November 12th!