Welcome to my page for personal media that has been lost to me. I'm trying to remember the titles of some stuff I experienced as a child, so I wrote down all I remember here. I also included some stuff that was found, in case it helps anyone!
Please keep in mind my descriptions can be warped by time. Any suggestions of titles are appreciated.
I would like to say I use "show" quite loosely in these descriptions. I assume the films were made for TV because they are not particularly movie quality. Many things I watched as a child were through VHS tape recordings of television.
Educational, reading-based game [Lost]
This was a game I played in 2007 or 2008, but it was probably older. It had 2D graphics and was played on a computer in my classroom in the southern USA.
Along the left side of the screen were wooden doors containing small characters, who would pop out and read words on the screen in the center. Along the top was possibly a toolbar but I don't remember what it was exactly. The borders of these were wooden, fashioned after sticks.
The most specific character I remember was a pink reptile (?), wearing a brown beret. He came out of a door at the top of the left bar, and read "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly, I don't know why she swallowed a fly; perhaps she'll die." in a sing-song voice. I don't think the characters were any animals in particular, but rather vague monsters or creatures.
Baby show with a song about frogs [Lost]
This was probably a DVD borrowed from a library, with 2D animation style that featured multiple songs on it. I think this may have been English or Spanish. I probably saw it around 2006 or earlier.
The visual style was very colourful and geometric, it made me think of construction paper cut-outs. The song was about frogs, I remember a (feminine?) voice singing "croa-ki, croa-ki, croa-ki-ki-ki-ki". Characters in the background swayed to the rhythm. I have a note from when talking to my twin, Dog, about it- they said they remember crabs crawling around an island that the frogs were on.
An anon recommended this clip from Dora, and while the visuals are not what I'm looking for, the song is actually quite similar. The tune is around the same but it was a slightly faster tempo, I think.
Book about a haunted writer who doesn't believe in ghosts [Lost]
This is a book I read around 2011 or 2012, so I was around 10 years old. It follows a man who is a writer, maybe a reporter. He moves into an old house which is haunted by a woman, but he is a staunch realist and refuses to believe in ghosts. I think over the course of the book he slowly comes to befriend the ghost woman and accept that she is a ghost..?
The cover of the book was a black and white line drawing of the house, or maybe a town scene. The cover of "The Mysterious Benedict Society" reminds me of this book! But I've never read that one, and the plot doesn't sound very similar.
A very specific thing I remember is that there are excerpts from the local newspaper, which I think is called [Town Name] Gazette, and the tagline is "Your business is our business" (which I thought was very funny ::-)). These parts of the book are a whole page formatted after a newspaper.
Show about carousel animals come to life [Found]
This was a 2D animated show, English-language, I almost certainly would have watched via VHS, any time in the 2000s (most likely the early 2000s). It could very well have been a Christian cartoon. I seem to remember the Sony Wonder logo on it, but looking through their list of releases on IMDb, I can't find it.
This cartoon was colourful and sort of a generic American style as far as I remember. I think carousel animals came to life and detached from their carousel, going on adventures, possibly with a human boy who was dreaming. The main character was a purple panda I think. At the end the boy was seen in his bed.
The most specific part I remember is the characters going into a long cave and facing a large reptilian (alligator?) antagonist. He had a chameleon sidekick on his shoulder who was very dumb and played for laughs. A cave-in caused the entrance to seal and the cave went dark, to which the chameleon said "Hey, who turned off the lights?!"
Here is a drawing I did of what the panda may have looked like, but take it with a grain of salt.
This is not "The Magic Roundabout" (aka Doogal), which can come up when attempting to search for this premise.
[August 28 2023:] While snooping around the search results for "carousel" on the TipOfMyTongue subreddit, I found someone describing this in detail and a comment of the show's name! It seems to be part of something called Gnoo Zoo, the episode(?) itself called "In Search of the Great White Tiger" (also the title of the book it was adapted from by Sheila Walsh).
It wasn't distributed by Sony Wonder, but Tommy Nelson, a Christian childrens' publisher whose logo also features a cloudy blue sky just like Sony Wonder. I got the look of the panda pretty wrong but he is still a dull purple. And I found the moment I remember of the chameleon. ::-) Links added below!
Links:
• Reddit post about the movie where I found the answer.
• Gnoo Zoo on YouTube
• Gnoo Zoo on Archive.org (the same video as on YouTube)
CGI show about farm animals and a crying dam [Found]
This was an animation I watched via VHS, probably Christian, watched as a child in the 2000s. English language with CGI graphics, not the best quality, sort of early CGI...
This followed farm animals, notably a pig protagonist and a sassy sheep deuteragonist (who may have been new to the farm?). A dam (or mountain) was crying, I distinctly remember his huge, wailing, echoing voice. The farm animals went on an adventure to stop him from crying or else he would flood the place.
At some point the sheep was separated from the group and was in a system of underground tunnels, guided by a mole. This was quite eerie to me...
In addition to the dam being an inanimate thing come to life, there was also possibly a barn or stable containing horses that was alive.
Thanks to GodShaped on Tumblr for posting this to r/TipOfMyTongue for me, this is "Farkleberry Farm: Wet and Wooly" (sometimes spelled "Wooley") from 2002. This is apparently a pilot episode that was never picked up for a full series.
Regrettably I can not find this to watch online for free anywhere, not even on the Internet Archive. It seems to be available on Pure Flix streaming service, and there are some VHS tapes for sale on eBay. Plenty of online shops list it, but say it is unavailable, including Amazon. I haven't gotten to watch it since rediscovering it. If you can, help me to watch this!
[November 12 2023:] I found and bought a DVD of this and have now been able to watch it! I successfully ripped it and put it on YouTube, linked below.
My own description was pretty on point but my memory and imagination exaggerated some things. For example the sheep wasn't lost underground, but hanging out with a mole on a cliffside in a gorge, and she was very emphatic that she did not need rescuing. Also, the dam curiously doesn't cry, but sags down sadly, which is what allows water to flood the place.
Links:
• TipOfMyTongue Reddit post helpfully posted by the user DairyMold and solved by JasperJonns! Thanks!
• IMDb page
• PureFlix page where it is available in 2 parts for registered users.
• YouTube upload from me. (Hopefully it won't be removed for copyright...?)
Educational game about American geography [Found]
An educational CD-ROM game I played at my house, probably between 2008-2011, on Windows. I randomly found it in my house and popped it in to play.
There's not much to say about it gameplay-wise. The main screen was a map of the United States of America, and you can click on states to learn about them or possibly answer trivia about them. My most specific detail is that the mascot character who sat in the lower right corner of the screen and narrated the text, was shaped as the Eye of God on dollar bills, who was named Annie.
Here's is where the "partially" after "found" comes in. I found a clip (flashing warning) of the mascot uploaded to YouTube, revealing the game is called "Amazing American History". This was published by Cosmi in 2003. You can find CD-ROMs for sale on eBay, but sometimes the name on the case is just "American History". Given this incredibly vague name it has been hard to find any digital copies online, or any gameplay footage. Please help!
[January 15 2023:] My parents found our copy of this game in a box, and it works great aside from some audio stuttering. I contacted a game-hosting site about contributing it there. I still can't find any videos/articles of it but now I have my own copy and screenshots. There's not much of a game, it's mostly reading about history and geography.
Also, while the case says "American History", it's internally called "Amazing American History". The case says it's from 2005 but internally it's from 1997. My assumption is it was published earlier with "Amazing" in the name, then republished later with it dropped?
[June 3 2023:] My submission to MyAbandonware was posted a couple months ago! It can now be downloaded and played! The link is below.
Links:
• Deluxe Children's 10-Pack on The Internet Archive, a 10-pack of games published by Cosmi including American History
• MyAbandonware's page for Amazing American History
"Purple ant game" [Found]
This is another educational game I played at my house, on Windows, with 2D graphics. It followed a purple ant-like character who had a nasally voice. You could go into her house and play games; or go to the left to play a sort of minigame in which beavers in contruction vehicles built a bridge of logs over a river; or go to the right to find a well where you could fill a watering can to water her plants.
In her house were various educational minigames. You could send her to bed and count sheep, draw shapes on a whiteboard, and feed fish in her fishbowl.
Thanks to a comment from DeviantArt user MatthewSeldon16 on July 18th 2022, this was found to be "Early Math", a 1995 game published by Sierra. The "ant" is actually an alien named Loid. (Can you blame me for thinking he was an ant?)
Some of my specific details don't apply, such as the beavers building a bridge, and the water for watering plants. (It's actually the player helping Loid build a bridge, and the water is for Loid to drink.)
Links:
• The Internet Archive's upload of the game
• The Sierra Chest's article on Early Math
• Playthrough by The Rarest Gamer on YouTube
• My artistic rendition of the game from 2020, including the comment from the person who found it
Ugly CGI show about monsters under a bed [Found]
This was a 3D-CGI show about a boy and wacky monsters that lived under his bed. I think the title was something along the lines of "[name] and the monsters under the bed". This could have also been a Christian show, since my brain lumps it together with another show, Roach Approach, which I assume is unrelated.
I remember seeing and ad for it on TV, I think the main character remarked to the offscreen monsters "You guys are weird!"
Strangely enough my ideas about it were very wrong, and I found it recently after combing through the IMDb search results for "monster", and when that didn't work, "alien". This was the show "Pet Alien" from 2005, and although I can't seem to find an ad that sounds like what I remembered, the visuals are exactly correct. (They're actually better than I remembered, I thought the rendering was more crude.)
This show is actually about a boy who lives in a lighthouse, and becomes roommates with a gang of aliens who crashland there. It's also not specifically Christian. So, I was quite wrong.... X-D I guess it goes to show how time warps memories that were thought to be certain.
Judging from its Wikipedia page, it looks like only half the show was released on DVD. I'm not sure if that makes this some actual lost media? (I personally just wanted to know what it was called...)
Links:
• Wikipedia article
• YouTube playlist of episodes, uploaded by Little Amigo
CGI Christmas special about creatures in a snowstorm [Found]
This was a 3d-CGI show I watched on a VHS as a kid. This has been well known to me for a long time, but I'm putting it here because this helped me to help someone else remember these creatures.
This is "A Very Wompkee Christmas" from 2003. This follows a titular Wompkee, a fuzzy green mammal with huge ears, named Twig who is learning to fly. They have to save their Christmas Eve plans from being ruined by Iglora Borealis, who has stolen the Wompberries they use for powering machinery, in order to power her own "ice device".
I'm looking for where to watch it for free online currently, please help if you can.
[January 15 2023:] I bought a DVD of this online and I would love to rip it for the Internet Archive. I've never ripped a DVD before so feel free to send me any and all tips for it.
[August 28 2023:] I've had several unsuccessful attempts at ripping this, hopefully I'll get it someday...!
[March 8 2024:] I searched up this movie to see if anyone else has ripped this, and there is finally an upload on YouTube! The uploader has it in both English and Spanish.
Links:
• Wikipedia article for The Wompkees
• YouTube upload of most of the film in Polish (final 10 minutes or so are missing)
• Hoopla Digital listing of the film
• YouTube upload from My Fun Box (December 18, 2023)
