Freaky Friday

My daily click on Schott's Vocab led to some strange connections. The phrase of the day is "the Ermintrude Effect," which refers to the embarrassment that some Britons feel when they eat their leafy greens. The column explains that Brits who munch awkwardly on watercress think they look like a cow named Ermintrude, a character from a stop-action animated children's show from 1970, called The Magic Roundabout, created by a fellow named Serge Danot and written and performed by Eric Thompson.

As you will see after you click below, Ermintrude is adorably zaftig. She wears a hat, bangs on a drum, and has a flower dangling constantly from her lips. She also has a palsy that causes her head to swivel madly and a voice that makes you wonder if all British men secretly wish they were women. The show itself has that relentless but creepy cheerfulness of Gumby or Davey & Goliath, shows that I only saw infrequently as a child because they so completely freaked out my steadfastly square mother. (For the record, so did Dr. Seuss books.) 

I thought there might be some amusing connection that I could make to Dog Park, such as to Muzzy who gobbles fresh grass like a starving ruminant or to the dog character in the show, named Doogle, which looks like a dust mop and plays the straight man. But I could not because the clip is so unspeakably weird. Whimsical but definitely weird. 

Enjoy. -z