Forbidden fruit

When I was young, my mother had a lot of things she didn't approve of.  One of them was the TV show The Monkees.  Another was Mad magazine.  But I did read some Mad reprints, and sometimes the humor went over my head.  I've read those reprints again as an adult and now I get all the jokes.

I think Mother also disapproved of the TV show Laugh-In, but I never watched that. (I saw an episode as a grownup, and it was dreadful!) I also recall they wouldn't let me watch the Gilligan's Island episode where the headhunters wanted to sacrifice Mrs. Howell to a volcano.

My parents were also choosy about the comic books we read.  They approved of Donald Duck and Little Lulu and Archie and Richie Rich and Classics Illustrated, but I read very few superhero comics, let alone stuff like Conan the Barbarian.

My parents were very concerned to keep me away from scary stuff, but I'm not sure that was best for me.  In the miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man there's a scene where Nick Nolte puts a snake in his son's crib so he won't be afraid of snakes when he's older. (The boy's mother has a fit.) Sometimes I wish someone had put a snake in my crib.