Nerding Day: Mother Goose Rock ‘n’ Rhyme

Growing up with broke parents meant two things: I was only hit with low quality pleather belts and most of our VHS tapes were copies of copies of copies that someone else recorded off of television. Most of these were pagan Christmas specials and anti-drug specials that are much more enjoyable if you’re on drugs. Some were inexplicably sporting events like the first Miami Heat game that my dad thought would be “valuable” to keep on tape. Fortunately, my parents were able to save themselves from financial ruin by heavily investing in Death of Superman comics and Beanie Babies. Will they ever be able to retire? They’re in their 70s and we’re still waiting to find out!

But there’s one special that we had on bootleg VHS that haunted my dreams throughout my childhood. It’s both the most captivating television special I’ve ever seen and possibly the Earth’s greatest example of accidental children’s horror. It’s a made-for-TV movie that combines uncomfortable scenarios, ghastly special effects makeup, and a bunch of celebrities who seem to be on all the cocaine available in 1990.

I’m talking about Mother Goose Rock ‘n’ Rhyme.

Here’s the basic story: Mother Goose is a real woman (played by Jean Stapleton of “being famous before you were born” fame) and she reigns supreme over Rhymeland. She’s basically the one, true God there, and her rhymes produce new sentient beings. Unfortunately, the one person who doesn’t quite have a place in Rhymeland is Mother Goose’s son Gordon Goose (played by Dan Gilroy, but not the Dan Gilroy who wrote for Andor, although can you imagine?). Gordon Goose is just a normal guy who lives in Rhymeland. He really emphasizes that part about normality a whole bunch. Unlike every other section of pastel hell in this special, his room just looks like the type of bedroom an adult man would have when living with his mother. Then again, you’d probably go nuts too if your mother screamed “Wee Willie Winkie” at you when you walk out of your bedroom. Which happens here in the first two minutes.

Anyway, after some goings on and whatnot, Gordon Goose is shocked to discover that his mother (goose) is now missing. And to find her, he teams up with Little Bo Peep (played by Shelley Duvall, who we didn’t value while we had her). What follows is a raucous adventure through the most famous English language nursery rhymes: Jack & Jill, Mary Had a Little Lamb, Humpty Dumpty, the works. To the special’s credit, it actually hits a lot of Mother Goose material. To the special’s discredit, this fact adds more to the runtime. By about halfway through, you’re really thinking, “Am I only halfway through?” As a kid, you wouldn’t really know. As an adult, I can check the YouTube timeline and feel the deepest despair.

Where was I? Oh, right - telling you stuff. Along the way, Gordon Goose and Little Bo Peep become close friends and the other nursery rhyme characters help them discover the existential terror that is Mother Goose’s disappearance. I’ll get to that in a second after I get to something else before that. Which is how time works. You want it to be cyclical, but boy oh boy that linear thing really eats away at you, you know?

So, I’ve covered the basic plot of the special. And from that, you can imagine how the whole production would be suited for kids. You’ve got fun rhymes. You’ve got cartoony characters. You’ve even got a guy who just doesn’t quite fit in - just like you or me! Under any other production, in any other time period, Mother Goose Rock ‘n’ Rhyme would have been a milquetoast hour of references that you put on to keep a child from talking. Honestly, that would’ve been one thousand times easier than what they actually did.

What they actually did was make Rhymeland into a deeply unsettling place.

Gordon Goose is literally afraid to leave the house. Not only does he hate his job at the goose down shop, he’s also pretty racist? Early on he complains, “I don’t like the Rhymies. They’re just so strange!” I’ll admit, “rhymie” is actually a pretty good slur, but also… everyone in Rhymeland is a Rhymie with the possible exception of Gordon. He just hates everyone. And if an adult man complains to his elderly mother that he detests every person in the world, there’s a 50-50 chance that mass murder is on the horizon.

Gordon is one of the most confusing parts of the special because he keeps referring to himself as “normal” despite the fact that he’s the only unusual one in the universe based on the standards of Rhymeland. He keeps calling these fucking people “weird” when they’re just trying their best to corral their sheep and slide down a waterspout. I mean, yes, they are strange, but they don’t know that! Gordon’s entire personality is just being mad that other people created by his mother exist.

To be fair, I can see how Gordon’s anxious mid-80s, a-little-too-much-Woody-Allen personality would bump against nursery rhyme characters. But Jesus Christ, he responds to everything with such a deep, overwhelming negativity. We’re in a bonkers world of horror, but the best he can do is frown and yell at every situation. At first it’s annoying, but as we go on, it makes no fucking sense whatsoever. It’s like if you were in a horror movie and when Jason smashes into the house, you went, “UGH, THAT WAS MY FAVORITE DOOR!” Possibly true, but not the time.

As I said, early on Gordon Goose meets Little Bo Peep, who Gordon enjoys telling to shut up throughout the special. Their relationship is so bizarre because Little Bo Peep is nice and cheerful, while Gordon Goose just becomes increasingly emotionally abusive. Yet, we’re supposed to feel like they have romantic chemistry? What’s crazy is that the guy who played Gordon actually did end up with Shelley Duvall for the rest of her life. That’s true. Perhaps in this special, they exorcised all their relationship bile and got it out early.

Speaking of early, we really jump straight into the weirdness. We quickly understand why Gordon dislikes going outside: The moment he walks out the door, there is a musical number passive-aggressively accosting him for not enjoying Rhymeland. You know you’re in a friendly world when one of the most repeated lines is a fearful man asking, “Why me?” with the chorus shouting back, “Why not?” and then continuing to physically shove and pull him around his front yard. So, in a way, I get it: If I left my apartment building and a musical number about my personal anxieties kicked off, I’d be even more bitter than I already am. Which, if you checked my texts, you’d know is a rough level of bitterness.

I will, however, say this about the special: Everyone understands the assignment. Usually when you have celebrities in children’s specials, they’re giving a quarter-ass effort to satisfy a judge who ordered them to do community service after a DUI. Here, it feels like everyone is extremely excited to be in Mother Goose Rock ‘n’ Rhyme. They are so intense about it. You know that religious kid in elementary school who was nice but thought that Jesus was literally the coolest guy ever and got confused when you didn’t have a poster of him? Imagine that, but for Mother Goose and it’s everyone.

For example, noted sexual harassment accussee Ben Vereen plays the Itsy Bitsy Spider. He’s shot as if he’s a tiny creature - oddly wearing a web-themed body suit as if he’s supposed to be Spider-Man and not a regular spider. I’m putting too much thought into this. Not important. What makes it really fun is that he switches between a screeching high-pitched voice (because he’s small!) and an aggressive, over-the-top scream (which feels a little racist in execution). He literally yells at the main character for trying to find his mother. Does Gordon suck? Yes. Does he deserve this type of abuse? Yes. But I shouldn’t have had to watch it as a child, let alone as an adult throughout my life whenever I was high or melancholic about the poor choices that led me to where I am. Oh, and when the Itsy Bitsy Spider washes down the waterspout, there are multiple jokes about him potentially being dead. You know, for the kids.

There’s not enough space to cover every Rhymeland character. And, hell, some like Little Richard playing Old King Cole actually makes a lot of sense and creates fun moments. Others, like Katey Sagal as Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary or ZZ Top playing the Three Men in a Tub, goes by so fast that it hardly registers as a scene. And, I’ll admit, Gary Shandling and Teri Garr playing Jack & Jill is a little better than any other Jack & Jill-related movie starring a comedy celebrity. If you’re a human being who likes clapping like a trained seal and pointing at the screen like Leo in that one movie about Hollywood, then seeing all these celebrities will make you happy.

At the same time, good luck enjoying half of this if you do not recognize the celebrities. Because when you don’t know who’s on screen, the vibe gets even more harrowing. For example, Cyndi Lauper plays Mary from Mary Had A Little Lamb. Meanwhile, Woodie Harrelson plays the Little Lamb. I think because of her thick accent and his personality, we’re supposed to chuckle at the fact that they’re in an emotionally abusive bestiality relationship in a trailer park. But the problem with that is everything. The bit goes on forever, and it’s mostly the Little Lamb saying how much he hates Mary, but that he is cursed to follow her wherever she goes due to the rhyme. It’s all played for laughs, but these are bad people treating each other badly. Honestly, there’s some Silent Hill 2 energy in there.

But the mutual animosity of a deteriorating relationship between a woman and her obsessed sheep is one of the less uncomfortable things we see. Around the half-hour mark, the special seems to realize that it’s still got a lot of famous people to shove into the program and so they better hurry the fuck up. We soon get a young-ish Harry Anderson (who was not the Senator who died in the first X-Men movie, which I really thought he was - turns out it’s Bruce Davison) playing Peter Piper. Peter Piper’s whole thing is alliteration - especially words that start with “P” - and so his character’s main function is just spitting on Gordon. That’s about it. He’s a character designed to just spit into a man’s open mouth. Great.

Later, we get Pia Zadora as Little Miss Muffet. If you don’t know who Pia Zadora is, congratulations: Nobody back then did either. Anyway, walking into Little Miss Muffet’s home shrinks them all down and Gordon’s pants keep almost falling off. Then they eat a massive plate of disgusting “curds and whey” as Little Miss Muffet melts down over the mention of a spider. At which point, Itsy Bitsy Spider returns and hits on Little Miss Muffet before trapping her in a wall and saying, “She’s just playing hard to get.” Then the Itsy Bitsy Spider does a very brief dance breakdown, followed by asking why Little Miss Muffet doesn’t love him. There are probably children who learned about relationship dynamics from this and whatever they learned has later been used in the court of law.

There are two particularly haunting moments. One, after ruining the actually-good Little King Cole sequence, Gordon is sentenced to prison while the king’s entire retinue laughs in his face. Cartoon prison, right? Something cute. This is Rhymeland after all! Nope. A trap door opens under his feet and he’s dragged to a dungeon wall by two big, bald, burly men, who then chain him up so high he’s almost hanging from his wrists. At which part, I swear to God, a band in Slipknot-style masks does a soft rock song about Gordon being a boring failure. To his face. Who’s in this band? Glad you asked: Dweezil Zappa and Randy Jackson. Yes, that Randy Jackson. American Idol Randy Jackson. We couldn’t get the good Dan Gilroy, but at least we got the good Randy Jackson. This song is immediately followed by two bright yellow men torturing Gordon by tickling him with feathers. Even watching it now fills me with dread.

The second awful, awful moment is Humpty Dumpty. Yes, we all know it’s already an unhappy nursery rhyme. Humpty Dumpty falls off a wall and shatters. But don’t worry: He’s played by a mean-spirited Howie Mandel who sits on a wall the height of a skyscraper. This Humpty Dumpty is just a giant asshole who says egg puns rather than answering any questions. And I’ve got no idea how he made it up that wall. I don’t want to know. But when he falls, Humpty Dumpty doesn’t just shatter - he stays conscious and keeps talking after the life-altering injury. But since all the horses and all the king’s men can’t put him back together again, this is how he’ll be forever. The joke is that budget cuts have caused there to not be enough manpower to fix the giant egg. The reality is body horror.

We quickly move through Three Blind Mice (including Bobby Brown of being terrible to Whitney Houston fame), as well as Cheech Marin being some sort of carnival barker at the place where the dish has an affair with the spoon. Also, Paul Simon is, you’ll never guess this, Simple Simon while Art Garfunkel is Georgie Porgie. Neither of these are really load bearing characters, and they’re some of the few celebrities who don’t seem to completely understand what’s going on. On the other hand, Paul Simon might just be doing a low-energy Paul Simon impression.

Finally, after an arduous journey through a who’s who of “who’s that?”, we find out the terrible truth about Mother Goose’s disappearance: She was stolen out of Rhymeland by a giant little boy in the “real world.” The massive kinderdemon demands that the tiny characters in front of him act out their nursery rhymes for him and seems extremely peeved when they don’t want to do that. And then - get this - the kid realizes he’s the bad guy and then gets incredibly worried. “Am I going to get punished for this?”, he asks. Then Gordon jokes about hurting the kid, because why not? That kid could’ve fucking ruined Gordon with one swat. Try it, asshole.

As you might expect, because this is still ostensibly a show for kids, the boy allows everyone to return home, where Gordon subsequently learns that he’s not normal after all! He’s just another creation of Mother Goose! His mom tells him he’s - and this is the word she uses - “fictional.” So, she’s not his mother? Or she is, but she specifically created him as her son? Or is he some sort of rhyming accident? I don’t know. But he reacts with disgust, shouting, “I’m a Rhymie?!” You know that old Dave Chappell sketch with the blind black klansman? Same feeling here. Even worse, it turns out he’s Mother Goose’s first swing at a rhyme and, because that rhyme sucked, she just pretended he was her son.

And then… dancing! And that’s the special! Basically, Gordon learns that he’s not “normal,” he’s a failed fictional character whose life is a lie and we get a reprise of the opening song. Gordon seems happier now, but for how long? What will come next for him? He’s got nothing. His failed nursery rhyme doesn’t give him his own home or something he should be doing. He just exists in a world in which everyone else is more special than him. And that dude can no longer act like he’s better than all of them.

Watching Mother Goose Rock ‘n’ Rhyme is like viewing a video tape that’s going to cause someone to crawl through the TV to kill you. Except it’s not a Japanese water ghost with stringy hair, it’s Woody Harrelson dressed as a lamb with the energy of a furious, jealous husband. It’s supposed to be fun for kids because it’s so weird, but it’s actually so scary. I can see how parents catching all the celebrities would have fun, but no children - even in 1990 - knew who Van Dyke Parks was and they probably only knew David Leisure as Joe Isuzu, a reference so old that I had to look it up to make sure I actually got it right.

If you want to watch this special, I’ve got good news: Like most of humanity’s disasters, it’s on YouTube. But do not show this to children. It won’t make their lives better. All they’ll learn is that those innocent nursery rhymes are actually about women living in shoes who hate their children and spiders that assault little Miss Muffet. It’s a wild movie, and one that I hope survives the upcoming apocalypse to be the next society’s Canticle for Leibowitz text.

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