Polka Dot Door

Back in the days when budgets were spent on good writing and not special effects, Polka Dot Door was produced by TV Ontario and was a children's television series that aired 5 days a week in ½ hour episodes. It ran from 1971 – 1993. Polka Dot Door is a fun interactive kids show that features three main stuffed animals, Marigold, Humpty and Dumpty and Bear. The hosts would interact with these stuffies to teach children fun facts and even advocate for each stuffy by providing a voice to make them come alive. Another main attraction of Polka Dot Door is Polkaroo, an elusive kangaroo that would only appear to one of the two hosts of the episode and then the other host would be dismayed that he or she missed Polkaroo again. Children simply love Polkaroo with his colourful spots and he would always be so cute saying Polkaroo, Polkaroo, and would came out every so often so there was anticipation building up to see when Polkaroo would pop in.

There would be different themes for each day of the week for each episode. Monday would be Treasure Day, Tuesday was Dress-Up Day, Wednesday was Animal Day, Thursday was Imagination Day and Friday was Finding-Out Day. The series is fun and interactive, and encourages children's imaginations while including a social aspect by taking them through the Polka Dot Door and into the real world. Cast includes Cindy Cook (host), Jim Codrington (host), Gloria Reuben (host) and Alex Laurier (Host). This is a must-see children's series and inspires creativity and imagination.

It appears that "Polka Dot Door" started out fifteen years before I was born, but ran for over twenty years in total. I first saw it at a very early age, and think I saw reruns of it shortly after its demise (even though I may not have liked it as much by then, as I may have been slightly past the age group it was meant for). It may not have been one of my childhood favourites, but I still found it entertaining for a while, enough for me watch many episodes, leaving me with permanent memories.

The show featured two hosts, one male and one female. The hosts of the show would change from time to time. It took place inside a large playhouse, which the hosts would enter through the Polka Dot Door. The two hosts of the episode would provide the young viewers with "songs, stories, and so much more." A group of stuffed toys, Marigold, Humpty, Dumpty, and Bear, lived in this playhouse. After the hosts came in, they would take these stuffed toys out of the box and do various activities with them. Towards the end of the episode, the Polkaroo (a mischievous kangaroo in polka dots who never said anything other than "Polkaroo!") appeared just outside the playhouse.

Some parts of that description may sound a bit silly, but remember, this was a programme for the very young folk, and despite how incredibly simple it was, it pleased many of those in the age group it was meant for in Canada, as well as some in the United States! It could also be educational for them in some ways. Since the show ran for over twenty years, it was obviously very successful, and people from several generations can say they watched it during an early part of their childhood! For all those reasons, "Polka Dot Door" definitely deserves some credit.

I loved this show when I was little. It was on Ontario TV, and I think it had a spin-off or two in the '90s. The hosts changed sometimes, but it was really fun to watch, and talked a lot about stories and toytime. The hosts always did a little dance to the tune of "Frere Jacques" that they would sing in both English and French, and there was a big dinosaur thing named Polkaru that one host never got to see! It was a good, quiet, peaceful show for kids.

I see a number of commentors over the year have felt the need to lambaste this perfectly innocent program. The central themes were about playing fair and making believe, and if it seems to be a simple premise, I'd like to hear where a sophisticated premise was used for a children's show that succeeded. The age group this show was created for was essentially preschool to kindergarten, and managed to coexist with the likes of Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street for decades, so it couldn't have been that gawdawful.

I seem to remember the show was a sweetly naive little half hour of kindergarten teacher types directing 'children' who were really toys how to behave together. This may regarded as insidious socialization, but it was created and ran through the very liberal 70s, so that claim is paranoid anti-government nonsense.

As for this show having no child actors, the toys made perfect surrogates, both because they were portrayed as childlike and because they reinforced the notion of abstraction necessary to allow children to see themselves in the same position. That level of abstraction was a necessary ingredient to instructing children to use their imagination.

As well, shows that primarily feature children often ran afoul of one of two problems with child stars: amateurs and professionals. The amateurs couldn't be relied upon to react properly to the puppets and toys, and the professionals come off so rehearsed and plastic as to be offensively unbelievable.

In the end, it's an argument over which philosophy for child education yields the best results. Personally, I don't think children's shows have been improved upon appreciably since the 70s, when at least diversity and imagination were openly encouraged, and the moral lessons were delivered a little more clearly without the obsequious and nauseating touchy feelie performances modern children's shows tend to use in lieu of actually explaining things to children. The assumption that children cannot or should not be told anything not relevant to playing in the schoolyard is utter nonsense.

With that in mind, I'd like to offer that The Polka Dot Door was actually a wonderful preschool children's show which hasn't been improved on by the likes of The Teletubbies.

The show was hosted by two, dreary Ontario civil servants and a series of stuffed animals who neither moved nor spoke -- and yet played the starring roles. Much like the Ontario government.

Polka Dot Door, like other Ontario government shows such as the Math Patrol, Body Works or Sol, had that unmistakably bland 'do-as-we-say, is-good-for-you-no-questions' taint to it. But in a smiling, artless, stir-up-no-trouble-children way. The Canadian way.

The hosts never lasted long in their jobs. This timid little children's show would chew them up at an alarming rate.

Events in each episode were scheduled to the second, like the unionized ministry office TVO is. Our hosts would dutifully read children's stories at an exact time, monitored by a monolithic clock at centre stage. Each day had a different 'theme' and the hosts were forced to march in a small circle, often holding one of the stuffed animals, chanting inspirational songs about the day's theme. Like characters out of a Kafka tale, our civil servants would never leave the pink room or their slavery to the clock and woud babble incoherently about the polka dot door and the world beyond, glimpsed in short filmed sequences where the outside was shown (usually a shoe factory or a farm).

Periodically, everyone would hallucinate an apparition named 'Polkaroo.' Polkaroo would do mischieveous things like flip up Marigold's skirt, take a crap in the bookcase or hide his stash in Dumpty's pants.

Incidentally, I saw Dennis (one of the longer-running hosts) in a production of Godspell playing John the Baptist. He was pretty good.