On October 3, 2024, I woke up with a memory in my mind trying to make itself known. The night before, I had been watching HBO’s “Chimp Crazy” documentary, an especially nightmarish watch for me as I despise chimpanzees. The HBO intro stirred something within the very fiber of my being – a distant feeling of nostalgia. I remembered the HBO intro of a show that I had not watched in years. I honestly thought that my brain made up the show in a dream of mine. It turned out that the show that I was thinking of was very much real and it was called “Crashbox.”
“Crashbox” was HBO Kids’s first TV show and aired from 1999 to 2000. Only two seasons were released. The episodes are set up like a game show, encouraging the viewer to participate in games in a genre dubbed “edutainment.” There is no real plot to the sequences shown. It is an entirely stop-motion animated TV show, giving it an honestly eerie, yet unique vibe.
Naturally, I immediately looked up the show on HBO to rewatch the TV show that haunted me for years. I learned from my parents that watching “Crashbox” used to be a sort of family activity for my family. Each “Crashbox” game has its computer chip featured in the episode that will be displayed before its segment. There are a total of eighteen “Crashbox” games. For this article, however, I will just cover a few of my favorite segments featured on “Crashbox.”
Arguably the most well-known game featured on “Crashbox” is called “Distraction News.” The cover for the show’s page on HBO Max comes from this segment. In it, the viewer is invited to pay attention to a news report given by a cardboard anchor person named Dora Smarmy. During the report, however, various distractions will cover the screen, testing the audience’s ability to pay attention and retain the facts learned. At the end, the viewer will answer a few questions about the content of the newscast.
Another one of my personal favorite “Crashbox” segments is “Haunted House Party.” In this segment, the viewer must identify a mysterious famous figure with only the hints provided to them. In all honesty, I think that this game would be difficult for younger children to guess the answer to. For example, in one episode the mystery guest of honor was Paul Revere. As a child in elementary school, I know I would have had no idea who he was.
The last game is the “Eddie Bull” game, playing on the word “edible,” in which the titular character is eaten by an unknown animal at the Walla Walla Washington Zoo. As the segment progresses, Eddie Bull will provide facts about the animal to the audience so that they can correctly guess which animal ate him. Some of the facts that are provided still manage to surprise me as a high school student.
I feel that “Crashbox” is a relatively unknown gem from the early 2000’s. Watching it as a child with my family made such an impact on me that I even remember it to this day. Admittedly, it is quite a childish show, but that is the target audience. I believe that it is important to experience nostalgia and connect with one’s inner child as often as possible.
