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The dark side of Button Moon

7th March 2019

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I get chills when I think about the children's TV show Button Moon.

First of all, there's the theme song. We're off to Button Moon, We'll follow Mr. Spoon, Button Moooooooooooooooon, Button Moooooooooooooooon...... We're off to Button Moon indeed – whether we like it or not. We're basically strapped into Mr. Spoon's rocket, powerless passengers on a terrifying journey into the unknown.

Mr. Spoon and his family live on Junk Planet. It appears to always be nighttime on Junk Planet, and nighttime, of course, is when monsters come out.

The dominant object in the sky is the moon, a giant thing in the sky. Why do I get the troubled feeling the Button Moon is more than just a button – that's it's also a malevolent force that draws people towards it like an anglerfish in the darkest depths of the ocean? And if I listen carefully, then is it just me, or do I hear the faint sound of a beating heart coming from inside it?

THA-DUMP. THA-DUMP. THA-DUMP.

"Don't be afraid of the dark; be afraid of the light." That's what the inhabitants of Junk Planet probably tell their children. "Don't look at the moon, my child, or the moon will look at you." That's another thing they say to their children. Probably.

Then there's Blanket Sky, which is the dark heavens above Junk Planet and also what Button Moon hangs from. Given that Button Moon is literally a giant button, and Mr. Spoon's arms are made of spoons, we can therefore assume that Blanket Sky literally is a colossal blanket. This raises disturbing questions – what's beyond the blanket? And what Lovecraftian terror put it there in the first place? One Button Moon episode is called "A Hole in Blanket Sky". Just the title alone gives me shivers. The fact that Blanket Sky can wear down and break in places is a sobering thought. When the fabric of your universe breaks down, who knows what's waiting on the other side.

Then there's Mr. Spoon. I'm not too fond of his blank, emotionless expression nor his crude black eyes. How does he see if he only has spots for eyes? Never mind that, how is he even alive in the first place? He's just a collection of inanimate objects: a bottle, two wooden spoons, a saucepan and a plate. Yet here he is, walking around, somehow alive, like a an evil possessed doll.

Mr. Spoon doesn't have a voice. Therefore the narrator has to do the talking for him. But how do we know that the narrator is telling us what Mr. Spoon's really feeling and thinking? What if Mr. Spoon is actually in constant pain, but he has no way to communicate it to us? Another chilling thing to think about.

I imagine that when the show is over, Mr. Spoon collapses into a pile of insentient rubbish – bottle, spoons, saucepan and all. Whatever force was giving him life is gone. He only comes alive when the show is on, you see. That's when you need to be scared.

Mr. Spoon's family are the same as he is – both his wife and his daughter have the same emotionless expression, like robots.

How terrified would I be if I woke up in the middle of the night and saw these three twats standing over my bed? I'd be shit-my-pants terrified, that's how scared I'd be.

Also, I noticed just now that they all look like clowns. They all have white faces, red noses and colourful clothing. Mrs. Spoon's hair is even like a clown's wig. So the Spoon family = killer clowns. Just another reason to be scared.

By the way, did you know that it's racist to call Mr. Spoon a spoon? That's because he's not actually a spoon: only his arms are spoons.

As a kid, my brother was afraid of a Button Moon character called Queenie Jelly. She's an anthropomorphized jelly and her eyes are empty sockets that stare into your very soul.

We're off to Button Moon, We'll follow Mr. Spoon, Button Moooooooooooooooon, Button Moooooooooooooooon......

I will follow Mr. Spoon, dear reader, to whatever dark places he may lead me. I only pray that someone will hold my hand on the journey, although when I do reach my hand out into the darkness, I hope that my hand finds something other than a spoon.

Comments

That first picture of mister spoon is like one of those monochrome film posters of denzel washington or someone in a post-piss up tux nonchalantly wandering round with a pistol. There is another still of Spoon poised to press a button, and you can only guess he's thinking "nuke it from orbit".

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Button moon is one of my fav childhood tv programs

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Thanks.

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Paul Chris Jones is a writer and dad living in Girona, Spain. You can follow Paul on Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.