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Bunnicula - promo picture
The last two decades have brought about a welcoming of vampires in society. Long gone are the days of children cowering in the dark from fear of the vampire. The 1970’s opened the door to change that not only affected the image of the vampire but how we accepted them into our lives. From enticing young children to learn new academic and social skills and assisting teens to solve everyday issues and explore who they are, the vampire has been the constant through each stage of social development.
In the past, vampires were portrayed as the rat like Nosferatu or the strange foreign speaking Bela Lugosi style vampire. However, today they are portrayed as the cute Count von Count on Sesame Street or the sexy Edward of the teen series Twilight. This familiarization with the vampire has resulted in the instant recognition and acceptance of the once monstrous creature. They have been accepted into our daily society and no longer have to be explained or labeled; we simply know by sight that the creature on the television or in the description of a character in a book that it is a vampire. Simply put everyone knows what a vampire is through simple phrases or placement of symbols. Children and teens are not immune to this knowledge through various forms of pop culture and are readily acceptable of this icon that has inundated their world.
In 1971, General Mills introduced a new cereal that was to “bring monsters into your breakfast everyday”. The first of six monster themed cereals were Count Chocula, a Nosferatu looking vampire that was painted as rather comical looking. The Count would yell “I vant to eat your cereal.” As a result the adults fled in fear but the children invited him and his friends, Franken Berry, Boo Berry, and Yummy Mummy in to enjoy breakfast, the most important meal of the day. The vampire was no longer scary to children and would become the first part of every child’s day, or so hoped General Mills. Count Chocula cereal is still available today in limited areas but makes a special appearance at Halloween along with his other monster friends.
After children were finished eating their cereal, the next step in their morning would be to turn on the television to an educational program such as Sesame Street. Here children would learn their colors, alphabet and shapes. In 1972 a new character was introduced that would help children learn to count, a Bela Lugosi looking vampire named Count von Count. He was obsessed with counting and would count anything that came his way. He would even count himself if there was nothing to count. Children would laugh at his spooky castle and coffin while learning these skills. The writers of the show based their character’s obsession with counting on the myth of how to escape a vampire. The folktale says that in order to escape a vampire, one must drop seeds as they ran because the vampire is obsessed with counting and would have to stop and count before continuing the chase. This was the premise to the Count. He was silly, obsessive yet smart. He lived in a castle with his pet bats and was friends with the other characters on Sesame Street. Children learned their numbers while imitating his loud crackly laugh that resulted in lightning strikes and thunder claps. The Count was not scary but a very good educational resource that children still enjoy today.
As children grew older they began to read and in 1979 Bunnicula was introduced to them. Bunnicula, a beginning reader book was written by husband and wife team, Deborah and James Howe and told the story of a cute bunny that is also a vampire. Bunnicula is adopted into a new home where the other pets, a cat and dog, are fearful and not accepting of him. Through different adventures the cat and dog finally accept the “different” and “new” member of the family. This was a perfect story of teaching children to learn to accept differences in other children as well as address the rising issue of divorce and mixed families in the late 70’s and early 80’s. The cute bunny was successful in its popularity with children and is still in print with new releases today.
Children continue to learn diversity and friendship skills in the 1980’s and 1990’s with televisions shows like The Munsters, The Addams Family and movies such as The Littlest Vampire. While cartoons such as Count Duckula, The Groovie Ghoulies, and Batman paved the way for Vampires, Pirates, and Aliens. (Vampires, pirates, and aliens) The newest ABC Family show teaches children about friendship, sharing, and diversity all with the help of the no longer scary vampire. The popularity of the television as a babysitter allowed the vampire to enter the home more often and as a result become a cute friend. The institutions of family and education rely on the media to socialize children and as a result of supply and demand, children turn to the vampire as a means of learning and growing. The vampire is now a friend and no longer a monster to be feared.
Today’s thirty somethings are the ones who were experienced the vampire from the beginning. We are the ones who found these monsters to be cute and no longer scary.
Would it be possible that this may be a reason for the rise in vampire in literature?
We crave the vampire romance novels and shows and brought our children up on Anne Rice and Dark Shadows… could this be why our children, the next generation have now become fans of Twilight, Blue Bloods, and Vampire Kisses?
Do you think that one can credit the vampires listed above for socializing the youth of today?
Comments
It looks like you have researched almost everything from Lilith to Bunnicula. Now that's a long stretch of the imagination from Hebrew gnostic literature to juvenilia.
We can easily see the descent into pop culture from a dead body coming back from the dead to steal your life to a marketing tool that panders to decodent bored housewives looking for the next chapter of soft core porn.
The things that our society uses as marketing tools for hack writers used to be the same fears that drove medevil peasants to burn corpses and say their prayers at night.
Fear turned to allegory in other words. I liked the 180 degree view that you give on the myth, from breakfast cereal to counterculture icon, all in just 2 thousand years....whats the world coming too....
That's a neat perspective on this issue. I think as a culture we've gotten to a point where we're shocked if vampires ARE scary (which is why 28 Days Later worked as well as it did; I haven't seen 100 Days of Night, but I assume it's the same thing).
Nowadays, as you point out, vampires run the gamut from cute and cuddly to being just a little beyond the traditional "bad boy," and there's not much room for the more traditional scary type. Beginning in the 70s (or a bit sooner, with the Munsters and the Addams Family), we began to develop "sympathy for the vampire," and vampires began to look an awful lot like the Byronic hero of the Romantic period.
Not being from America i did not grew up on Count Chocula or Bunnicula... but i have always had the attraction to the Vampire anyway.. i wonder where in Dutch culture that desire came from... we do have Count von Count in our Sesame Street though...
There have been waves of mania for vampire fiction since the 1840s, and they can't be explained by previous media hype, because there wasn't any. I became a huge vampire fan somewhere around age 12, in 1968, *before* I started watching "Dark Shadows" (I started watching DS because I heard it had vampires. I was already nutty for them). There is no traceable source for my enthusiasm, because my mom didn't let me see or read horror type books.
I think there's something about the vampire trope in English, going right back to 1819, Polidori's "The Vampyre" and the stage plays based on it, that appeals to a certain segment of the population, young and old. It's not a modern phenomenon, in any way whatsoever.
I knowit's not a modern phenomen. The old vampires were scary and even dark.
what I was pointing out is that the vampires that we have as children and eventeens and adults today are not that scary. They have simply became another tool for society to teach our chiildren how to count, read, etc.
Vampires today are no longer scary - not all anyway.
For example, Varney the Vampire was very brutal and graphic... very few of the modern stories are scary like Polidori's.
But for anything that we like one can always trace to a source. It just may not be always clear
You forgot to add Angel from the Buffy series as a dark and brooding vampire character who was trying to redeem himself. And you are definitely correct in how we use different characters to teach our children and society how we can change and accept people and things that are different than we are. Our children seem to be more accepting than our parents. Interesting....
Thanks Terry.
Yeah Angel is one of my fav brooders.
I am in my late 30's and was born in 1971. i have always loved vampires and never knew why until I started my academic research into vampires.
Thanks for the comment- keep them coming
Wow, aside from other obvious issues like grammar and writing style, nice erroneous gloss on Addams Family and The Munsters- 80's and 90's???
"In 1964, the ABC-TV network created a television series based on Addams' cartoon characters. The series was shot in black-and-white and aired for two seasons in 64 half-hour episodes (September 18, 1964 – September 2, 1966)."
"[The Munsters] aired at night once a week in black-and-white on the CBS Television Network from September 24, 1964 to May 12, 1966, for 70 episodes." (Wikipedia)
Note that the cartoon version of Addams Family goes back to 1938, and "The idea of a family of funny monsters was first suggested to Universal Studios in the late 1940s by animator Bob Clampett, who wanted to do a series of cartoons." (wikipedia)
crasspip. I am sorry I wasn't clear I was referring to the MOVIES in the 80's and 90's. Yes the television shows were def before that. I am sorry for the confusion.
But also remember that wikipedia is written by people like us that's why i don't usually reference it. But i shall refer for comparison. thank you
terrye
i was mostly concentrating on the younger children in this section but yes angel and buffy had a huge impact on the teens and 20 yo's later. i was def one of them
I LOVED Count Duckula. Are you kidding? I still remember the beginning of the show. Castle Duckula. Home for many centuries to a terrible dynasty of vicious vampire ducks. The counts of Duckula! Legend has it that these foul beings can be destroyed by a stake through the heart, or exposure to sunlight. This does *not* suffice, however, for they may be brought back to life, by means of a secret rite, that can be performed once a century when the moon is in the eighth house of Aquarius. The latest reincarnation did not run according to plan.
Also, don't forget the video games. There was Castlevania, which taught kids problem solving skills.
I don't remember Castlevania...what was it??
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