Ian discovered Scooby Doo a while back. What we didn’t know at the time was that Ian had discovered nightmares about a “ghost in the closet” after watching Scooby Doo until he could articulate it better. While he loves Scooby and does the cutest “run away” run with exaggerated body language that you’ll ever see, he can’t watch Scooby right now or we have middle of the night wake ups and discussions about the ghost in the closet.
But the original Ultraman is 100% A-okay. Children are strange.
He can’t watch an unreal looking cartoon without getting a nightmare about a ghost in the closet (I guess because just about every Scooby creature comes out of a door at some point or another) but the slightly more realistic creatures of Ultraman, Godzilla and things like Gappa make him giggle.
Scooby’s cartoon critters make him play “run away” and have nightmares about the ghost in the closet while the big rubber monsters of Japan’s golden era of rubber monster suits make him want to play monster attack on daddy and pretend to be Ultraman.
Oh, and he’s an Ultraman fanatic. My not even 3 year old son thinks that the 1960s Ultraman is the greatest thing since Max and Ruby and Cars and when asked what he wants to see on TV he points to the screen and loudly proclaims “Ultraman” in an excited voice.
Given how messed up daddy is… I’m not sure if I should be happy or worried.
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