The 90s children’s TV show Fun House, it is often said, was “a whole lot of fun” with “prizes to be won”. That as a fact is undeniable. Because it was in the theme tune.
But not only was it a whole lot of fun (fact), it was also a “real wacky place”, where you could become a success by “using your body and your brain”. Think about that: how many places can we truthfully say that of now in the world we find ourselves trapped in as adults?
Except we’re not trapped, we don’t have to be: we could go back. Right back to where everyone started a competition in the same place. With a smiling cheerleader in red or yellow to shower encouragement and hugs. Where people were rewarded based on the sheer effort they put in. Not just that – this place we could go back to was health and safety-tested, so nothing bad is ever going to happen. You’re cherished and kept safe with protective helmets and padding. No financial inequality there. No hatred based on ignorance of culture, religion or race – no one is going to turn the wheels of their go-kart towards you.
Sorry to get a bit dark there, but the world seems a dark place much of the time. So here’s some brighter news, Fun House is returning to us as a live experience in London – as early as next year if enough of us contribute to the indiegogo effort aiming to bring it back. It’ll join The Crystal Maze Live Experience (and the Escape Rooms you can always find on Groupon) in that ever-growing nostalgia realm that is “safe spaces to hide in for a while if you’re frightened of the life you’re facing as an adult”.
“We’re all grown up now and supposed to be responsible adults, but it doesn’t stop us dreaming,” the siren song of the Fun House crowdfunding page calls. “Leave your adult troubles at the door, let loose and come and escape the real world and play!”
“Come away, O human [adult]!” these childish things whisper from the 90s, through a time tunnel filled with record tokens, video films and fashion watches. And no question harder than “Name three colours of the rainbow” or “What are fries called in the UK?” But can wrenching these things into our present recreate the pure perfection of the parts of childhood we remember with such longing?
Have you watched reruns of Fun House on Challenge, as an adult? You’ll see Pat Sharp get increasingly snarky with the children over its 10-year run, but also – shock, horror – with the twins. By 1997, Pat’s calling Martina (the Red One) a “dumb blonde”, shouting, “You’re ugly!”, and trying to shove her into a pool of blue gunge with a dead fish in it. And even Melanie (the Yellow One) isn’t immune to bitterness as the series goes on, biting at a young contestant checking on his competition: “Don’t look at him, come on!”
Those sweet twins. That fresh-faced bouncy-haired Pat Sharp. All just a memory, or an illusion. All along.
But the appetite continues to grow for quick nostalgia trips you can purchase and escape to as the adult ache for childish things increases. How long until we start eating Farley’s rusks as adults, and tell ourselves they taste as good as we remember? The Cereal Killer cafe is probably already selling them for £10 each.
The fetish of recreating these places and indulging is like any object of fetishisation (and rusks), in that it’s not as sustaining or nourishing as you hope it’ll be.
You’ve lived to see Richard Ayoade take over The Crystal Maze. Be honest – it isn’t as good as the earlier series, but maybe equally as good as the Edward Tudor-Pole episodes, because those sucked compared to the original Richard O’Brien ones.
In words that Pat might have started yelling at poor Martina and Melanie if Fun House had continued for another 10 years, recreating these safe spaces from childhood is anemoia, hiraeth, or saudade. Sehnsucht. Wanting to go back to a place that never was, and never can be again. It’s so seductive, the bright pop culture of an 80s or 90s childhood. Because, like entering the Fun House, it was our escape from reality back then as well.
