Things never look as good when you look back on your childhood years. Take my pigtail obsession, for example. For two years straight I wore my hair in pigtails, every day, without fail. I’d preach their value to my fellow six-year-olds, and give the same style to any girls in my class who’d let me (and one boy…wow, his mother needed to give him a haircut). I was convinced that even when I was an adult, I’d still be rocking the look.

So yeah, that one didn’t quite work out. I was convinced at the time though. Just like when I got hooked on Tammy the Tree-Cutter, a cartoon series about a feisty girl who did tree removal in Melbourne. It was a really big thing back in 1998, probably because it espoused all kinds of wholesome modern values. Like, ‘girls can cut down trees too!’, and….I think there was an episode about recycling? Anyway, I was totally in love with the series and I cried for a week when they took it off the air for Power Rangers. Until I became obsessed with that too.

Then last week I rediscovered Tammy the Tree-Cutter episodes on Me-Straw. And…ugh, they’re bad. The animation style is atrocious, all jerky like it was done with slides and someone’s finger kept slipping. The voice acting is abysmal, with Tammy herself being voiced by some older woman who doesn’t understand how kids talk and thought it was a load of growly screeching. And the morals…well…they’re not great. Often the episodes have nothing to do with tree felling and just have Tammy doing something really shady. One time she saves a colony of squirrels (in Melbourne…yeah, sure) and becomes the squirrel queen, sabotaging the tree pruning efforts and siccing her new horde on her own colleagues.

Pretty sure this show was taken off the air after the real Melbourne tree trimming professionals complained. And all those years later? I have to agree.