Gustafer Yellowgold | Dadnabbit

There’s never any shortage of cartoon characters in family entertainment, but few of them possess the unusual, undeniable appeal of Gustafer Yellowgold, the friendly, bug-eyed alien from the sun who arrived on Earth five years ago and has quickly achieved kindie rock star status. With his latest adventure, Gustafer Yellowgold’s Infinity Sock, coming out on March 1, we decided now would be the perfect time for a chat with his creator: musician and illustrator Morgan Taylor.

So let’s talk about Infinity Sock.

Yeah! What’s going on with it? (Laughs)

One thing I’ve always enjoyed about the Gustafer records is that they’re not only mellow — as you often point out — but that they’re also gentle, which makes a big difference, I think. And I also appreciate the fact that they don’t pander musically, either to kids or to parents.

I don’t — yeah, I don’t think that does any good, to pander. It’s not in my nature — I’m not even thinking about whether I’m doing it or not. Maybe I sensed that kind of thing in music as a kid, so I try and avoid it now.

I know you’ve said that you spent a lot of time listening to AM radio when you were a kid, and that influence is pretty apparent in your work. But do you remember listening to any music geared specifically to kids?

Yeah, I actually did, and the older my son gets, the more my memories of it resurface. I had a lot of the old book-and-record combos from Disney, like Br’er Rabbit and Snow White, and Alvin and the Chipmunks. And the music from Sesame Street and The Electric Company, of course. There was a lot of great music on those shows. Continue reading →

Gustafer Yellowgold’s Mellow Fever (2009, Apple-Eye)
purchase this CD/DVD (Amazon)

Back in the days when I didn’t have kids and therefore remained rather blissfully unaware of most children’s entertainment, I operated under the (pretty reasonable, I think) assumption that most of it was more or less linear, and easy to understand. I mean, it stands to reason, right? If you’re trying to entertain an audience that isn’t going to process anything you don’t explicitly spell out on the screen, you’re going to make sure it’s all spelled out, right?

I was totally wrong, obviously. Do you hear that bitter laughter? That’s the sound of other parents, remembering the days when they were new to the lawless frontier that is kids’ entertainment. I started to get my first inkling of just how weird this stuff can get when I took in my first accidental late-night viewing of the gibbering horror that is PBS’ Boohbah, which is still the scariest thing I’ve ever seen on late-night TV. These days, I am, of course, much more well acquainted with the kiddie continuum, and understand that you can go from the bone-simple (like Maisy) to the utterly surreal (The Wonder Pets!, which, I confess, I totally love) in the space of 15 minutes. I think it’s good for the kids, really — I mean, life doesn’t make sense, and the sooner they figure that out, the sooner they can get jobs and move out of my house.

Anyway. All this talk of linear and non-linear, obvious and esoteric, leads me to the insane wonder of Gustafer Yellowgold’s Mellow Fever, the third in Morgan Taylor’s Gustafer Yellowgold series. Prior to opening this handsome DVD/CD package, I’d never heard of nor experienced Mr. Yellowgold, but now that I have, there’s no going back; my daughter and I will look forward to these things as long as Taylor keeps putting them out.

The idea behind the character is a little difficult to explain, but I’ll use some of this handy press kit text to try and get you up to speed. Read on: Continue reading →

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Tag Archives: Gustafer Yellowgold

Dadnabbit Interview: Morgan Taylor, a.k.a. Gustafer Yellowgold

DVD/CD Review: “Gustafer Yellowgold’s Mellow Fever”