When I was a kid, most of my entertainment was written and performed by people who had kids. All those old primetime sitcoms, Loony Tunes cartoons and Disney stuff were created by parents with a close eye on what was age-appropriate.
Yeah, a lot of them have since been exposed as hypocrites, adulterers, anti-semites and drunks. But no matter how troubled their personal lives were, none of those flaws were evident in their art, where they espoused and celebrated decency, courage, honesty and kindness.
True, much of their output was treacly pablum. But a surprisingly high ratio was rock solid, engaging entertainment by masters of their craft.
Now it seems family entertainment is created by gangs of Ritalin-jacked, wide-woke 20-something delinquents who hate their parents and are intent on subverting tradition; willful brats standing on the dining room table and loudly singing “Milk, milk, lemonade…”
I’ve attempted to watch their product, crudely animated, machine-gun-edited tripe punctuated with grunts, shrieks and cackles. Meanwhile, scientists struggle to understand the explosive rise in ADHD as though it couldn’t possibly be related to the surge of assaultive, short-attention-span theater directed at pre-schoolers.
As far as family fare goes, there is no attempt at ingenuity or originality. There is only the knee-jerk compulsion to be “edgy” and dish up the trendiest socio-political narrative of the week. You know, those shows you watch teetering on the edge of the sofa cushion, thumb hovering over the fast-forward button to hopefully spare your kids from trauma (and spare yourself from awkward questions like, “Mommy, what was that man doing to that lady?”).
For a long time, I wrote off the qualitative degeneration of family entertainment as a sign that it had been thoroughly wrung out. Traditional human values were hopelessly cliché and all that was left to do in the creative space was either mock or subvert them.
Until THE ASTRONAUTS.
For some crazy reason, the folks at Nickelodeon decided it would be a good idea to hire the guy who created CARNIVÀLE and wrote/produced on SPARTACUS, DRACULA and THE BLACKLIST to do a kids show about 5 adolescents who are accidentally launched on a deep-space mission.
Truth, the project was a major challenge. But I proceeded forward with a few rules:
There were no dumb parents;
Everyone respected each other;
The kids were smart, but they were still just kids;
The situation was rooted in reality and the inherent danger was real;
All the characters’s motivations would be drawn with nuance, featuring clear, full arcs—even in the case of the ship’s AI.
Plus, tearing a page from the OG playbook, the majority of my staff were parents. The result was a terrific, entertaining thrill-ride that pleased audiences and critics alike. Unfortunately, it was prematurely canceled due to the pandemic.
Thus encouraged, I decided to tackle my greatest challenge yet: to compose an original, quality Christmas story.
No other genre has been so thoroughly strip-mined. At this point, the only Christmas stories being written or produced are completely subversive, either featuring violently psychotic-Santas, or snarky, self-referential, derisive Metas.
The story of Gingerland occurred to me in one fell swoop, beginning, middle and end. This is very rare for me—too rare for me to trust it.
So in the writing, I repeatedly defied my instincts and rebelled against the original narrative. But every time, after I’d written myself into a dry dead-end, I circled back and put myself back on my initial path.
Consider this story as rigorously tested; as U.L. tests small appliances to failure, so were each and every one of my exploratory narrative alterations on Gingerland.
I took me a while to realize this was one of those very rare, timeless stories that, for some inexplicable reason, no artist has articulated out loud. For example, Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind; you swear it’s the cover of a song you’ve heard before.
And it is, in a way.
Its prior absence is so articulated that you recognize its outlines. Kind of an aesthetic deja vu.
False starts and misguided detours turned Gingerland from a project I could have completed in three months into one that took well over a year.
Parents can relax and read this story to their children, confident that they won’t stumble across anything sleazy or twisted.
That’s not to say that it’s all sunshine, rainbows and tra-la-las. Like all great kids books, Gingerland can get dark and the antagonist and her cohort are very, very nasty specimens. Plus it’s fraught with peril for the protagonists.
Nevertheless, the story has immense heart, honors universal themes and imparts wisdom.
In case you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m very proud of Gingerland. I sincerely believe it’s the best thing I’ve ever written and I sincerely hope it will be cherished and read to children long after my death and for decades beyond.
Thank you for traveling with me so far. On upcoming consecutive Fridays, we’ll conclude Part 1 by publishing Chapters 13 and 14. After that, Parts 2 through 4 will be accessible to Paid Subscribers only.
Paid Subscribers will also receive an Acknowledgment in all future published editions. Imagine your grown grandchildren pointing out your name to their kids and saying, “See? Great-Grandpa and Grandma helped Mr. Knauf create this book!”
I will also be hosting live chats on Substack every Sunday night at 7:00 PM PST to discuss the week’s Chapter, writing and any other title in my body of work, so check that out, too.
Until then, “Ho, Gingerlanders!”