First the love mail…

Everyone likes to get mail - it's fun! Is there anything nicer than finding out that maybe there's someone out there thinking nice thoughts about you? Here are some of our favorite letters.

•

I could never learn when someone would rush the concept, as if speaking faster would help. Vocabulary has never been a problem but perhaps the tonality and overall expression got in the way. I have never been more enlightened by any other method. I believe teaching should be viewed as an art and not some tedious task. I have a great appreciation for your art and over all method. - Dannie

•

Dear Pinky Show team,
Thank you. I've recently been gearing up to find my place in the world and its society; and after finding your website, I feel inspired. I'm 17 years old, and in the next couple of years, more so than ever before I'll be shaping my future and my role in the future of society. I've been told time and time again I blabber on about social issues far too much and that I just need to relax; and I was starting to think they were right. However after finding your website this morning (and subsequently watching all but a few of the episodes in a single sitting) I see otherwise. I now know that atrocities the world has committed need a detected following to ensure they never happen again; and that the following needs to not only understand, but to learn from them as well. In a world where the single Superpower can obliterate laws it fought to defend, and senseless wars are raged for profit control and power; something needs to change. This world is bigger than a few personal opinions and beliefs; it's about the future for everyone and leaving it a better place than it was. I know the path to follow now. Thank you again to everyone who made this program possible, I know it's changed my mind, and will someday change the world.
Faithfully yours,
Clay

•

Dear Pinky,
This is a great project you've invented. I showed your "Ant Appeal" video in my class, a graduate seminar in environmental ethics. We had a terrific discussion afterwards, by far the best of the semester. Your video was concise, provocative, humorous, poignant, and quite literally left some in the room a little shocked. It's rare to encounter so many ideas in two minutes of any kind of program. I dare say that within the space of its two minute running time, it even carries transformative potential...
I look forward to using more of your work in my classes.
Thank you,
Michael D.

•

I just found you on YouTube tonight, and then found your website. I can't stop watching! Your film about the Columbian Exposition was really great. I'm teaching a masterclass in animation this fall and want to show a few of your films. I think your project is really brilliant -- simple, funny, and really poignant & subversive all at once. Thanks, candace

•

Hello - A student of mine alerted me to your website and I've spent the last four hours watching video after video. The Pinky Show is, without question, the best thing I've seen online in quite some time. And anytime I find another unique way to engage my students - such as your website - I'm utterly excited.
My regards,
Paul G.
UW-Milwaukee & Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design

•

Dear Pinky Show Friends,
I stumbled across your website by accident and ended up staying a looong time. I am a high school history teacher and I have never seen anything quite like your program before. I have to admit that I've been teaching a unit on the Vietnam War every year for over 10 years and I still learned a lot by watching your episode on the Vietnam War. There's something special about the tone and feel of your show and I'm looking forward to using your show in my classes later this year. I especially love how you're able to talk about important issues in an almost "personal" way without coming across as pushy or a know it all. Come to think of it, I actually think that network television could learn a lot from you about how to present information without sensationalizing it...
I consider myself addicted and hope you'll keep producing more episodes for me and my students. In the meantime I'll be forwarding your link to all of my friends, many of whom are also teachers.
Best wishes,
Marion F.

•

Whether or not people agree in principle with the ideas put forward by The Pinky Show, the comments and arguments that are encouraged as a result are both incredibly important and powerful. - AliOmes (from YouTube)

•

Pinky and Bunny, I thought about the Vietnam feature and thought about the research you put into it and thought it was excellent. This was my era and approximately 40 years later I am learning about the history of this war. Thanks very much... I will return to the site often (it is bookmarked) to view more stuff. I thoroughly enjoyed the "ant" video. It was done with such creative thoughts and I enjoyed this creativitiy. Continue on. - Kathy N.

•

Dear Pinky Show Team,
My name is Fritz from Germany and I found this site by accident, when I was looking for Information for my Vietnam War Presentation I had to make for school (I'm in grade 12)... Although I had already found a lot of Information and material I watched the video about the Vietnam War and it was really interesting and helpful! The whole thing benefits "in my opinion" a lot from the Question-and-Answer-format, making things become clear and easy to understand! I'm very glad to have found your site and I look forward to seeing other great videos about important or actual topics and events. Keep up the great work!! - Fritz

•

Dear Pinky,
I love your show! There's something quietly powerful about what you are doing. I love the perspective. I've come back to re-watch a few times now and each time it gets better as I realize I missed something the previous time. There's a lot in there! Thank you for sharing with me all the good ideas.
Best wishes to you,
Diane N.

•

Thank you so much for your show! You guys have given me and my brain another chance! You see, I just got out of the hospital after a cardiac arrest and three weeks in rehab - I thought after all that I would never be able to learn and cope with the world outside my hospital room. Thanks again, Pinky! You have taught me so much!
Lyndsey

•

I wish to thank you for the ideas you have expressed in your show, Pinky. The Scary School Nightmare especially moved me, because I felt that Ivan Illich, through the disembodied female Japanese voice, was speaking not merely of me, but to me.

You see, I was left behind in my school experience. I know now that it was as much my fault as theirs, but it stemmed from my not knowing how to deal with them and their expectations, and their inability to cause me to conform to said expectations. As such, I grew up in alternative and special education, with class sizes of less than eight, where my numerical performance was vastly under-representing my accumulation of knowledge. I know I could, and should, have done better, and in the end they bent the rules to graduate me on time, and washed their hands of the whole ordeal.

My first six years of schooling were fairly normal, and my last were very different from what most students receive. As such, I feel I was better able to see the constructed environment in which I existed, even where others saw nothing. Someone told me once that fish can't see water, and it is so very true. I could see the water, but until I watched Scary School Nightmare, I never truly understood what it was that I was seeing.

I write this to you now, knowing that I will forget those words; knowing that I won't investigate further. My attention span has not grown substantially since childhood, unfortunately. Even if I do forget those words, and how they made me think and feel, I felt it was important to thank you for opening my eyes and letting me know what it was that I had seen. Perhaps when they close again, they will not remain shut forever.

Thank you immensely.
- B. N-A.

•

[re: Globalization episode]

Wow, I have never seen such a concise statement of the way things are in fact, beyond the distorted words of power. Thanks for this refreshing splash of cold water in the face! - emtube (from YouTube)

•

I followed a link [from monkeyfilter.com] to your Vietnam War episode and was blown away. The medium is unusual but the message is clear. Hours later I'm still thinking about it. Great work! - Kirk

•

[re: The American War: The U.S. in Vietnam]

Brilliant! I lived through that era, and have learned much from this video that's suitable for kids of all ages. And it's really cuuuuute! - Freeman Z, documentarian of dissent from the 492cafe (from YouTube)

•

I am a student at Portland State University in Portland Oregon in Portland Oregon. I watched your videos on Globalization and I loved them. It really is like little comic brain food. For the past quarter one of my classes has been studying globalization and its effect on commodity chains. I passed your site along to my professor and she loved it! She said she thought they were so cute she is going to play them in class now! Way to go for taking serious issues and presenting it in a relatable, comprehensive manner! Kudos! Keep up the great work!

Sincerely,
Ryan

…and now the hate mail

As much as we like to read the positive feedback, sometimes we enjoy reading the hate mail even more. I'd be lying if I said I didn't get a secret thrill every time we offended someone deeply enough to make them take precious time out of their busy schedule just to tell us how much they hate us. So here they are, some of our favorite 'angry letters’…

•

To: The Pinky Show
From: Adam Eastman
Subject: Warning to stop
Message: Whoever is in control of this unique and quite stupid show, stop now. I dont think somone like you deserves to use your freedom of speech to blind others with ideas such as "reject U.S. imperialism"... We wont stop until our goals are met, even if the cost is millions of lives. War is a sad thing and people die, but thats just how our world spins isnt it?

•

What a bastard pays you for this??? Its directly aimed campaign against 21st sentury civilization and against humanity!!! I ve seen many of your videos... good organized evil stuff... - Petrhrabal (from YouTube)

•

name: Me
email: you-are-a-dummy @ hotmail.com
message: Dear Miss, You NEED to get a new narrator. I could not even finish watching the video. The narrator's nose is so clogged, it sounds like a 12 year old with a pinched nose. It is so terribly annoying that I am itchy all over and I am unable to sleep. Please do something about this. The cute cat thing is not working. It just sounds stupid. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Me

[Pinky's response: I don't like my voice either.]

•

name: anonnymouse
email: idiotcats@pinkyshow
message: You gay communist fools can go to prison for making propoganda against your own country. Why continue you to live here if you hate it so much? You should seriously consider leaving to another country and see how much "better" you think it is there.

•

name: oiawefoiawr
email: erosad
message: I am so tired of whining liberals. Please take some advice from a grown up: get a job. Maybe it's not too late to wake up from your delusional and clueless idealism and join the rest of us here in the real world. Realize that if you don't take my advice you run the risk of choking on all that hippie tofu of yours, not to mention all the hate mail you certainly have coming your way. Summary: Wake up.

[Bunny's response: Thank you, especially for the "summary". Your devotion to conformity and meat is admirable.]

•

name: killerD
email: killerD93 @ aol.com
message: you CAT a total liar and propogonda fool who obviously can't recognize the truth if it were 10 feet tall and totally slapping you in the face.

[Pinky's response: I have no come back for this one. I don't know even what it means but I like it.]

•

Read the [Pinky Show's] objectives. They are pumping this crap into our schools so teachers can use it to dumb down another generation of voters and poll-pandering politicians who will give them what they think they want. - Testasterosa (from YouTube)

•

u think u know so much, u actually wouldnt be alive to make this crap right now if u had the common sense to realize that hardship, sacrifice, and the occasional death were things that happened in order to make u nice and comfy and healthy. u wouldnt have electricity right now if edison hadnt done those things. u'd be washing clothes by the river on a washboard instead of having ample free time to concoct feminist rants on whoever u wish to. get real. - 99f234 (from YouTube)

•

You're boring, and probably very uninteresting. go buy something. - loseryouser (from YouTube)

•

I hope a hunter shoots you and uses your intestines as violin strings! You stupid pacifistic shit. Or I hope you go to china and some chef uses you for the main side dish next to some boiled lobster. - yarindel (from YouTube)