Brand Engagement Director Brianna here to talk to you about one of my favorite reads of 2023 so far and the kind of nostalgia that comes from obscure children’s television.

“Mister Magic” was released last month and is the second adult horror novel by Kiersten White. The plot centers around a group of children who made up the cast of an old television program, the eponymous “Mister Magic,” and their inability to fully remember their experience on the show. Interspersed throughout the plot are podcast scripts, Reddit entries, and more from subsets of Gen Xers and Millennials who have deep memories of this show, despite very little evidence of it existing on the internet. If this sounds even vaguely interesting to you, I strongly recommend picking it up at your local bookstore — it will almost certainly be at the top of my 2023 must reads by the end of the year.

Unsurprisingly, the novel examines childhood trauma and the unique creepiness of late 20th-century children’s programming. As I devoured this story, my mind continuously returned to my own “Oh I used to watch that all the time when I was really little, but no one else remembers it” show: “The Hugga Bunch.”

If you are not hip to “The Bunch,” you’d be forgiven: From what I can find, The Hugga Bunch was a less popular line of toys in the ’80s from “Huggaland” that got a live-action TV movie and an album of songs called “A Day Full Of Hugs.” There was also an animated “Meet The Hugga Bunch” video, which I can’t find as much information on but was 100% my most regularly watched piece of content about these huggable beings. We rented it at some point when I was small, and somehow it magically ended up copied over to a blank VHS tape my mom just happened to have lying around — a true mystery!

The comments section of “Meet the Hugga Bunch” on YouTube could have been pulled straight from White’s novel’s pages:

“Omg, I watched this so many times that 30 years later I still remember this word for word.”

“Haven't seen this since i was a kid. Used to watch all the time.”

“Oh wow, it actually exists. I kinda thought it was just a fever dream.”

“I've been searching for this for over 25 years.”

I can relate heavily to the last one; five years prior to reading White’s novel, I went on a deep dive into Google, searching “little dolls with their own dolls,” “dolls in a pillow land,” etc., until I finally found it. And when I did… no one in my life knew what the heck I was talking about.

While reading “Mister Magic,” I discussed this phenomenon with my spouse and asked if he’d ever seen it. When I pulled up the video and watched a bit with him, he expressed a deep concern this late-night viewing would breed nightmares.

I can’t exactly blame him; if you watch the video, these doll-like creatures carry around smaller baby dolls (apparently called “huglets,” which somehow makes everything even creepier) and at one point are fighting monsters named “Shrugs.” Was this monster meant to correct children into vocally answering yes or no to adults, instead of just shrugging, or is this me projecting?

There are vague moralistic lessons that come from children’s shows, but the most bizarre episode in “Meet the Hugga Bunch” is the last one, which discusses the importance of not being “too busy” for hugs, and implies a family can hug the dementia out of their grandmother (which, from the perspective of someone who watched both grandfathers suffer from Alzheimer’s and dementia, was…less than awesome?). The things we used to try to teach kids and how we went about it is truly wild.

To date, the live-action movie has not received a DVD/Blu-ray release and does not appear to be streaming anywhere; to get your Hugga fix, you either need to find an old VHS, Laser disc, or Beta… or check YouTube. “Meet the Hugga Bunch” has an even vaguer fate — IMDB acknowledges its existence, and that’s about it.
If you’ve ever spent your adult years searching the crevasses of your memory for that one childhood show, you’re definitely not alone. But if you go looking, beware what you might find.