When the headlines get heavy, Canadians remember a giant who made things light.

Last week I posted a photo of the backstage set of The Friendly Giant, a kids TV show in Canada. I'm going to show you that photo right now, so if you don't want to see it for whatever reason, look away now and come back when the music ends. Like, almost immediately after I posted that photo on social, people lost their minds. So many of them were horrified just because they saw the man performing the puppets. If the comments were anything to go by, I had collapsed all of their their childhood memories in an instant. Look, I think by now we all know that Rusty and Jerome were not paying union dues. Right? As adults, we know they were not wandering the studio on their own taking smoke breaks between takes. But there's a difference between knowing something and seeing it. It's like discovering your dad was Santa Claus. You knew, but you didn't want to see the strings. I think That's part of what made that so abrupt for so many Canadians, was that children's TV here in this country did not have a lot going on other than the basics. It wasn't about slick production values or Hollywood glamour. It was about simplicity and kindness. Rusty and Jerome, Casey and Finnegan, a mannequin in a department store, a stuffed animal appearing through a polka dot door. Even kid shows today are pared down compared to those south of the border. None of it needs CGI or million-dollar budgets. This is Canada, we don't have that kind of funding anyway. Instead, we just need imagination and a good theme song. But I think when people say that their childhood was ruined by seeing the puppeteer behind the Friendly Giant characters, what they are really mourning is that brief and beautiful time when we believed kids' TV magic was real. And I get it. Childhood is short. Taxes are long. If a 6-foot giraffe with a papier-mâché head made you feel safe and seen, that matters. But the truth is, the puppeteer was never the magic. We won't remember the strings or the seams or the guy sweating under studio lights with an arm jammed up a rooster's rear. We remember that someone invited us into his house, pulled up a rocking chair, and made Canada feel just a little bit safer. Canadian children's TV was never trying to dazzle us. It was trying to make us feel safe and welcome and part of the story. That was the magic. And maybe that's why people reacted so abruptly when I posted that photo. They weren't just puppets. They were proof that even cardboard and felt could build a world that we never wanted to leave. And in a world where political assassinations are a two-night arc on cable news, that's no small gift.