Paul Kandarian

I came back to town for Thanksgiving once and the Joby talk started because someone was saying how in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang there was a character we forgot about.

The child catcher.

It was really scary.

And my cousin, who was like 50, really, really felt uncomfortable talking about Joby.

We actually had to stop.

He even...

I never knew one kid who was freaked out by any of this back then.

We just made fun of the show.

Didn't mean we didn't watch it because, well, this was just before cable.

We only had so many choices, you know?

But yeah, there was really nothing to talk about with Joby.

It's kind of an art to creating a puppet with personality.

And I think

All we knew was that Joby didn't have any.

Like, at all.

But when we got into our 30s or 40s or 50s, it was like this light bulb went on.

We started thinking, wait, was that maybe the scariest thing ever?

I got into this bizarre habit sometime after college.

If I'm in a dark place where I feel nervous,

like camping at night or even in a state park or something, I say to the dark, Joby, are you there?