Pancake Mountain was a TV show based out of Washington, D.C., that can accurately be described as a punk rock children’s show. The program featured a puppet named Rufus Leaking (voiced by J.R. Soldano)—among the show’s many guests were the Melvins, Henry Rollins, Deerhoof, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, the Fiery Furnaces, Wreckless Eric, and X. The name of the show comes from the fertile mind of Brendan Canty, a.k.a. the drummer for Fugazi.

Founded by Scott Stuckey, grandson of the man who founded the noted roadside chain of eateries, the show ran from 2004 to 2009 on public access stations around the country. J.J. Abrams became interested in the show in 2010 and briefly attempted to find a home for it, without success. Eventually Pancake Mountain found a home on PBS but it does not appear to be in active production.
 

 
In 2009 Richard Hell gave the show permission to produce a cartoon video for the irresistibly catchy song “The Kid With the Replaceable Head,” off of the 1982 album Destiny Street by Hell’s seminal outfit the Voidoids. The video uses the noticeably cleaner version of the song featured on the 2009 album Destiny Street Repaired, which featured new guitar parts—the new guitar work on “Replaceable Head” was by Marc Ribot. The original guitar part was executed by Robert Quine. For more on the different versions of the song, see this 2011 report by DM’s own Marc Campbell.
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Johnny Thunders and Richard Hell: The original Heartbreakers live in ‘75

 
In 2004 Scott Stuckey, of the Stuckey restaurant family, started a cable access show in the Washington, DC, area to answer the question, “What would Sesame Street look like if most of the guests were indie rockers?” The show is called Pancake Mountain. This year the Sesame Street connection became stronger when it was announced that PBS would start licensing new episodes of the show.

In this clip, Shirley Manson of 1990s Wisconsin rock heroes Garbage appears in a segment called “Around the World with Shirley Manson” in which she explains the German music scene to an obstreperous canine puppet. Wearing a rather fetching flight attendant-style getup, Manson does a more than creditable job of presenting the breadth of German music, from the masterpieces of Beethoven and Bach to Volkslieder (which means folk songs; here it’s yodeling) to the groundbreaking 20th-century music of Can, Neu!, Kraftwerk, and well, Scorpions.
 

 
This was evidently supposed to be a series—Manson filmed five of the segments—but Stuckey and producer J.J. Abrams canceled the show in 2011 before they could be aired. However, as already mentioned, PBS has agreed to license some new episodes. The Germany segment is the only one of Manson’s “Around the World” series to trickle out to the public as yet. You can get Pancake Mountain DVDs on Amazon; on Disc 1 you can see bands like Thievery Corporation, Steel Pulse, Vic Chesnutt, and The Evens. Disc 2 seems decidedly more promising, featuring Arcade Fire, Henry Rollins, The Fiery Furnaces, George Clinton, and the Scissor Sisters. A few months ago my estimable colleague Ron Kretsch posted some marvelous footage of David Yow of the Jesus Lizard on Pancake Mountain discoursing on the culinary arts.
 
The video of the skit is “autostart” which means we can’t embed it here, but you can see it on this page. Here’s an associated clip in which Manson sings an original song in a kind of groovy go-go style that covers much of the same material as the skit with the puppet.
 

 
Yo Gabba Gabba isn’t the only kid-vid with indie rock crossover appeal—the wonderful Pancake Mountain was started in 2004 by Scott Stuckey (yes, he’s one of those Stuckeys) as a public-access show, and is now being produced by PBS Digital. Hosted by puppet Rufus Leaking, the show has had guest appearances from music luminaries like Tegan & Sara, Flaming Lips, Arcade Fire, Ian McKaye, George Clinton, M.I.A., St. Vincent—this could go on forever.

While older episodes remain available on DVD, the show’s YouTube channel is a bit disappointingly sparse, given the show’s history of amazing guest appearances. However, just hours ago they uploaded an insane cooking segment with David Yow of the Jesus Lizard. Watch and learn, good people.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
David Yow talks to Dangerous Minds about ‘The Jesus Lizard: Book’
Cat Scratch Jesus Lizard: David Yow channels his inner B. Kliban