For little kids around the world, Sundays is not always the best of days as it signaled the end of the weekend and school tomorrow. The story is the same in Nigeria but for kids who grew up in the 1980's and 90's Sunday evenings (6:00 or 6:30PM or so) was always something special.... Tales By Moon Light was coming on TV..
Like who was born in the 1980's or 90's and did not watch that program? I remember as a kid I would never miss that show for anything. I would sit closely to the T.V to enjoy stories told by ‘Auntie' (Nkem Orakwe). It was the weekly folklore series that aimed to build the moral character of Nigeria's future generation through acted-out tales of basic human, and animal traits.
The most interesting part of the story telling show was the acting of the stories by children in very funny questionable costumes that were meant to be convincing. Truth was, back then we cared less, we just wanted our stories. Mr. Tortoise, very slow and cunning was like every one's favorite character.
Also ghost stories were also featured, with actors in white flowing garments flailing their arms and making ridiculous noises. While it is easy to criticize now, back then who cared, all we wanted was 6:30PM on Sunday plus NTA.
While educational programs like Sesame Street have enjoyed decades of ‘edu-taining' generation after generation, Nigeria has virtually abandoned that line of programming (I even heard NTA has lost all the tapes/records of Tales By Moonlight). Tales by Moonlight helped shape a lot of us today and we just have to wonder; who will teach the younger generation in today's 1000KM/H world?
