Amanda Hughes Loves The World of David the Gnome

By Venus Zine Staff
Published: April 20th, 2010 | 12:10pm

I didn’t watch a lot of the shows people my age remember from their childhoods. Not Thundercats, G.I. Joe, She-Ra, or The Transformers. Not The Smurfs or Snorks. I only know these things exist because they have Wikipedia entries.

I did, however, watch the living daylights out of The World of David the Gnome. Every single day of my pre-pubescent life. In case this is a show you didn’t watch, I’ll catch you up: It’s an animated Spanish kids’ program (dubbed in English for Nickelodeon) about a gnome (David) and his wife (Lisa), who live in a forest and care for the animals there like tiny, ruddy-faced forest rangers with veterinary experience. For some reason, this job also requires them to eat a lot of hard-boiled eggs. Oh, and they ride a fox around the forest like a horse.

And my parents were surprised I turned out to be a vegetarian.

Like most shows you watch as a kid, I grew out of my desire for gnome-themed television programming and quit watching. So I was shocked when I recently learned what became of my childhood gnome friends during the show’s finale.

SPOILER ALERT!

They died. Apparently, gnomes have a maximum age of 400 years, and the entirety of the two-season program took place when David and Lisa were 399 years old. So during the finale, the two gnomes climb up some mountains where they cuddle and then suffer a bizarre gnome death that turns them into giant, gender appropriately colored trees. The whole time their fox buddy is looking on in horror. Don’t believe me? Watch for yourself.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go eat a pint of ice cream. I feel like I just learned Santa isn’t real all over again.

Amanda Hughes is a Venus Zine editorial intern