Children laughter and play turn out to be building something permanent. The Saturday morning forts, the trunk full of random props that turned into a pirate ship, the Roadrunner that never got caught. None of it was wasted time.

Tony has an Oscar the Grouch tattoo and a theory about reply-all emails. He still calls it the tickle trunk. Shane shares he once moved the actual tickle trunk on a college shoot with Ernie Coombs and never forgot it.

Good news lands first. A daughter is visiting. A little old philosopher filled a theatre in Ottawa for two hours and sounded exactly like his podcasts. Then the texts started coming in.

Topics: children laughter brain development, Mr. Dressup tickle trunk, Saturday morning cartoons Canada, Sesame Street, kids play resilience

Originally aired on2026-06-02