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| Yeah, an old one. Have no idea what he looks like at present. |
Phil Phillips is an author who enjoyed a brief period of fame in the eighthies when the Satanic Panic was at its peak. His most famous contribution to intellectual life was probably Turmoil in the Toybox (1986), which argued that the Smurfs, He-Man, Care Bears, My Little Pony, Cabbage Patch Kids, Mighty Mouse and Rainbow Bright are all the devil’s toys concocted in the deepest layers of hell to lead our children to doom. (A pdf of excerpts is available here).
Turmoil was followed by Halloween and Satanism (1987), Saturday Morning Mind Control (1991), and Dinosaurs: The Bible, Barney, and Beyond (1994), which continued in what is essentially the same vein. A televised version of Phillips’s contributions to the civilization project (with Gary Greenwald) can be found here and here. Apparently Berit Kjos is still a fan (this one also claims to be a fan, but I hope for the love of anything good that it is a poe).
With his wife Cynthia he has later written Miracle Parenting on the subject of “Biblical parenting”. We haven’t read it but it should be good given Phillips’s background in the field of all things pedagogical.
Diagnosis: An insult to crazy. And he even managed to have some influence among frightened and not particularly reality-inclined parents in the 80s. Doesn’t seem to have caused much lasting damage, though.
If you wish to experience 1.5 hours of Phil Phillips you can do so here. It sort of pulls you in.