I've been looking for whatever this movie or show this was....
This is an OLD memory and I've not been able to find anything anywhere about it. Some of these details might not be 100% accurate. I was scared when I saw it, so I might have imagined details out of fear.
I believe the show was about kids accidentally intercepting an alien TV signal. This happened because of a lightning storm or experiment or accident... something like that...
I feel like they didn't know what they were seeing at first... and had theories about what it was.
The aliens were FLAT looking creepy puppets. Intentionally 2D-ish. Maybe a foam appearance. The kids saw an alien game show in their alien language and then later a news bite or broadcast which depicted some of their kind in astronaut gear visiting Earth. The kids watching were freaked out realizing aliens were coming.
That's all I've got. It CREEPED me out. I was under 10 years old.
Thanks for reading - if you know what this is you'd be solving a 30+ year mystery for me.