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Monday, October 15, 2007

Caped Fear

My Sister and I are four years apart in age, which is to say I basically grew up alone. We lived in the country at the junction of 76 and 86 highway in Neosho. These two highways came together at angles. If you picture a pie shape, our row of house was in the center right before the tip of the pie. There were six houses on our highway and none of them had children my age. I can't remember one time that I had a friend over in the seven years we lived there, except for Corbin Cornell whose mother dropped the reluctant lad off for a one hour trip into town. My cousin, Tiger, would come over but only on holiday or special occasions. I say that to say, my best friends growing up were my imagination and TV. I would get lost in my world and play for hours and hours on end and if I wasn't playing in my world, I was watching TV.

Saturday mornings, I would get up before the sun and make my way into the living room to watch TV. I can't tell you how many hours, collectively, I watched the color bars just waiting for the flag to be shown followed by the guy to com on the air and pray for the day. After the formality of the station revving up for its day of broadcast Super Friends came on, my favorite show! The Legion of Doom and the Hall of Justice was just awesome. I liked Aquaman the most, Hawk Girl and the Wonder Twins drove me out of my mind crazy--didn't like them at all. The Wonder Twins never did anything but get into trouble and cause the Super Heros more work. Gleek their mascot monkey was better than them. I wished them back to their home planet of Exor more times than I can count and wished the Wendy and Marvin would come back with Wonderdog.

I'm not sure why this popped up, but; there was a time in my life when I wondered to myself at what point the world became color. I had watched a lot of black and white TV and also color shows came along so I just knew that at some point in history things must have been black and white. Makes sense to me, how 'bout you? Pleasantville helped me out a lot in living through my thought process.

Super Friends entertained me for hours, I would just get spell bound wondering if my super friends would be able to survive the Legion of Doom's diabolical schemes. Even though Aquaman was my favorite superhero I would pretend to be Superman more than any other superhero, didn't swim much so Aquaman was just not an option, and since every super hero I became had a cape my dad made me a one to be superman. This was not a flowing red cloth cape...no, no...it was a heavy scratchy tweed cape. That's right lime green, dark green, yellow, and white striped tweed cape with a button to attach. I didn't care because that cape would transform me into Superman, Batman, or Hong Kong Phooie, and I would have super powers just like them. None of the super heroes, however, ever had an older sister who got her kicks out of waiting for her little super hero brother to come running through the house only to grab my cape and watch me flail to the ground--flat! She loved that! I hated it! Every time I wore my cape I ran around in fear of my pesky sister grabbing my cape. Dad thought he would fix the problem by writing a note on my cape, "Don't Tug on Superman's Cape" was written on my green striped tweed cape with Marks A Lot Black Marker. It was kind of the cherry atop my pathetic attempt at being a super hero. I still have that cape in my Mom's cedar chest and it still has the warning, thanks Jim Croce, for all to see.
I knew when the Super Friends would be showcased by the villain showcased. If Bizarro, Brainiac, Lex Luthor (who founded the legion), or Toyman were on it woudl be Superman's day to shine. If Black Manta was on Auqaman would be the lead of the day. Cheeta and Giganta were the arch enemies of Wonder Woman and if Giganta was on it meant that Apache Chief would guest appear to help Wonder Woman out. Riddler, Scarecrow, or Solomon Grundy meant that Batman and Robin were on their way. Sinestro's yellow ring always battled against the Green Lantern's green ring. Just loved the stuff!
Watching those shows now I see how hokey they were, but back then I ate it up! I still enjoy watching the old shows and remember most of the episodes and get all keyed up just like I used to.
I usually watched my shows until the beginning of American Bandstand, and we left to go to town with Granny. I was never interested in American Bandstand and really, really loved spending the day with my Granny.

2 comments:

Tracy said...

:-)
my daughter and you would have much to talk about - she loves her superheroes. i made her a cape when she was maybe 2 or 3.... she still has it :-)
me - i was more of a Scooby Doo kinda girl as well as the Fantastic Four ;-)

Sherri said...

Being a "tad" older than you, I don't relate to these particular cartoons, but I totally relate to the feelings of the old shows and cartoons...just the ones a decade or so earlier. thanks for the nostalgia.