Tales of Childhood Disillusionment
Recently there’s been a tendency to celebrate 80s pop culture through shows like ’Robot Chicken,’ ’The Venture Brothers,’ etc. These shows wax especially nostalgic about the children’s programming many of us grew up on, and I’m sure this is great for their fan communities. Unfortunately, I’m increasingly feeling a retroactive disillusionment with those years and those beloved characters, enough to cancel my Transformers download 72% through. What’s wrong with me, you ask? Go ahead and have a seat then for some Tales of Childhood Disillusionment.
The following must have transpired during my entry into that window where adolescence slowly gives way to a hesitant eager worldliness, sharply contrasted with the blind faith of youth. I was 14, 15, young enough to retain friendship with the Thundercats, Dick Tracy, all those guys, yet now old enough to stumble into the facts of life through glimpses into their formerly-glorious lives. Indeed, the more I heard, the more I began to wonder just how much I really DID know about them, about life itself.
I was hanging out with the Joes one day, inside that military base or whatever they had. I don’t remember. I do remember Roadblock liked gristle, which was weird. I was talking to Duke and he started going off on COBRA this, COBRA that. It started to get a little embarrassing, really.
“You know what they got now? We hit the mountain fortress just last week right? They got this computer-linkup-termainal thing that brings the dead back to life, so they can fight for COBRA. I mean do you believe that? What DICKS.”
“Wow, are they really doing that kinda stuff?” I asked, wide-eyed. Duke sighed.
“Well no, actually we came up with the deadguy thing, it was gonna be awesome with John Wayne and shit, but they came here and stole it like it was theirs.” Duke gave me this really gritty look then, it’s impossible to describe really.
“Man,” was the only thing I could think of to say, and then “Yeah,” was the only thing he could think of to say.
For a while after that I would go over the Cobra compound after school, maybe it was on some island or mountain fortress. I’m sorry but it was so long ago. You’re lucky I remember the theme song, which technically I don’t because it’s on my hard drive.
Sometimes you’d be in the commissary grabbing a sandwich, which you would because they made a few good ones there, and the COBRA brass would sit down and ask how your homework was going, things of that nature. Maybe I looked older that day than most, a little shadow on my chin, who the hell knows. The Baroness shifts effortlessly into the seat next to me and says hey. “Hey!” I said, trying not to sound too interested.
So she leads off with “You know, I don’t think anybody is really happy. You know?” I thought about it and told her that sounded a little negative but maybe she had something there. She gets this confused look and goes ahead. “Doctor Mindbender, he’s…he’s just not drivin’ to the black hole anymore.”
“Excuse me?” I murmured. I’d stopped eating.
“You know what I mean. It’s not rough, it’s not GOOD, anyway, that’s for sure. I snuck a quickie with Destro but that wasn’t doing it for me either. I mean I don’t know if he’s giving me this pity-kinda look under there or what.”
“I have to go eat my sandwich now,” I blurted out. So I found ways to never eat there again.
For a while I was into that show C.O.P.S. because it had guns and the sort of faux police procedure that always got us watching until somebody called the hacking unit or triangulated the tracking signal, that kinda stuff. The badguys were a heck of a lot more interesting anyway, and they had that hideout versus a huge cop station, which nobody really wants to be in in the first place. Badguys had this evil scientist name of Dr. Badvibes who was always coming up with weather machines and whatnot. I thought science was cool and killing people and robbing their banks was cool, so that’s where I’d be on Tuesday evenings. Until the last Tuesday evening.
“I’m gay,” Doc B-Vibes tossed into the conversation.
“Well duh.” I noted.
“Now my robot is too.”
“Oh what the HELL!” and yeah, no more C.O.P.S. figures for me.
Toward the beginning of high school or so, we had our ’Batman: The Animated Series,’ and that was something that held my interest for a really long time. The blocky style was great, the stories were great, everything was great. Batman’s on a roof on a stormy night and he jumps down 100 ft without breaking his neck and it’s awesome. Nice, clean, good vs. evil for kids, as opposed to how the world really works. It came out one of those nights at Wayne Manor. Bats has the mask on but he cant’ find the grapple gun and it’s too early to get started anyway. He’s talking about all the crazies that get rounded up into Arkham and then get off scot free, and the rich guys who do a buncha stuff at night no one calls them on. Pretty standard fare really. So then he’s like “I’m no better though–did you know Gordon used to have another daughter? PRETTIER.” I didn’t say anything, he didn’t say anything, and half an hour later he tried playing it off as a joke and I’m thinking why the hell do you guys tell me this stuff?
I don’t mean to spoil your DVD marathons, I’m sorry. You keep fileswapping, I’ll just be over here with my Sopranos and alcohol.