My Inspirations: The First Childhood Obsession

This fourth section will feature my reflections on the artists and their works that inspired me. This will include some great literature and a whole lot of not so great literature, but it will also feature movies, television shows, music, and, to no one's surprise, video games. In every entry, I also plan on contrasting my opinion of the inspiration then and what I think of if now. This time, it will be a about a show, since at the tender age of six or seven, I was actually afraid of video games, which is another entry entirely, and I could read, but not exactly at an exceptional level.

My first obsessive television show was a cartoon. What else would it be at that age? But it wasn't one of the classics of the time. That's right; I never really got into Transformers. I watched it, sure, but not regularly. But the right answer is close. It also wasn't He-Man. Again, I watched it, and more regularly than Transformers, but it never really captured my imagination. Plus, I was a young child destined to geekery; the adventures of a big jock who beats up people probably wasn't much of a role model. And it wasn't Thundercats. That show wasn't even out yet, or at least not mainstream, and when it was, I ended up fixated not on it, but on one of its crappy rip-offs, which is again another entry entirely.

No, my first love was the big amalgam of mechanical kitties we call Voltron, and yes I mean the one with the mechanical lions exclusively. I eventually became aware of the car thing, but either it was too late for my interests by then or it didn't feel real. You might as well ask me to get hooked on the Ghostbusters that had the gorilla.

This was back in the eighties, when I was too young to catch Astro Boy or Speed Racer the first time around but we didn't know what an "anime" was yet, or even what a "Japanimation" was. As far as my childhood mind was concerned, it was basically another He-Man with bigger-eyed protagonists. But it was enough. I loved Voltron in the day; I bought/begged the parents for all the toys, I had elaborate battles, and I probably memorized the episodes. I'm not sure about that now, but that's usually how my brain works. I'm pretty sure I even wrote fan fic, or at least drew fan scribbles.

What was it about the show that appealed to me? Well, big robots kicking ass certainly helped, but Transformers earned a resounding "meh" from me, so it couldn't just be that. I think I enjoyed the weekly monsters more than the chance to watch He-Man fight Skeletor's three main minions again. And then there was the way the story actually grew and changed throughout the series. It didn't change much, but in those days even a decent pilot earned notice. But mostly, and I'm a little ashamed to admit this, it was because of Pidge.

Pidge was, for those who don't know, the bespectacled annoying child sidekick of the group. I find that most people, especially geeks, hate the annoying child sidekick. They even seemed to hate him when they were annoying children themselves. I can understand that, but I don't care, I thought Pidge was awesome. Why? Because Pidge was about my age, and he had a giant robot. After all, fantasy is basically wish fulfillment. We want to see heroes with superpowers defeating evil because we not only want the universe to work that way, but we'd like to have a starring role in making it that way. And while I could like the adult heroes, what's the point of idolizing them? I wouldn't be an adult until forever. Pidge got to kick ass now. Also, he lived in the forest, as least as my child mind understood it. That was the best of both worlds; the wonder of nature and the chance to pilot a giant robot. It was as if someone handed Mogwai the keys to a star fighter two minutes after the Jungle Book ended.

So, what have I learned from this and how do I think of Voltron now? Sadly, the last answer is resounding ambivalence. I remember when Voltron came back on Adult Swim a decade later. I watched a few episodes, but I couldn't get into it. The decent multi-episode pilot was nice, but the villains were overacting scenery chewers, the mice were stupid and, yes, Pidge was annoying. Well, Hank's reactions to Pidge were annoying, but that was mostly all the two ever did. So I closed the book on the series, happy with whatever memories I still had.

As for what I learned, I think there were many lessons the series could teach. No matter how often you over-used the same attack to finish every fight, every episode, if you gave the hero a wide range of other abilities, some fans will be obsessive enough to memorize them. Make sure there is someone for your audience to look up to, no matter how varied the audience is (another advantage of an ensemble show, He Man,) a changing plot is better than a static one, and, finally, anime is cool. That last one didn't come up until years later and resonates less now than then, but early awareness of other cultures is a gift, even if the gift comes in the form of giant mechanical kitties. No, especially if the gift comes in the form of giant mechanical kitties.