OK, I have to do this. You girls will take all the good grown-up shows anyway.
Back in 1962, when I was 5 years old, I got hooked on science fiction after discovering
Fireball XL-5. The characters were portrayed by - wait for it - marionettes. I find it hard to watch even a short clip now with a straight face, but it totally captured my young imagination.
A year later, the English-language cartoon version of
AstroBoy premiered, and it became my new favorite show. Set in the year 2000, Astro Boy featured a boy robot with jets in his feet, weapons built into his back, super eyesight and hearing, and a built-in shortwave. I liked him better than Superman.
And I must admit that in 3rd grade, I never missed an episode of the imaginative but often cheesy TV series
Lost in Space. The characters were broadly played, the special effects, erm, not so special, and the plots often absurd. Of course I loved it. And in season two, Penny, uh, matured. My friends and I were pretty focused on her transformation. Me, for different reasons than the other boys - I wanted to
be her.
Finally, there was the original Star Trek series, which launched when I was 9 years old. My mom said it was too scary, because of
this weird alien head in the end credits, and wouldn't let me watch it at first. But Grandpa let me sit next to him when it was on, so for some reason that was OK. I was an instant addict, and when the show was cancelled, it was like they took away my birthday.
Hope this is as much fun for someone to read as it was for me to recollect...
