More than meets the eye?!? Allow me a brief (or long winded, I haven’t decided yet) trip into nostalgia land. I hate saying “When I was a kid” because I feel that somewhere in that hides “Get off my lawn!” That said when I was kid toys were toys and cartoons were cartoons. We didn’t have any of your fancy Cartoon Networks, or Nickelodeons. We had Saturday morning cartoons. Yes, we could only watch cartoons on Saturdays. Fine, local stations usually showed cartoons in the afternoon after school let out- around the time they now have lurid talk shows. I prefer cartoons and the sometime classic movie. That said some cartoons were tied into a toy line (Hot Wheels comes to mind) but besides that, as far as I recall there wasn’t much overlap. As I grew older (please note: I didn’t say “grew up”) cartoons became more and more tied to cartoons, with the cartoons being just 30 minute commercials. G.I. Joe shrank, but he got his own show. No more boot lockers filled with clothes and accessories. No more dating Barbie. My little brothers were growing up during the height of this. I remember fondly my baby brother pulling a stick from the back of his shirt, holding it above his head, and shouting “By the power of Greyskull!” Besides He-Man another biggie was Transformers. I never really understood the appeal. I liked some of the anime coming out of Japan that had transforming planes fighting alien invaders, but Transformers just seemed a little silly.
As I look back, I still don’t see the appeal, but that’s me. If collecting transforming robots makes you happy- go right ahead. Just don’t tease me about my comic books, or my phaser, or my action figures, or my LEGO, or…
