He’s terrific. He’s magnific. He’s the greatest secret agent in the world. Yes, my friends, he is the one and only, DangerMouse. Again, it’s all about the Anglophilia with me, isn’t it? It must be a terminal case if I choose this as the first cartoon to appear here, rather than the longest-lived animated love of my life. Ruh-roh.

DangerMouse, however, was not blessed with the longevity of my favorite childhood cartoon. He was unfortunately short-lived in popularity on this side of the pond. Although he and his bumbling sidekick, Ernest Penfold, led their valiant fight against Baron Silas Greenback and his henchman, Stiletto Mafiosa, for slightly more than a decade in the UK, I remember DM gracing our shores for only a fraction of that time, airing on the cable channel Nickelodeon for maybe 5 years (give or take a year; my memory is dodgy sometimes, especially when it comes to time, and years seem to melt together in my head like the colors in a bowl of rainbow sherbet).

I learned recently from one of my lovely English friends that DangerMouse is a spoof of an earlier British series, Danger Man, that starred a pre-Prisoner Patrick McGoohan. I don’t think the Man ever made it over here to the States, but the Mouse remains a staple of our pop culture. Ever hear of the group Gnarls Barkley? It comprises two musicians, one who goes by the nom de mix, DJ Danger Mouse. Apparently, he even used to do shows dressed as a mouse. No word, though, on whether he also wore an eye patch.

Let’s sidetrack here for a moment to talk a little more about Stiletto. See, until the Interwebs, I didn’t know that he had a last name. I also didn’t know that he wasn’t supposed to sound like a Cockney with un-descended testicles. Nickelodeon thought that calling him Stiletto Mafiosa and having him sound stereotypically Italian would be offensive to Italian-Americans. So they dropped the surname and made him sound stereotypically English…and kind of like he had a helium tank shoved up his bum.

First time I heard Stiletto with his real voice, I thought I’d been duped with a fake bootleg. I can’t locate a video or audio clip that contains this American version of Stiletto, which would have been great solely for the comedic comparison. I’ve also learned that Brits enjoy this bit of trivia as yet another reason to laugh at (not with) their somewhat dim-witted but every now and again good-intentioned American cousins.

Still, even with this politically correct silliness, DangerMouse remains a steadfast happy memory from my childhood. So much so that when I took my first hop across the pond, I went giddy girl apoplectic when I discovered a stall in Camden Town selling DangerMouse T-shirts. The image above is a shot of the front of said shirt. I wear it out and about here quite proudly, getting the occasional knowing nod from fellow cartoon geeks.

If you’ve never seen this wonderfully British cartoon, do rectify this immediately. Got a Netflix account? You can rent them. Love Amazon? You can buy them all on DVD (with the original Stiletto voice, of course).

Until then, here is DangerMouse’s theme song. Hope you enjoy!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrM0E9pag8E&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1]

Thank the entertainment deities, wherever they may reside, for making certain that Caryn Johnson didn’t stick with putting makeup on dead people. Even though she very well could have had quite a steady career putting the “fun” in “funeral,” we would have been denied the unparalleled joy that is Whoopi Goldberg.

This is one of my all-time favorite Whoopi movies. This is my number one favorite Whoopi movie. I was 10 years old when I first saw it, and, yes, before you even ask, I probably was too young to be seeing this for the first time. I think I turned out all right, though, for being subjected to such filth at such a young age 😉

I don’t know how to explain why I love this movie so much, but it’s been making me laugh for almost 23 years, and I really don’t see that ever stopping. It’s an incredibly silly story and, really, it’s more of a vehicle to show off Whoopi Goldberg’s sometimes raunchy, sometimes slap-sticky comedy style. It’s also Laverne’s first go behind the camera on something bigger than her own television show.

More than just making me laugh, though, I think at some point in my impressionable young mind, I made the choice that, when I grew up and got a “big girl” job, I was going to emulate Terry Dolittle. I have horrid fashion sense, but I still dream of aspiring to the color-coordinated-down-to-her-Reeboks style that Whoopi’s character sported throughout this movie. Plus, if you’ve ever seen my work desk, you’d think that I had pilfered every toy and sticker from the set before they were able to strike it. Same goes with my home decor choices in many regards.

Other things that can be attributed to Jumpin’ Jack Flash: my introduction to Benny Hill, Jonathan Pryce, Tracy Ullman, and the Rolling Stones, as well as some of the most wonderfully offensive additions to my mental “favorite movie quotes” database. I still will zing out some of the less-shocking lines (“I got MOTHS. Giant, mutant, junkie MOTHS!” or “Dogs barking; can’t fly without umbrellas!”) at the most random moments. Few understand, but I just don’t care. Those who love me appreciate my Cinematic Tourette’s and that’s all that matters.

This is also one of the rare movies that has been with me long enough to have gone from my Betamax collection to my VHS collection to my DVD collection. Whenever the digital revolution spikes into full swing, it’ll follow me there as well. I don’t care that Whoopi would later find herself in the middle of that cacophony of cattiness known as The View (although she also has a special place in my geek heart for asking to be on Star Trek, where she

Here, my friends, is an integral piece to the puzzle that was my childhood: Strolling Bowling. This game probably also fed my growing desire for order and organization, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

This was the absolute perfect gift for an only child with simple entertainment needs and a bear-trap attention span. You wound up the little bowling ball, aimed it, and set it loose to bounce on its cute oversized orange feet toward the collapsible pins at the end of the alley. Yep, that really is all there is to it. Long was the “portable entertainment” road to Gameboy, my friends.

As for the encouragement of my future as an anal-retentive organization freak, this game might have started it. It folded up so very neatly. The pin section detached and fit inside the rest of the alley, which doubled as a carrying case. Oh, and the bowling ball also had a special little storage niche inside the case, and everything clicked together into a cute portable package that was perfect for those long trips we took every summer to my grandparents’ house and to Florida…because listening to repetitious plastic clackety noises coming from the backseat couldn’t have been at all irritating to my parents!

I actually still have my Strolling Bowling set; I even had it out last night when I ran across it in one of my storage bins (again, organized to a fault!). It’s one of the few childhood games that I kept. The rest of them really didn’t mean much to me. I think most only children have a certain disconnect when it comes to liking board games (also, I dare anyone to hold a special place in their heart for “Hungry, Hungry Hippos” when that was the taunt that still haunts their formerly fat inner child). I also think I was more of a book, drawing paper, and stuffed animal kind of kid.

Anyway, sorry for another game, but look at this little guy. How can you not love him? (And, yes, one day soon I will discuss my overwhelming anthropomorphic urges…)

(Images Courtesy of Firebox.com)

I’ve been a tech-geek for a very long time. Since 1981, actually. That’s when my dad bought us the Texas Instrument TI-99/4A computer console. Before you read any further, visit this Wikipedia page and relive a bit of my childhood vicariously through the main photo. This was exactly how ours looked, with the RF modulator, the speech synthesizer box, the solid state cartridge, and the cheesy brochure with Bill Cosby on the cover.

This was a HUGE deal back in 1981, especially for our little blue-collar family. This mediocre-by-today’s-quad-core-standards little console was quite an investment. But boy did it get a workout. We had educational game cartridges that I used to play all the time. We had the Touch Typing Tutor cartridge that I tried in vain to master, not realizing that the non-standard-sized keyboard was more suitable for the Oompa Loompa Secretarial Academy than for my ever-growing bear paws.

I did, however, master the keyboard enough to learn a bit of BASIC, my first programming language. I would tap away on that little keyboard for hours, entering hundreds and hundreds of lines of code just to bring up a green screen with a box in the middle that flashed primary colors in psychedelic patterns. Sometimes I would program it to activate the speech synthesizer and make it say profound things such as “I am a TI 99 4A computer.” This was, of course, before I reached the age of making Dr. SBAITSO say dirty words (but that’s for another Flashback Friday).

Then, of course, were the game cartridges. We didn’t have a lot of the games but we did have classics such as Parsec, Burgertime, Alpiner, Munchman. I was quite the Munchman whiz, actually. In fact, I was bloody ace at Munchman. I mastered all 20 levels, only to learn that after the final level, it just started over from the beginning – only at a faster speed. Keep in mind, though, that this was before the dawn of save points. So I would sit for butt-numbing marathons in which I wouldn’t stop until I either won or my red-haired temper would get the better of me and I’d just have to give up for the moment. I still remember the hand cramps from holding that tiny little joystick for hours.

Then there was Hunt the Wumpus. I HATED Hunt the Wumpus. Check out the link and you’ll see an animated segment from the game. You move your little hunter from pod to pod, looking for the Wumpus. If you hit on a green pod, get out fast! It’s a slime pit. If you hit on a pod with a funky looking “M” creature, get out! It’s a sleeping bat. If you disturb it too often, it will wake up, grab onto you, and transport you to another part of the maze…possibly right into the lair of the Wumpus (this happened to me more times than I care to admit). Flashing red pod? Means the Wumpus is near. If you have an inkling of logic, you can figure out how to dance around the Wumpus lair, pinpoint where he is, and choose wisely where to fire your arrow.

How many 7-year-olds do you know with impeccable logic? Exactly my point. I oozed major suckage at this game. I was always seeing the Wumpus teeth coming down on me, accompanied by the Wumpus death theme. Yet, I kept playing. By the time I began to move away from this little console and toward the bright shining light of my very first “big girl” computer, I was actually able to kill the Wumpus more times than he would inevitably kill me. Victory was indeed mine by the end.

I believe my dad still has this computer and all its accessories. In fact, I’m willing to bet he even still has the little 13-inch television that he hooked it to so that I could play in my room (which was his response to me overtaking the family television one too many times for my BASIC coding marathons). Maybe I’ll poke around the next time I visit my parents to see if I can find it. Maybe it’ll still work. Maybe I’ll be able to hunt the Wumpus one more time…

Oh, and props to the TI-99/4A Videogame House for being able to transport me back to my childhood with some great screen captures and animations from all the games I’ve mentioned here.

I had one of those strange memory-inducing moments this morning while waiting for the elevator (because I used to walk up 11 flights of stairs until one morning my knees went, “Yeah, we’re over 30 now and we don’t really want to do this anymore”). There was a smell in the lobby that instantly transported me back to being a teenager: It was the smell of Salon Selectives hairspray.

During my high school years, I was a massive hairspray abuser. In fact, I cop to the fact that probably 1/5 of that giant ozone hole can be linked back to me. I had massive metal hair back then – long in the back, sometimes teased out on the sides, and hella high on the top. So high, in fact, that I used to slouch down while driving so that my bangs wouldn’t catch on the ceiling lining in my Chevette. My dad called it my “sideways rooster comb.” Thinking back now, that was a pretty fair assessment. I’m still trying to locate a photo of this mythical beast at the height (pardon my punnage) of its greatness.

For a while, Salon Selectives was my hairspray of choice. The problem, though, was that it was a pump spray. I swear I started to develop a case of arthritis in my index finger from all that pump action. Then I discovered the ozone-crushing greatness that is Aussie Mega Styling Spray. Well, okay, maybe not ozone-crushing; they did claim to be CFC free and environmentally friendly. But that’s not why I loved this hairspray. It also wasn’t because of how it smelled. In fact, if memory serves me correctly, the smell was quite reminiscent of one of those half-moon hanging toilet bowl deodorizers that they used to sell in Safeway.

No, what I loved most about this spray was that it was an aerosol can. Pump action be damned! That aerosol afforded me the ability, with one solid press-and-hold action, to turn my teased amalgamation of crazy metal hair into an unstoppable wall. This can states that the hairspray produces a “flexible hold.” Not if you point it at your hair and hold the nozzle down for 20-second spurts. You could have bounced a quarter off my bangs, they were so spray-solid.

The truly pathetic thing is how quickly I could blast through a can of this stuff. The can shown here is only 14 ounces. I’m almost positive that the can I used to buy was close to double this size. That can used to last me maybe 2 weeks. Maybe. To give you a better idea, I now use Herbal Essences hairspray, which comes in an 8-ounce can. That puppy will last me close to 3 months. Of course, that might have to do with the fact that I hardly do anything with my hair anymore. If it parts in the middle and doesn’t frizz too much in the humidity, I feel as though I’ve accomplished something great.

Anyway, view this entry as my official kick-off to a new segment here at the lair: Flashback Fridays. In an attempt to get myself back in the mindset of regular blogging, I am committing to at least once a week, stopping in to bore you all with some inane piece of my adolescence that I think is worthy of documenting. Ooh. Exciting!