Watching Memories

by Clayton Overstreet

When's the last time you actually watched the show you're writing about?

Watching Memories By, Clayton Overstreet

Not being a Christian I was sitting around my house on a Sunday with nothing to do. I looked around and saw a pile of old video tapes I haven't watched in a while... in some cases for almost a decade. For those of you who don't remember, a video tape is an archaic device that was replaced by DVDs... and yes, I still own a VCR. God I'm old. So I picked one labled, "What Dreams May come", an old Robin Williams movie. I recorded it back in January of 2002 on the Sci-fi channel. I know this because of some car commercials, announcements for old shows like Lexx, and the release of Disney's Atlantis and commercials for Harry Potter the movie. When it ended I noticed that there were still things recorded after it.

I watched and saw Scooby-Doo, 2 Stupid dogs, Secret Squirell, Thundercats, Zoids and Freakazoid... I'd forgotten that Caveguy and Cobra Queen dated. My guess is I was recordning something on CN and left it running to the end of the tape, then recorded WDMC over it. After that I realized a lot of my videos are unlabled. So I went through them and the first one I came too was when I tried to record the entire Tenchi Muyo TV and OVA series... not Tenchi in Tokyo cause Sakuya sucks... and Outlaw Star. Look! The original Tom Servo! Over the last decade since those shows aired on Cartoon Network I've gotten really into anime. I remember the old days when I thought Pokemon was a kid's show on par with Barney or Carebears. Then I watched it and shows like Monster Rancher.. and then the first time I saw Tenchi Muyo the movie... coincidentally it was on the Sci-fi channel. They were showing things like Wizards and Record of Lodoss and Vampire Hunter D on Saturdays after Mystery Science Theater 3000 (the original MSTers). Then Tenchi Muyo aired on Cartoon Network and I recognized it. I was hooked.

So were hundreds of thousands of other people. Otaku know what I'm talking about. Being an anime fan is close to being a freaking vampire. No sunlight, you've got an unquenchable thirst for more, and because of the loneliness (largely due to nobody else understanding a word we're talking about) we do our damndest to turn others into anime fans too. Watching Tenchi I realized how long it had actually been since I saw the show versus when I wrote my last Tenchi fan fic. Little details were missing from my mind... things like the songs. Songs I spent hours recording, listening to, downloading. Hell, I've still got the CD.

I remebered how I'd walk to the library to use the net and download Tenchi fan fics where Ryoko got him, read MSTs, dowloaded them and brought them home because it was new technology and my mom wouldn't pay for the Internet. Then I used a site that's no longer there to make a Tenchi Chat room that gathered the readers and writers together to talk. I morphed it into an anime chat room later. Then in 2002 the site closed down and we moved to the message board. Believe it or not, most of them are still there. I wonder... when is the last time any of them watched the show? The gods know it hasn't been on TV in years and personally I never got around to buying GXP or the new Ryo-ohki series. Or even Pretty Sammy. Read the reviews of course, but having just seen the last episode of the TV series I realize that it's hardly the same thing.

I remember watching that episode the first time. I damn near cried, being full of teenage hormones, when it looked like Ryoko might have died. And how I felt when she popped back up promising to win Tenchi from Aeka. The song Dimension of Love playing as they flashbacked on the whole show. Tenchi telling us how Washu was made head of the science college and swore to use her knowlege for peace... and then was kicked out for building something that would have destroyed the entire universe. "When the cherry blossom starts to bloom, meet me here in my lonely room, we'll find passion filled fantasy, and this time you will stay with me..."

It's amazing... how weird and cool it is to watch old shows that aired so long ago. Not too many people are going to get to do that any more, since they record stuff by burning DVDs. I saw the Jabber Jaw music video CN made. I was reminded how in Zoids Lina tried to kill Bit for stealing her snacks out of the fridge... It was the episode where those sand-fish zoids were attacking them and one of the dark judges was overseeing it. Inuyasha reruns just don't remind you of that sort of thing, even if they share voice actors. The last episode of Outlaw Star, when Gene is fighting Hazanko an the ship transforms... I'm watching that right now, as I write this. Remember at the end and everyone was going their seperate ways, Fred was telling them how much money they owed him for financing them all those times, and then they all meet back on the ship later. I've got it on DVD now, but once again, it's not the same as watching the old Toonami or the Toonami Midnight Run, when I kept stopping the tape so I wouldn't record all the damned commercials. Remember when in Dragonball Z and Buu first showed up? How you waited to find out what happened with Gohan and Videl? Or for that matter how long it took Namek to freaking blow up? Honestly, Frieza has destroyed countless planets with the flick of a finger and it takes for freaking ever for this damned thing to explode! Sailor moon was still on... was it before or after ReBoot? GGundam, 8th MSTeam... Ronin Warriors. Ye gods... does anybody else remember this stuff? And it's not just anime. I'm remembering episodes of Charles in Charge, Perfect Strangers, So Weird (i spent weeks trying to record those song's off Youtube and it turns out I've got them on tape!), Ducktales, Mighty Max, Attack of the Killer Tomatos (can no one stop this mutant fruit?), Creepy crawlers, Hulk, X-men, Spider-man (and his amazing friends!), Robocop, Savage Dragon, Double Dragon, Dungeons and Dragons, Highlander, The Crow, My Pet Monster, Dinosaucers, Denver the last dinosaur, Rainbow Bright, Out of this world, Sliders, X-files, Beyblade, Garfield, The Maxx, Farscape, Street Sharks, Wildkats, Heathecliff, Swat Cats, Cartoon Planet, Space Ghost Coast to Coast, the Mask, Ace Ventura, Punky Brewster, ALF (cartoon series), Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Wonderful World of Disney, Beetle Borgs, Muppet babies, Pac-man, Flinstones (including the one where they were kids and wthe other one where Pebbles and Bam-bam were grown up), Scooby-Doo (Damn this guy's still going!), Fighting Foodons, Ultimate Muscle, Wish Kid, Tom and Jerry, Voltron (Power Rangers can kiss his transforming bi-colored lion ass!) Transformers, Godzilla, Vanpires, Pirates of Dark Water, Martian Chronicles, Casper, that one show where King Arthur and his knights were football players from the future, Fraggle Rock, Mighty Mouse, Wonder Woman, Speedy Gonzales (I don't think he's allowed on TV any more), Megaman, this one show where a kid used Nintendo controllers in a video game world, Hulk Hogan, Real Monsters, Swamp Thing, My Secret Identity, American Tale, Monchichis, Tazmania, Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century, Alladin, Hercules, Animorphs, Goosebumps, Tales from the Crypt, Super Mario Bros, Legend of Zelda, Gilligan's Island, Reading Rainbow, Princess Tenko, Sigfried and Roy (yep, they had a cartoon too), Captain Planet, Rocky and Bullwinkle, ChalkzoneStreet Fighters, Beast Wars, Mummies Alive ... thousands of episodes, hundreds of shows, and who knows what else.

Sad but true, these are the things that make up our memories. Or mine anyway. Not like the shows that are still running in syndication. It's not the same at all. Which is probably why people are getting rich transfering all those things onto DVD and making new movies about them. $50 Hogans heroes is coming soon. Get Smart was just announced staring Stever Carrel. I know I've bought Darkwing Duck and Mork and Mindy. Can you remember the first anime you really got hooked on? Why was it that series and not another one? How far did you take it? Cause with Tenchi I've done over 500 fics. I spent so much time on the whole Tenchi-Ryoko relaionship I was banned from several message boards. Over the years my writing style and grammer have improved though. I look over some of the stuff I wrote starting out and wonder what the hell I was thinking back then. Heh. I even promised never to write a sex story, something I've done a lot and not just for Tenchi either. Not surprising since Ryoko may damn well have been the first cartoon character outside of Thundercats back when I was eight that I saw nude. They didn't even do that on He-man. And SNICK! Oh ye gods! I've been so busy watching Avatar the Last Airbender and avoiding Sponge Bob that I'd forgotten how good Nick used to be with shows like Ren aand Stimpy, Are You Afraid of the Dark, and All That... Double Dare, Smurfs, Gummie Bears, David the Gnome, You can't do that on television... it's amazing. USA cartoon Express! Grape Ape, Laugh Olympics, the Original Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles with Rocksteady and Bebop, Darkstalkers (own the DVDs of this one too), Problem Child, Beetlejuice, Batman and Superman, Ghostbusters (Slimer!), the Addams family, Punky Brewster, Chupmunks, Rescue Rangers, Batman Beyond and it's spin off the Zeta Project (an assassin Robot doesn't want to kill any more), Road Rovers, Pinky and the Brain, Animaniacs, Tiny Toon Adventures, Cubix, Tale Spin, the Unico movies and Mr. Boogety movies they used to show every Halloween on Disney... back before they allowed commercials.

I am so -ing old! 26! That's the entire episode span of a decent anime series. And I grew old watching television. I'm still growing old watching television. In another decade I'll be looking at my tapes and I'll see things like Deathnote and Bleach, or Supernatural and Smallville. I'll look and realize how long it's been and how hooked I used to be watching them.

Tenchi OVA episode one is showing right now... Ryoko is trying to kill him and his school's about to... BOOM! You know, for a girl who just spent 700 years in a pool and doesn' know what gas is she sure speaks modern day Japanese well... even refering to him as a school boy. It's weird. There've been movies I've rented a thousand times, seen in theaters, and watched on TV, but once I've actually got the video or DVD I almost never get bothered to start watching it after the first time. Like those Disney Classics even you probably have lined up on your shelves. When did you last watch the Lion King, Little Mermaid, or Junglebook? I know you remember it, but when did you last watch those movies you've got stacked around? They've got dust on them and you wouldn't part with them to save your life... but you never watch them! I guess, it's just that thrill the first time you see something you like. You watch them over and over again, trying your damndest to recapture that first moment of happyness and excitement. Then when you do you get tired of it, but don't want to lose it either.

You save them until now, years later you watch it all again and can't remember a damned thing. Or it didn't happen like you thought. And you remember things like how Mihoshi and Kiyone were the first lesbian couple I ever noticed in a show and tried to prove (a now life long hobby that I'm continuing with Kim Possible and Shego). How many pictures from Tenchi Muyo did I hunt down online and post int he message boards? Anybody else here ever hang out at the Original Pojo message boards? The hours I spent there discussing anime. Posting links, images, sounds bites... searching for lists of episodes, recaps, summaries and upcoming shows. Digimon... Pokemon... Escaflowne... Tom and Jerry kids... Peter Pan and the Pirates...Card Captors... MC Hammer had his own cartoon for a while there. They used to show this stuff on Fox and the WB (used to be a different channel...I remember when Animanics and Batman moved from fox to the WB when they changed it) after school every day until 2004. And before that they showed stuff in the mornings around 6 AM. In living Color... now there was a funny show. Jim Carrey as Bill Clinton! "I'm not an adulterer and I did not (cough) inhale! Ain't nobody humpin' around! I don't want no more tush, I don't want no more Bush! Ain't nobody humpin' around! Clinton Gore in '92!" And there's Jamie Fox... watching him play Ray Charles on In Living Color who could have seen that Oscar coming? Wow, Aeka's voice is different than I remember... and newly hatched Ryo-ohki can lick herself in amazingly weird places. Huh... turns out I have the Lost Empire on tape... wish I'd known that before I bought the DVD. The original broadcast too. They're even trying to sell the VHS tape for $27. And it's followed by the 7 faces of Dr. Lao... something else I could have saved money on. Sorry, I'm rambling. I'm just remembering so much right now. Everything from Turbo Teen and Shirt Tails to Snorks and Dragonflies and Married With Children. Wow, have I wasted my life or what? I mean... hey! Holy Hell! I did record Kiki's delivery service! Neat! And i did it back in a time before I'd wonder what Kiki and Ursila did together out in the forest.
Well, thought I'd post this online and see what kind of responce I get. If nothing else one day I may read it again later and remember all this again. You might too. Ever go back and reread that first fanfic you downloaded? Is it still on your computer? Still online somewhere? Whoops, got to go. I just found out I recorded a Toonami so old they're saying that Yugioh will premier on Kid's WB in September.

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