The Originals

We didn't watch television when I was growing up.  Hell, we didn't even have a TV until I was four.  It's the same one we have now.  It lives in a cart thing that my dad built with wheels on it so it can be pushed back in the closet when it's not in use.  From this it's possible to discern my parents' general attitude towards the whole television concept.  TV was fine, but there were better things to do.  Our TV has never played channels.  Once my dad dug up an ancient antenna and we watched a very fuzzy winter Olympics.  When I was little I got to watch one movie a week.  We would go to the movie store on Friday after school and I would agonize over which movie I'd watch.  The major problem in the whole system was that when I really liked a movie I didn't want to see anything else.  I watched Hercules so many times that my mother just gave in and bought it.  But that wasn't the first one.  First it was Doctor Dolittle.  And this was long before the Eddie Murphey version, this was the old school Rex Harrison musical.  I thought talking to animals would be the coolest thing ever.  Week after week that was what came home from the movie store.

My parents got sick of Doctor Dolittle much quicker than I did so in order to save their sanity they got my started on Swiss Family Robinson.  I loved that movie.  It started a continuing adoration of tree houses.  There was also pirates and climbing in trees and jungle creatures.  What not to love?  I was never a big fan of the whole brothers in love with the same girl story line, mostly because at that age romance was still an overrated concept.  But the rest of it was fantastic.

I don't remember what was after Robinson.  Either Hercules or Star Wars.  High quality entertainment.  Movies were a big deal in my house.  I didn't get to watch cartoons on weekends, I did that at other peoples' houses, I watched movies.   And I think I treasured them because they were so rare.  To my parents credit, their regime of one movie a week didn't last very long, but it still made an impact.  As I got older I outgrew movie Fridays and watching the same movie continuously.  I've seen a lot of movies, and they stick with me better than most things.  Film is one of the few topics where I feel I can hold my own in conversation.  Unless it's about porn, I still haven't seen Zombie Strippers staring Jenna Jameson.