Today, I want to specifically talk about the years 1977 – 1980 when I was between the ages seven and ten. There are three television shows that are burned into my brain from that time period that, to this day, I remember and think about like they are my Roman empire. Let’s talk about them.
The Gigglesnort Hotel
In hindsight, this is probably the weirdest thing I watched as a child. A show full of nearly human-sized puppets that just LOOK creepy and grotesque. Bill Jackson was the lone human in the cast that included: Old Man Gigglesnort who owned the building, lived in the attic and thought the hotel was a ship; a dragon that lived in the boiler room, would hurl insults at everyone, and once dressed up as a KKK Grand Dragon; and a blob of clay name, appropriately, “Blob” that couldn’t speak but mumbled and moaned and laughed. The rest of the various puppets were tenants in the building. I watched it every time I found it on TV which was usually by mere happenstance. I remember being fascinated with the hotel itself and its basement, attic and hidden passage ways. All the scenes were dimly lit and, looking back, had a slight undertone of horror at times. As an adult, I’ve watched clips of the show on YouTube and realize this show is way more disturbing than I remembered.
Star Blazers
Between the years of ‘77 – ‘80, I lived in the small, southern Oklahoma town of Duncan. Sitting just 50 miles north of the Oklahoma/Texas border, our major network television stations came from both Oklahoma City and the DFW Metroplex. We also had a non-network station that came out of Wichita Falls, Texas, that mostly played reruns and game shows. Wichita Falls must have been a hot bed of anime activity because that station showed the next two shows that I’ll be talking about with great regularity. Set far in the future, Star Blazers is about a star ship that makes a dangerous voyage to the distant planet Iscandar and back to save Earth from an alien invasion. This show fascinated me because it took a sunken WWII battle ship and transformed it into a star ship that’s fitted with a wave motion engine allowing it to travel at 150,000 times the speed of light. I was already hooked on Star Wars so anything set in space was going to be right up my alley. I’ve actually watched this again as an adult (as much as I could find online) and it honestly still holds up.
Battle of the Planets
This show was on the same station as Star Blazers and honestly was my absolute favorite. It was about five young people, known as G-Force, that protected Earth from the planet Spectra and other attacks from space. My favorite part of the show was their ship, The Phoenix, which transported four smaller vehicles, each operated by one of the team members. I also loved their operational base, Center Neptune, which was located deep in the ocean. During the time I was watching this (and Star Blazers) I was into drawing. Really into drawing, actually. I had notebooks and pads full of drawings, I even got in trouble at school on a regular basis for drawing when I should have been working. Most of my drawings were influenced by this show and Star Blazers (with a liberal amount of Star Wars thrown in). A number of years ago, there were rumors that there was a live action version of this in development. I’ve long since given up on that possibility.