TV night

I see very few of TV programs, but my favorite is "Two and 1/2 men"; I really enjoy the interaction between the two brothers and (even though sometimes I feel bad about the way the writers portray him as a stupid) the kid.


One of the biggest traumas I have in my life is the control of what is on TV. The way I have reacted to that is to stop watching. When I was a kid my father worked 12 hours a day (he was an elementary teacher with a second [and eventually a third] job as teacher for adults that did not know how to read). So, when he returned home (around 8:00 p.m. each weeknight) he was so tired he just sat in front of the TV and watched the "telenovelas" (soup[soap!!] operas). I always wondered how my father (my father!!) would watch those things; it was not until I got a job that kept me those hours I understood; the last thing you want when you get home is to think about anything.


Anyway, at those times, he had control of the TV channel and even though there was this extraordinaire mystery TV show in the other channel!! He just did not care; I had to sulk my way into books (by the way, thank you dad!) or music and (at one period in time after a hurricane hit my hometown and we were without electricity for six weeks ) movies. The only time I had the opportunity to watch almost whatever I like was during summer vacation.


My father is from Veracruz (Gulf of Mexico state) and we would visit his family during summer, taking advantage of the 6 weeks of vacation time my parents got (my mother was also an elementary school teacher). So when in Guadalajara or Mexico City (my aunt lives in Guadalajara and my grandmother lived in Mexico City) I would get to watch cartoons and other programs. I really loved those shows, however where I am going with this is that at that time in Mexico (late 70s) there were several shows from Japan on TV; "Señorita Cometa" (Comet San or Komett-San) y "Monstruos del Espacio" (The Space Giant, Magma Taishi) were my favorites (*).



Anyway, in "Monstruos del Espacio" there were these robots that transform into rockets and had a robot son; they were created by a very old guy and were defending Earth from this villain called "Rodak" (at least in the Mexican version); this guy had an army of zombie-like beings called "lugones" and they would melt when defeated (**).

It made me laugh so much; because, think of this. The program was originally created in 1966 and broadcasted in Mexico late 70's, early 80's; and I know what all you trekkies will say about the original "Star Trek" but the effects of "Monstruos del Espacio" were REALLY cheesy. You can find some trailers in the internet if you do not believe me.

Remembering all that makes me happy about all those good times; see you around.


(*) The last time I went to Japan (I worked for a Japanese company) there was this engineer travelling with me and he wanted to find DVDs that contain episodes of "Monstruos del Espacio", so we spend a whole morning in Akihabara looking for those; but even our guide did not know what the hell we were talking about. Eventually we went into this store and I found a PS game with a picture of "Goldar" (the hero of the series) and the guy explodes: "Maguma Taishu!!! Of course!!!" I looked back to my friend and say "ya ves guey! Maguma Taishu!! (you see, stupid!! Maguma Taishu!). We though we were going to spend the whole trip using that phrase, but something else happened and we changed it; I will tell the story later.

(**) In college I had a group of classmates that had so much personality we called them "The lugones"; of course in my family one of my Guadalajara cousins was very funny and always called names to everybody he knew. In the program he called the lugones the "uyuyuys"; I had to control myself when my classmates started being the lugones, because everytime I see them I would (almost) called them the uyuyuys (which in Mexico can be interpreted as the homosexuals). Also Trino (cartoonist I had talked about somewhere else) has a cast of characters call "the lugones"; barbarian-like group always attacking the castle of "El rey chiquito".