Ain’t it the ’80s? (Part II)

Let’s start with the shows we used to love as kids — very different from the cartoons kids today watch. The ’80s kids watched these shows habitually — whether on Saturday mornings or weekday afternoons after class. The cartoons I see on some cable channels nowadays seem to be getting dumber and shallower by the day. Their stories don’t really make sense. If they’re not shallow, they get kinda morbid (with a lot of disturbing and disgusting images) and too violent for children to watch. I miss the wholesomeness of the ’80s.

To give you an idea of the cartoons I give a thumb-down to: one features a monkey with a big red butt; another stars two farm animals with a manananggal for a mother and a father (because you can only see the lower portion of their bodies). But the boy with his own lab is pretty okay — although still no match for the shows we used to watch then. Remember...

• Batibot — Batibot was really a classic. Too bad kids today no longer know who Pong Pagong (with his trademark "Weeeeee!") and Kiko Matsing are. They just faded away, I guess, and I just don’t know how they ended up. I think Batibot made a big influence on kids then. Who could forget Kuya Bodgie and Ate Siena? Manang Bola’s "BaBeBiBoBu" chant, Ning-Ning and Ging-Ging; Sitsiritsit and Alibangbang. You still remember the songs, Alagang Alaga Namin Si Puti, Tinapang Bangus and Saranggola Ni Pepe (the last is my favorite Tagalog folk song)? And every time we saw a tree in school that matched the Batibot tree, we would automatically name that place Batibot. Thanks to Batibot, I learned to appreciate what Philippine culture has to offer. The show didn’t only teach kids to read and to write but also introduce to them our rich culture.

I was rummaging through some old photos and I stumbled upon pictures of my nursery class, which had a field trip to see Pong Pagong and Kiko Matsing. I remember when the duo came out. It was rather disturbing and perplexing for a four-year-old to absorb that those two furry oversized stuff toys you saw on TV weren’t really real after all. Kids back then were easily deceived. You saw a man always with Kiko Matsing, his arm was always sticking up inside Kiko’s you know what — but you didn’t mind that.

• Sesame Street (the Jim Henson years) —Even before Elmo became an annoying prima donna, Kermit the Frog, Ernie and Bert, Grover (with his "near and far" lingo), Cookie Monster, Forgetful Jones and a whole lot more ruled.

Sesame Street is still around but somehow isn’t the same anymore after Jim Henson died. His influence on Sesame Street during the ’80s was really noticeable. He was the voice of Kermit, Guy Smiley, and, of course, Ernie. Since no one could replace those exact voices, they gave the other muppets some share of the limelight like Elmo.

Sometimes, if I have nothing to do on a boring weekday afternoon, I do some channel surfing and I tune in to Sesame Street —even if it doesn’t feel the same anymore (well, it figures since I’m 21). It certainly brings back a lot of memories when I see Everybody Sleeps (still in the original ’70s version), The Teeny Little Super Guy, hear the Rubber Duckie song and watch the elephants at the zoo take a bath for the nth time.

• Fraggle Rock — Well, a few years back, when the Kermit channel was still on cable, they brought back this significant ’80s show, Fraggle Rock. Who could forget the fraggles who lived underground? Though now I find that show a bit cheesy, it was my favorite show.

• The Care Bears — "Care Bears countdown..." This show really reminds me of the ’80s. It was a big hit among kids and even adults. However, now, I can no longer distinguish between Tenderheart Bear or Funshine Bear. But way back, you could see them everywhere — from Hallmark cards, stickers, to stuffed toys. Care Bears was the type of show that kids nowadays should watch. Those days, we couldn’t afford to miss a show and would plead with the school bus conductor to drop us home first. It was really a feel-good show that thought a thing or two about good values. If ever they would show it again, I think I wouldn’t find it kinda wussy because those bears are just freakin’ cute.

• Thundercats — At that time, these action figures were among the hottest. They were among the toys my cousins and I loved to fight over. The show revolved around Lion-O and his comrades who were half-men and half-cats. They went to Third Earth to escape their former planet. The primary characters included Cheetara, Tygra, Panthro, Wiley Kit and Wiley Kat. They tried to make both ends meet in their new planet and to defeat the antagonist Mumm-Ra. In artwork and animation, this would probably be one of the shows that could give Japanese anime a run for its money. The rendering showed incredible detail and the plots weren’t the same every episode. Production didn’t look like it was rushed, compared to other American-made cartoons. I remember we even had The Sword of Omens, with a flashlight for a handle.

• The Transformers — Today, they still show some episodes but unfortunately, the toys have long been phased out. I think every boy back then had at least one Transformer. But we collected a lot of Transformer stuff before — even I didn’t know what their names were because they were more advanced than Optimus Prime. Since my dad used to live in Japan, he’d buy us tons of Transformer stuff — which were waaay cheaper there. I still keep this very, very big Transformer robot (even now, I still don’t know his name). It’s just stored away in some cabinet. But now, it’s just perplexing why they have to "Tagalize" the series — even if it was already in English.

• Silverhawks — After the successful Thundercats, its production company Rankin-Bass made a series about a team of human heroes in 25th century who were given metal bodies and hawk wings. Known as the Silverhawks, their primary goal was to stop MonStar and his minions. Another must-have action-figure set for most kids.

• The Smurfs — Two years ago, Cartoon Network brought back these cute little blue critters, and now they’re making a comeback. But I think Cartoon Network only had a limited number of episodes. I seem to remember there were more.

• The Snorks — Another Hanna-Barbera cartoon. Though they are not as popular as their blue counterparts, they concentrated more on humor than cuteness. Take a Smurf, stick a snorkel on his head and put him underwater to get the Snorks.

• Shaider, Bioman, Maskmen, etc. — Well, I can’t count how many Japanese super groups had "men" to their names, because they all looked the same to us. They all wore primary colors for their uniforms. But nevertheless, we became suckers for these shows as well. Every kid, I suppose, remembers Fuma Le Ar’s chant — the Shigi shigi song in Shaider. And every little boy always watched that series because he fell in love with the female sidekick named Ani. I couldn’t figure out why they had this infatuation with Ani back then.

We analyzed the five masked men in our English class. Why were there always five? American superheroes usually stood out even in a group. Their Japanese counterparts need each other to survive. A lot of us felt sorry when Yellow Four died.

Definitely my list doesn’t even account for half of the great shows of the ’80s. Lo and behold, more next week! See ya.

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Email me at ketsupluis@hotmail.com. Condolences to my friend Caloy Dionisio whose mother passed away a few weeks ago.