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Saturday, June 04, 2011

Saturday Morning: Mr. Belding from Saved By The Bell


I know what you're saying.  I know that the theme for Saturdays are supposed to be dedicated towards Saturday morning cartoons, and Saved By The Bell isn't exactly a cartoon. 

Don't worry...I have lots of cartoon characters that I have to choose from yet.  I only started this blog about ten days ago, so believe me, I haven't reached writer's block yet.  I'll likely feature a cartoon next week.

There's actually a couple of reasons why I wanted to devote this blog entry to a character from Saved By The Bell. 

Firstly, although it doesn't quite fit the whole idea of being a cartoon, per se, it did air on Saturday mornings.  Several Saturday mornings to be precise.  The original series ran on NBC from 1989-1993.  On September 11, 1993, a new version called Saved By The Bell: The New Class premiered and ran until the year 2000.  So, for a little under twelve years, Saved By The Bell had a home on Saturday mornings (and that's not counting the Good Morning Miss Bliss and College Years episodes).  Therefore, I think it's earned its spot here for today's entry.

And secondly, the character I've chosen is one who has seen it all.  He is the only cast member to appear in every season of both the original Saved By The Bell and the New Class versions.  He's also a character that was much loved in both versions, and in all honesty, I kind of wish I was more like him.

No...I am not talking about Screech.


I'm talking about Bayside High principal, Mr. Richard Belding.

If one were to describe Mr. Belding in one word, what do you suppose your answers would be?  Some might say lame.  Others may describe him as flightly.  Possibly even stupid.

When I first started watching Saved By The Bell, I admit that my opinion of Mr. Belding was very different than the opinion that I have of him today.  Back then, I admit to being one of those guys who wondered how someone like Mr. Belding could have EVER become a principal of a high school.

Growing up in small-town Canada, and just trying to compare Mr. Belding with some of the principals and authority figures that I dealt with in school, there really is no comparison.  Any of the school principals that I remember having really never had much of a sense of humour.  In fact, the only time I as a student ever really saw a principal was maybe if they were walking through the hallways of the school in between classes.  To me they were these grey suit (seriously, almost every principal I ever had wore grey suits) wearing, stern-looking men that rarely spoke unless they called you to the office.  They rarely smiled, they rarely cracked a joke...I don't think I even remember hearing one so much as laugh.

Mr. Belding on the other hand had his own...unique laugh.



Am I right in thinking that you probably got annoyed after the first twenty seconds of all that laughter that you shut the video off after a while?  It's okay if you want to admit it.  I did the same thing the first time I watched this video too.

Anybody who has watched the show knows that Mr. Belding's laugh is one-of-a-kind, and definitely noticeable.  Anyone who has watched the show also knows that three-quarters of the time when he does laugh, it's at something that really isn't funny at all.

A lot of the times, he laughs as he tells a funny story about his family, or when he tells a joke that most people would see as unfunny.  At least he tried to open up to his students, no matter how lame his jokes might have been.  Do you know how much I would have loved to have a school principal walk down the hallway and tell funny (or unfunny) jokes like Mr. Belding did?

I wasn't the kind of kid who used to be afraid of the principal.  Never really needed to, as I wasn't the kind of kid who caused the kind of trouble to have to be sent to the office in the first place.  Granted, I was reprimanded for talking in class, and was sent out into the hallway for bad behaviour a couple of times, but that's really as far as it went.  Truth be told, that's just one of the many reasons why I would have loved to have a Mr. Belding in my school.

Of course, that's not to say that Mr. Belding was in a jovial mood all the time.  In fact, sometimes, his excellent mood could be spoiled faster than milk left out on a kitchen counter overnight.  More often than not, it was caused by the students.  Certainly Screech and Slater caused Mr. Belding his fair share of grey hairs.  On the New Class, Scott, Ryan, Maria, and others had Mr. Belding constantly watching over them.  There was one student though that made Mr. Belding's blood pressure rise above normal.  That made his stress levels skyrocket.  That made him absolutely convinced that whenever he was around, trouble would always follow.


Enter Zack Morris.  The bane of Mr. Belding's existence at Bayside High.

Whenever Zack had a zany scheme, it always made Mr. Belding mad.  And Zack did some rather crazy things in his four years at Bayside.  He set up a teen line with Lisa and Screech and gave bad advice so he could get more money.  He hired an actor to impersonate his father when Mr. Belding wanted to discuss Zack's conduct in school.  When Mr. Belding forced him to date his niece in exchange for getting a suspension from school, he forced Screech to pose as him so he could be Kelly's date for her birthday party.

No wonder Mr. Belding seemed to have a love/hate relationship with Zack.

Ah, but therein lies the conflict of feelings.  Notice how I said that the relationship between Mr. Belding and Zack was love/hate.  That's because when Zack wasn't scheming to get out of trouble with Mr. Belding, he was scheming to try and help Mr. Belding out.

Remember the episode where an earthquake hit, and trapped Zack in the elevator with Mrs. Belding and Tori, his 'flavour of the month'?  In that episode, Mrs. Belding was heavily pregnant and the earthquake caused her to go into premature labour.  Zack and Tori were forced to deliver the baby inside the elevator while Mr. Belding and the rest of the gang were outside hoping that everything was okay.  Zack had to calm Tori down, but he stayed cool and helped deliver Mr. and Mrs. Belding's baby boy.  A boy that Mr. Belding named after Zack Morris.

So clearly there's some feelings of respect between Zack and Mr. Belding.

Would you also believe that the opposite was true as well? 

When the Bayside High hangout The Max was threatened with being torn down by the school board, Zack tried to get Mr. Belding to help them save it, but when Mr. Belding refused to help them, Zack did a little digging up and, well...this scene below took place. (3:04)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qX98jT76Rs&feature=related

I think what I liked best about the Zack and Mr. Belding relationship was the fact that they brought out the best in each other, and both of them really developed a firm friendship in the process by the time they graduated.

I'm not exactly saying that I wanted a relationship like that with my school principal, but it would have been nice to know that I could go to my principal whenever I had a problem.  Here's just a few examples of what he did for his students over the years.



He helped Slater grieve the loss of a pet.
He helped Kelly cheer up when students took advantage of her during teacher/student swap week
He took on Screech as his administrative assistant.
On the New Class, he helped Rachel assist a student suffering from a learning disability.
He helped Liz cope with losing an important swim meet.
He educated Tony on the dangers of cigar smoking.

Those are just a few examples of how he has succeeded in his role of principal.  Still not convinced that he has a purpose yet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciKDfaTjVV0

The backstory...Mr. Belding's much younger and much hipper brother Rod took over a science class.  Mr. Belding was planning a class trip for Zack's class touring national parks, but Rod convinced the class to go on a rafting trip instead.  The class was so impressed by the idea that they wanted Rod to take them on the trip instead of the less cool Mr. Belding.  The above scene showed that Rod didn't nearly have as much charisma as he claimed, and that Mr. Belding was willing to fight for the students rights, because as principal, that was what he believed was right.  In fact, Mr. Belding said that he would be glad to take the class on the trip, which earned Zack's respect even more.

Ultimately, having a principal that would stand by his students is what we all want.  I know that as I grow older and if the cards allow me to become a father, or oversee a workplace someday, I'd want to be seen as a role model.

I would also hope that if I were to be compared to someone in authority, it would be exactly like Mr. Belding.  I'd rather have a guy who would stand up for you and be a caring principal instead of someone who runs a school like a dictatorship. 

Besides, as we show this one last video clip, it helps if you do have some sort of respectful relationship with your former students.  Because if there ever comes a time when the school you have been a principal of is doomed for demolition, it's nice to have friends around who will go to bat for you and the school.


We salute you, Principal Richard Belding for everything that you have done.  It is my hope that people will one day not see you as the bumbling, buffoonish cartoon character that sometimes you were portrayed to be.  Instead, I hope people see you as the kind-hearted, caring, always there when you need him role model that you should be seen as.

I sure hope that I have HALF the qualities Mr. Belding has.

Friday, June 03, 2011

TGIF: Perfect Strangers


Perfect Strangers was one of those mid-season replacement shows that ended up becoming a huge hit.  When it premiered in the spring of '86, only six episodes were filmed.  Typically, most mid-season shows don't do very well in the ratings, and it's rare that one gets picked up for a full season.  Perfect Strangers defied those odds, and ran for an additional seven years.  That's pretty impressive.

My personal opinion is that the show seemed to do well because of the fantastic chemistry between the two lead actors.  You had Mark Linn-Baker as the conservative, yet overly neurotic Larry Appleton.  And you also had Bronson Pinchot, who played Larry's cousin, the eccentric sheep-loving Myposian, Balki Bartokomous.

This blog entry is mostly about Balki.  I do mention 'Cousin Larry' in this entry as well, but truth is, I didn't find him as interesting as Balki.  So, I guess in one sense, I find one stranger more perfect than the other.  They both have their flaws though.


I'm going to tackle this blog entry a little bit differently.  If you've been keeping track of this blog at all, you'll know that I usually go on and on about who the person (or subject) is, why I chose them, and what lessons I've learned from them, or what similarities I have to them, yada yada yada...

I'm just going to come right out and tell you what Balki Bartokomous and Larry Appleton taught me.  Right here, right now.

Balki taught me to appreciate the little things in life.  He also taught me never to take anything for granted.

And Larry taught me that anyone can have compassion for someone if the right time comes up.

I guess I should explain this in more detail.  It'd be pretty pointless to come up with a conclusion right off the bat without providing evidence of it. 

I present Exhibit A...or exhibit Balki...



You may have watched the opening credits of 'Perfect Strangers' that I posted at the very beginning of this section.  If you have, you'll probably have come across this scene.  I mentioned earlier that Balki was an eccentric, sheep-loving Myposian.  In case you haven't figured it out yet, Balki is not native to America.

Balki was born and raised in the island nation of Mypos.  He lived life as a shepherd on Mypos, and he later moved to Chicago in the mid-1980's after finding out that he had a distant cousin in the area.  When Balki was reunited with Larry, Larry was wary of the idea of letting Balki move in with him, as he was just getting adjusted to having his own apartment for the first time.  However, Larry decides to give him a chance, and with Larry's help, gets Balki his first American job working at a retail store run by their landlord, Mr. Twinkacetti.  Larry's hope is that by having Balki live with him, he can teach Balki all about American culture, and hopefully make him feel more at home.

Surprisingly enough though, Balki seemed to take to America quite well.  He almost understood America better than Larry (who was born and raised there) had. 

And I think part of that reason was Balki's overall enthusiasm for everything American.  He saw joy and appreciation for things that most people take for granted.  Cable television, rock music, sugarless chewing gum, traffic jams, elevators.  He genuinely seemed to enjoy it all, and be fascinated by the simple things.  In many ways, he was a lot like a five year old child, eager to explore the wide world, yet having an innocent, almost childlike way of seeing things.  It truly was refreshing to see.  Just check out some of these examples.




Ultimately, I want to be the same way too.  I think that Balki's way of life and his view on the world is one that not a lot of people seem to have, and I think that they are really missing out on quite a lot.

I know at times, I've lost sight of what is really important in my life, and wish I could stop and smell the flowers like Balki has.  It would certainly make life a lot more enjoyable and a lot less stressful. 

Somehow, Balki always seems to handle himself with grace and dignity.



Well...maybe not in THAT instance.

Balki has had his moments of greatness though.  Much of that comes from his upbringing.  Although he is very excited to live in America, he never really forgot where he came from.  Just as Larry had tried to teach Balki all about American culture, Balki was just as eager to get Larry to understand the place where he came from.  In one such episode, Balki decided to show off his culinary talents by making a Myposian delicacy called the bibbi-babka.  It turned out to be a huge hit, and Larry thought that they could make a fortune with Balki's recipe. 



Balki's recipe had every ingredient needed for huge success.  It was a recipe that had been in Balki's family for generations, so he knew exactly what was needed for the perfect bibbi-babka.  If only Larry hadn't tried to alter the plan like he did in the above clip, maybe this wouldn't have happened.


I think the bibbi-babka episode perfectly expresses the point that I was trying to make regarding Balki, and why I want to try to be more like him.  Balki has the self-confidence and the common sense to know what is best for the situation, and what simply won't work.  Balki probably made his first bibbi-babka as a young child, and for years afterwards.  I would think that Balki would have enough experience to not only make a perfect bibbi-babka, but how to make one flawlessly and without stress.

Cousin Larry wanted none of that.  He thought that making them really quickly, he would be able to make even more of a profit.  He thought that by doing things the so-called American way, they'd earn better and quicker results.

Scoreboard:  Mypos 1, America 0.

I don't know about you, but I think that Larry could have taken a few pages from Balki's book.  Balki made his bibbi-babkas with love and patience, and they turned out to be a success.  Larry rushed through the process and it blew up, quite literally in his face.

Now, I ask you...which would you want to be like more?

There is a downside to Balki's childlike innocence though.  A downside that has gotten Balki into some rather bad situations. 

And, this is where my point about Larry comes into play.

Towards the end of the series, (in a plotline that even I found kinda farfetched), Balki is discovered by a music producer, and he records a song as 'Fresh Young Balki B'.  It's an effort that he is incredibly proud of, and he put everything he had into recording the song because he wanted everyone to see his success.  He wanted his mother, his girlfriend Mary Anne, Cousin Larry, and Larry's fiancee Jennifer to watch the video on MTV.

Unfortunately for Balki, the record company dubbed in another man's voice in place of Balki's.  The record company Milli Vanilli-fied Balki, and Balki was left hurt, confused, and disappointed by the whole thing instead of feeling proud of doing something that he thought people would enjoy.

And Larry couldn't stand to see Balki so hurt.  As painful as this may be to watch, you gotta admire Larry's courage and not being afraid to embarrass himself to try and seek some sort of vindication for Balki (@ 5:14).


On the surface, Larry Appleton may come across as the type of person who only cares about himself, and how he acts arrogant at times...but when prompted, or when he sees injustice, he is the first one to step in and defend you against it.

He also seems to have just the right things to say at exactly the right moment, and is very empathetic towards people who are feeling pain.  (I've also been told by a couple of friends of mine that I have those qualities as well, but don't tell them I told you, okay?  LOL)

But I'm sure you want one more example of this.  Before Balki ended up with Mary Anne, he was trying to find love with a woman named Carol, who basically used Balki.  Larry tried to help him get through the heartbreak below.


I'd probably do the same thing Larry did.  Because that's how good of a friend Larry was to Balki. 

In fact, I think that's why Larry and Balki got along so well.  They helped each other out as best they could.  Balki showed Larry the virtue of patience, and through some wacky Myposian customs, helped Larry become a better man for himself, and a better boyfriend/husband to Jennifer.  Larry repaid Balki by helping him cope with life's disappointments and standing by him when times got rough.

Really, if there's anything that anyone can learn from watching Perfect Strangers, it's the value of true friendship.  Larry Appleton and Balki Bartokomous had that true friendship.

It's a friendship that many people wish they could find.

How about you guys?  Do you have a Larry or a Balki in your life that through thick and thin will always be there for you?  I'd love to hear from any of you on the subject!

Thursday, June 02, 2011

Thursday Night at the Arcade: Terra from Final Fantasy VI



Before I start off with this blog entry, I'll start by telling you a small, but true story about a man with a dream, and how he almost gave up on his dream due to a lack of success.

Hironobu Sakaguchi was born in Japan. He had gone to school for a degree in electrical engineering, but dropped out before he got his certification. In the mid-1980's, he was hired at a newly formed branch of an electric company as a part-time worker.

That branch was known as Square.

In 1986, Square became an independent company, focusing on computer and video game development. When the company broke off on its own, Sakaguchi was promoted to the position of Director of Planning and Development. That meant that he was in charge of coming up with original ideas for future games. Although at first, his success was fleeting. He had little success with designing games, and he was beginning to second guess his choice to leave university.

In 1987, he had sketched out some details for a role-playing game that he had felt was his last shot at making a name for himself in the video game industry. If this idea flopped, then he would leave behind the video game industry and go back to school. He even created a title for the game based on that whole idea alone.

The video game was first released in Japan one week before Christmas 1987 for the Famicon system (which in North America is better known as the Nintendo Entertainment System). The game had great success in Japan, and when it was later imported to the shores of North America on July 12, 1990, the sales continued to skyrocket. The following year, Sakaguchi was promoted to Vice-President of Square, and four years after that, he became the President of the company. All because of the idea that he came up with that he was sure would have been his swan song.

The game? Final Fantasy.

Over the years, Final Fantasy has become anything but. In 2010, the game series released both its thirteenth and fourteenth versions of the game, and that's not counting all the prequels and sequels for the main games at that. The seventh edition has more spin-offs than the Mary Tyler Moore show!

I must say that I myself have been immersed in the worlds of Final Fantasy. All the games are different in their own way. Sure, there's some common enemies and themes and magic spells, but the storylines and character development is so uniquely different from game to game.

As a result of this, whenever Arcade Thursday comes around, you may end up expecting a lot of Final Fantasy references, because some of the characters are so deep with development that I can find myself comparing myself to a whole bunch of them. So, be warned.



The character that I've chosen to feature in this blog entry happens to be from Final Fantasy VI, which was released in North America in October 1994...or was it III?



You see, that was part of the confusion. Final Fantasy VI was actually released as Final Fantasy III. The reason being that not all the Japanese versions made it to North American shores. The first game was known as Final Fantasy all over the world. The second and third games released in Japan were not released in North America at the time of their creation. Final Fantasy IV did get released in North America, but it was called Final Fantasy II here. The fifth game was skipped over, but the sixth one was released as the North American version of Final Fantasy III.

Confused? So am I, come to think of it. My apologies.

Eventually, all the Japanese games made it over here through use of game emulators and future video game consoles like the PlayStation and Nintendo DS. For now, let's just go by the Japanese number, since it's far less confusing.

So as I was saying, Final Fantasy VI was released in 1994, and the basic gist of the game is that there's this madman Kefka who is insistent on destroying the world, and you have to stop him. Naturally, there are lots of battles along the way, including a potentially apocalyptic event that happens midway through the game by Kefka, and the ultimate mission is to slay him and try to rebuild the world he has destroyed. Oh, and you help people along the way, and learn some things about your characters in the process.

The one thing I loved about this game was the character development. The plot was good, though it could get tedious at times, and the battle system was pretty decent too. The characters were well-thought out, and in the end, you couldn't help but find something to like about them, or even feel sympathy towards. I'll admit that I even felt a little bad for Kefka, even though he was the main antagonist in the story. But, I'll save that entry for another day.

No, instead of the antagonist, I'll feature on the protagonist.



Meet Terra Branford. At just 18 years old, she is a formidable fighter who slayed fifty soldiers in just minutes. She's tough, yet damaged. Beautiful, but tortured. Soft-spoken, yet emotionally scarred.

And apparently, she loves to dye her hair the same colour as the inside of an Andes chocolate mint. Go figure.

Right off the bat, when we're first introduced to Terra, she's invading the town of Narshe, looking for a frozen Esper (a monster-like creature that leaves behind Magicite when they die, of which humans can learn how to use magic spells from).

Yeah, the game is very much fantasy based, in case you couldn't already tell.

Terra and a couple of soldiers come across the Esper, but before they can take it away, the Esper kills the soldiers and knocks Terra unconscious. She wakes up in a house outside of Narshe, and it is revealled that she was wearing some sort of crown that caused her to lose control of her own mind. Kefka and Emperor Gestahl of the Imperial Empire used the crown to do their bidding. The real plan was to gather as much Magicite as possible so they could use it to make their army invincible, and having Terra on their side was a huge advantage.

Without the crown, Terra was free of the clutches of the Imperial army, but at the cost of losing her own memory. There was no time to reflect on it though. She had to escape Narshe before the army caught her again. With help from Locke, a thief/treasure hunter and Edgar, the king of nearby Figaro, she began her escape, and joined the opposition army of the Empire, known as the Returners. She was well on her way to total freedom from the Empire when an attack on Narshe by the Empire prompted the team to head back there to protect the frozen Esper from Kefka.

It is here that you see this scene immediately afterwards.  (It starts at around 1:29)



Yep...you saw that right. Terra went from chocolate mint headed woman to fuzzy pink Muppet, flying across mountains and crash landing in a city called Zozo. Naturally, the gang wanted to find out what had happened to Terra, so after leaving Narshe, they arrived at Zozo where they found Terra in her monster form, as well as a strange old man named Ramuh, who shed some light on what had happened with Terra. Turns out that she had some of the same characteristics as the Esper that was found in the Narshe mines because she could use magic and because of her monster-like appearance. Turns out that Ramuh was also an Esper. There was an island over by an Imperial base that was rumoured to be the homeland of the Espers, but they blocked off the entrance to keep outsiders away after unwanted visitors infiltrated the Esper world eighteen years earlier.



How timely!  Terra happens to be eighteen years old too! This couldn't be a coincidence, could it?

After infiltrating the Magitek Factory on the southern continent and stealing the Magicite supply that the Empire had previously taken from the Esper world eighteen years earlier, they head back to Zozo. Something strange happens when they visit Terra the second time around. One of the Magicite shards, the one that came from an Esper named Maduin started glowing and then Terra started glowing, and everyone was freaked out. But, there was a reason.



I'll summarize the video. A young lady named Madonna (and no, it's not the same Madonna that asserted herself to be a material girl while simultaneously acting like a virgin), accidentally ended up in the Esper world where she met Maduin. They fell in love, and they had a daughter together. Terra.

NOTE:  I actually have no idea where the name Madonna came from, since in the Japanese version, her name is Madeline.  There's your geek factoid for today all.

So therefore, Terra is half-human, half-Esper.

Shortly after her birth was the invasion of the Esper World from the Empire. Madonna was killed, and Maduin and Terra were taken back to the Magitek factory. Maduin's strength was drained to the point where he was near-death, and Terra was raised to be an Imperial Knight, sent to terrorize the global population in the Empire's quest for power.

Whew. Quite the backstory, eh?

Now comes the fun part. How to tie Terra's personality into mine somehow. I don't like fighting, so that's out. I'm not female, so that's out. I certainly don't have green hair, so that's not quite it.

I think in order to find out what Terra and I have in common, you need to watch this scene (which begins appropriately enough at 2:14). It takes place after Terra, Locke, and the ninja warrior Shadow board a ferry from the town of Albrook to Crescent Island with General Leo Cristophe of the Imperial army.



So Terra's Esper background made her feel somewhat insecure of herself. She always saw herself as not being like everyone else. When she first met King Edgar, she noticed the crowds of women swooning over him, and remarked to herself that a “normal girl would have found him dashing”. Right there, you get the impression that she saw herself as not like everyone else. She was ashamed of her behaviour as a soldier, and tried to deny it even though she knew she couldn't. On top of that, she had the ability to turn into her Esper form, which most of the people in the world did not know.

Therefore, I can only come to the conclusion that she must have had a rather lonely childhood. And that probably affected her feelings, or lack there of.

See, because of all those factors, Terra didn't know what the concept of love was. She had never really had any experience with it. Sure, Maduin and Madonna loved her with all their hearts, but they only had her for a short time before Gestahl and Kefka abducted them. From that moment, Terra was seen as little more than a marionette with the Empire controlling her strings. She never had a normal childhood, and she was brainwashed into thinking that everyone was the enemy, so how could she know what love was?

And while my life was pretty much not as...um...sadistic as Terra's was, I do know exactly what she might have been going through.

I realize that I'm probably going to take a big step here by telling all of you this, but at this point, I'm too old to be keeping any skeletons in my closet. Especially since in the Final Fantasy world, they can come back to life and try to attack you.

Like Terra, I have a difficult time with the whole concept of love. Like Terra, I've never really been in any position to fall in love with anybody. Until recently, like Terra, I thought the problem was with me, and not anything else.

Having to work through years of low self-esteem and emotional abuse, it makes it difficult to love someone else when you can't even love yourself first. Really, that should be the most important thing. If you feel good about yourself, you tend to find ways to make other people feel just as good as you are...maybe even better.

It wasn't until a couple of years ago that I started to heal from all of that, and began to work on my physical and emotional reconstruction. Truth be told, I was tired of living that way, and should have done it earlier, but the right opportunity hadn't come by until recently. I'll maybe talk about it in a future entry if you don't let me forget it. All you need to know is for the first time in years, I'm actually starting to enjoy the person that I have become.

Terra Branford struggled as well. When she first appeared in the game of Final Fantasy VI, she was so completely confused as to who she was. It was cruelly taken away from her by those who had imprisoned her inside the Imperial Empire. By the time she reached adulthood, she was left without any sort of identity whatsoever. It wasn't until she was rescued by Locke that she began to find herself...and more importantly find love.

In a wickedly ironic twist in the game, Kefka ends up taking over the world after the Returners fail at their mission to protect the Esper world, and using some sort of weapon called the 'Light of Judgment' to destroy cities, towns, lakes, forests, and mountains. The Returners were all separated during the events of the world crumbling, and Terra happened to find herself outside the town of Mobliz, destroyed by Kefka.

When Terra entered the ruins of the town, she was horrified to learn that everybody over the age of eighteen had died in the destruction of Mobliz. They had died trying to protect their children from the disaster. Immediately, Terra lost her will to fight. All she wanted to do was stay with the children. With help from the oldest of the children, Duane and Katarin, Terra took care of all the children. The children grew to adore Terra, even calling her 'Mama' as a sign of affection. When some members of the Returners were reunited with Terra, they asked her to join them so they could take care of Kefka once and for all, but Terra refused. All she wanted to do was be there for the children. Nothing more.

Of course, Kefka wasn't the only danger to the remaining residents of Mobliz. There was a monster named Phunbaba that was trying to terrorize the town, and Terra was simply too weak to even throw a punch at it. But eventually, you'll witness this lovely scene (which technically starts around the five minute mark, but if you want to see her fight, you can click before this).



See, the kids didn't care that Terra was in her Esper form. They could tell that she was their 'Mama'. Their love for Terra was strong enough that they would accept her in any form. And, that love finally cleared up Terra's feelings about love. Terra loved the children of Mobliz, and she would do anything to see that they had a future in a world that was dying. She had finally found what it had meant to love someone, and that was her motivation for rejoining the Returners.

So you see...the lesson that I learned from Terra Branford is this. Sometimes it's hard to find yourself in this world. Sometimes you're faced with choices that you feel are a Catch-22 situation no matter what choice you pick. Sometimes you don't even get a choice at all. When faced with odds like that, it's no wonder some people struggle with finding out who they really are.

The thing that Terra taught me is that nothing is impossible. Terra had such a terrible upbringing that she was convinced that she couldn't understand a basic emotion of love. While it may have taken the tragic destruction of Mobliz to awaken those feelings inside of her, she eventually discovered that yes, she was capable of loving someone, and having someone love her.

I'm certain that one day, it will happen for me too. And without having a town burn down!

You just can't give up. You can't let your past dictate your future. As you can tell from my blog entries, I'm still having some issues with it, but at least by sharing those issues, it shows everyone that I'm not afraid to share my feelings. I haven't let those negative experiences harden me to the point where I'm bitter about what happened. It's coming along, but there's still some work that I need to do.

But hey...I love a challenge.

I guess if I go back to the beginning of this note, I'm kind of like Mr. Sakaguchi. He took a chance at designing a video game while having a back-up plan on the side, and it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to him.

My Final Fantasy moment is coming people. This I'm certain of.

My Terra Branford moment will be arriving as well.

I just hope the trains don't collide midway...that would just be messy. :D



Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Across the Pond and Beyond: Mr. Bean


I know what you all must be thinking.  You all know by now that this blog is all about analyzing pop culture happenings from the past and present, and trying to find a way to come up with lessons learned from characters, or how I'm like the character, show, movie, etc.

Mr. Bean seems to break the mould, doesn't he?


I mean, let's face it.  I'm certainly not the type of man who would take an electric shaver to my tongue inside my bathroom where my tighty-whities are on full display on an indoor clothesline.  No, you have to be a pretty unique individual to do something like that.

Mr. Bean is your quintessential six-year-old boy trapped inside the body of a 40-year-old man (or whatever age Mr. Bean is supposed to be).  Even Rowan Atkinson admitted to this in an interview a few years ago.  He's self-centered, he gets pouty when he doesn't get what he wants, and as far as treating others with kindness and charity, well...he fails miserably at it every time.

I have to admit that when I first started to write this blog a week ago, I knew that I had wanted to feature Mr. Bean as an entry.  Today just happens to be Across the Pond and Beyond Wednesday.  As you know, it's a day that I have devoted to celebrating culture that is not native to North America.  Certainly, Mr. Bean being British certainly qualifies.

I had no idea that when I sat down to write this entry that it would be so difficult to find some similarities between Mr. Bean and Mr. Turcotte.  Almost impossible, really.  I enjoy a challenge however, and Mr. Bean has always been a favourite of mine for years, so I really wanted to do a tribute to him while at the same time finding some sort of link between himself and myself.

On the surface, I didn't come up with anything.

Last year, I bought the Whole Bean DVD compilation.  All thirteen episodes of Mr. Bean, plus an unseen bonus episode were in a three-disc set.  Whereas most television series run in seasons that usually run between twenty-one and twenty-six episodes per year, Mr. Bean's run was more sporadic in nature.  Instead, they were broadcast as television specials that ran between 1989 and 1996.  Bean: The Movie (1997) and Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007) followed afterwards. 

I have watched every episode of Mr. Bean, as well as the two movies, hoping that I could come up with examples to use in this blog.

As I said, I enjoy a challenge.

Mr. Bean is the type of person that puts himself first and nobody else.  I'm not exactly like that.  My idea of self-indulgence is walking over to Bulk Barn and buying a bag of sour jujubes.  Mr. Bean, on the other hand, seems to think that the world should revolve around him.  When it doesn't work out that way, he gets frustrated, and pouts.

I'll admit to being that way.  When I was twelve. 

Mr. Bean also seems to be incredibly shy.  Well, okay, maybe not shy to the point where he runs and hides from people whenever they approach.  He doesn't exactly make an effort to speak to people near him though.  In fact, in the average episode of Mr. Bean, you'd be lucky if you ended up hearing a complete sentence out of him.

In a few episodes, Mr. Bean seems to exhibit a sort of a mean streak at times.  He sometimes plays pranks on people or hurts people's feelings to get what he wants.  Yeah, that's definitely not personality traits that I want associated with me.  At least, I hope nobody has that opinion about me.

I was ready to give up hope of ever finding something that would forever link me to Mr. Bean, and right at the tail end of the last Mr. Bean episode I watched, it hit me.  That's the character trait that Mr. Bean and I share.  That's what sets both of us apart from everyone else.

First, here's the episode that inspired me to have the thought in the first place.  Watch the clip, and I'll tell you what it is.  Don't worry.  I won't forget.


Yep.  You figured it out.  I use a stuffed animal to paint my walls, and when that doesn't work, I wrap everything in newspaper and blow up a paint can with a firecracker.

You're not buying it, eh?

All right.  Here's the real reason.

Sure, Mr. Bean's method of painting his house isn't exactly the method that I would partake in...but it seemed to work for him.  He was resourceful enough to come up with a quicker solution that many wouldn't care to think of in a million years, but worked out for him.

And, that my friends is where we are similar.

We both do things that work for us that won't work for most other people.

Now, since I shared an example of Mr. Bean's unusual way of looking at things, I'll share an example of my own.

A few years back, when I was in high school, I was assigned to do a class project.  It was in senior year English class, if memory serves me.  We had to do an independent study that was assigned to us back in February.  We had until June to work on it.  Our teacher fully expected us to work on the project the whole semester in addition to our daily homework.  We were supposed to read three books that had a common theme to them, and from there we would have to do an oral and written presentation of the books in the form of a book report and a dramatic portion.

I'll just speed ahead to what most of the other kids in the class did.  Most of them did a standard basic book report on three books in those standard report covers, and their oral presentations for the most part were little fifteen minute speeches that were more or less along the lines of "this is what I read, this is why it links, blah, blah, blah..."

I suppose that way was the safe approach, and certainly speaking, as long as they were accurate in their portrayals of the books and the theme, it would have gotten a good mark.

But I wasn't really content to go that route with my project at all.  I wanted to take a risk.  I wanted to be as unconventional with my project as I could possibly be.

Even if it completely tanked.

For starters, while everyone else had chosen three books to read, I was taking a chance right off the bat by only choosing two.  I talked it over with my teacher before I got too far with my planning to see if I could do my study with only two books, and she agreed.  I think part of the reason why she agreed to it was because of the choice of topic as well as the choice of authors.  My topic was Irish authors and their portrayal of life in Ireland through the eyes of a person who lived there.  Fair topic.  One of the books I had chosen was "Angela's Ashes" by Frank McCourt.  Good book, by the way.  That book was approved by the teacher, no problem. 

It was my second book that raised a few eyebrows.  I initially wanted to read the book "Ulysses" by James Joyce, and immediately my teacher tried to talk me out of it.  She said that James Joyce was an author whose work was incredibly tough to read.  And anyone who has read Ulysses knows that it's one of the biggest books ever written.  At a whopping 265,000 words, is it any wonder why I wanted to only stick with two books?

My teacher did suggest that I could keep the two books I was going to do, and she said that she had no problem with me choosing James Joyce as an author...but that I'd probably be better off reading a smaller book of his.

I disagreed.  I would have welcomed the challenge to read Ulysses and do a book report on it along with Angela's Ashes.

As it turned out though, I did come across another book of Joyce's.  "A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man".  I happened to like that book much better than Ulysses, which I gave up on after a month.  Guess the teacher was right after all. 

I told her my new book idea, and it was approved.  So, I read both books, and wrote a really detailed written essay on the topic I had chosen.  That part was easy.  I was the type of person who could write a history essay in four hours and still get a ninety per cent on it.  Writing essays and book reports were not a challenge at all.

The oral report was different.  Not because I had stage fright talking in front of my classmates.  I had no problem with that whatsoever.  It was trying to come up with a creative oral presentation that people would remember.

It then dawned on me...why don't I take details from both books and mish-mash them together into a sort of role-playing exercise?

That's exactly what I did.  I turned the classroom into an Irish classroom, similar to what was portrayed in the books, and went from there.

Angela's Ashes, for example, talked about how they used to snack on lemonade and toffees.  I ended up bringing in lemonade and Werther's Originals for the kids to snack on while I presented my oral report.  In the James Joyce book, the main character gets punished by the teacher for misbehaving during a test.  I simulated that part.  The lesson plan as well as the fake test I prepared was all about Irish culture, bringing up key plot points from both books into the lesson plan, so the teacher knew that I did in fact read the books.

The kids loved it.  The teacher loved it.  More importantly, I loved it.

I was given an assignment and right off the bat, I made some rather unconventional moves in planning it.  Choosing unfamiliar authors, designing a way-out there oral presentation.  Lots of things could have gone wrong in the whole plan, but I was determined to make it work with my resourcefulness and my creativity no matter how little sense it made to anyone else.

Turns out, it worked out fine.  I didn't even have a single Mr. Bean sized mishap.

The same can be said for Mr. Bean as well.  He may do some of the craziest things in the world, and some of his actions could be considered unconventional, nonsensical, and even dangerous.  Somehow though, it all turned out right for Mr. Bean.  Whether he tries to make it to the dentist on time...


...takes up a career in babysitting...



...makes himself a sandwich...




...or tries to hook up his new television...


...in the end, it always seems to work out for him...just like it'll work out for me when I find unconventional solutions to my own problems.

Though, in that last clip, Mr. Bean could have avoided that problem by living in a flat without a coin-operated fusebox.  Just sayin'.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

What a Magic 8-Ball Taught Me About Myself


I'm sure that most of you reading this blog entry has owned, or at the very least heard of the Magic 8-Ball.  It's a mystical, magical orb, based on the most popular of all pool table balls that if you ask it the right question, it could predict the future!  Crystal balls?  Those were relegated to the carnivals and the red tents where women older than Carol Channing would attempt to spout off some mumbo-jumbo about how you'd find love in an unlikely place, and how you would live a long life, blah, blah, blah.

To me, it was pure fun to have a Magic 8-Ball.  The questions one could ask it were endless.  Hard to believe that the toy itself is over six decades old!

I think I got my very first Magic 8-Ball around twenty years ago.  I loved that thing.  I loved that thing so much that when I attended a summer playground camp as a child, I brought the Magic 8-Ball with me to show off.  It proved to be a big hit with the kids, and in some way, I was relieved because the Magic-8 Ball was right!

No, seriously!  Before I left for the playground, I asked the Magic 8-Ball "If I brought you to the playground to show off to the kids, would they like it?"

The response?


And lo and behold, the Magic 8-Ball was dead on!  Freaky, no?

Truth be told, I think during my early childhood, I relied on the Magic 8-Ball to answer life's fleeting questions.  Would I finish my homework?  Would I get to play Super Mario 3?  Would my teacher give me a good report card?

(For the record, the answers were usually 'Yes', 'All Signs Point To Yes', and 'Reply Hazy Try Again'.)

Apparently, my Magic 8-Ball felt that I needed to wait until June like everyone else did.

One day, I had come home from school very upset.  I think it was one of those days where everything that could have possibly went wrong did go wrong.  I had lost my math book, I slipped on the ice and fell into a puddle, and I couldn't find a partner to work on an art assignment with me, so I had to work by myself.

I was not having a good day that day, so I picked up the Magic 8-Ball, and asked it "Will I have a better day tomorrow?"

This was the answer. 



Nice, huh?

Of course, I was quite upset.  You have to understand that I was a gullible ten-year-old child back then.  I had really started to rely on the ethereal power of the Magic 8-Ball, and when it told me that my day would be even worse the next day, I was not looking forward to it.

I didn't want to go to school the next day.  Tried to fake having a sore throat.  My mother was the overprotective type anyways...I was sure I could convince her that I was sick so I didn't have to go to school.  The Magic 8-Ball said that I was in for a terrible day at school!  And the Magic 8-Ball had a success rate of one hundred per cent as far as I was concerned.  If I was to go to school, I was doomed!  DOOMED!

Yet, when I tried to tell my mom that I was sick, she didn't believe me, and sent me on my way to school.

My thoughts were...here it comes.  This is where it begins.  The Magic 8-Ball prophecy has been made, and now it must come true.

So, anyone wanna take a guess at how the day turned out?

I ended up getting 100% on my spelling test.  The only one in the class to get that mark, might I add.  I got a good mark on a math test.  I ended up playing Four-Square with three other kids at recess, which was great fun.  I even ended up getting a compliment in gym class!  I never got compliments in gym class.  I HATED gym class!

Magic 8-Ball LIED!  It totally lied.  It said I would have the worst day ever, and it turned out to be the complete opposite.

Everything that I had believed in as a ten-year-old had come crashing down like a tower of blocks that had been smashed into with a Hot Wheels car.

The Magic 8-Ball was...WRONG!  But how?  It had been so right before.  What was different?

It wasn't until I was an adult that I ended up figuring out the reason.

The Magic 8-Ball was just a toy.  It always had been.  But the imagination of a child is a powerful thing.  As children, we want to believe in everything, and we let our imaginations take ordinary household objects and turn them into magical things.  Mine just happened to be the Magic 8-Ball.

Prior to the massive epic fail that the Magic 8-Ball delivered that one day in 1991, I had had a near-perfect record with it.  Looking back on it though, I did ask it some rather elementary questions.  I asked it if I was going to get my homework done, and it said that I would.  So, I did it.  I asked it if I was going to play video games, and it said yes, so I did it. 

But in all honesty, I probably would have done those things anyway without the aid of the Magic 8-Ball.  Why?  Because I wanted to.  I wanted to do my homework so I didn't fall behind and have to do more.  I wanted to play video games because they were fun.  That was it.  Simple.

And maybe that epic failure that the Magic 8-Ball delivered to me that day wasn't so much of a fail.  Maybe deep down inside, I was determined to go against the ball as a way to show that I didn't need to rely on it to tell me what to do.  I ended up having a great day because of it.

So, should I tell these guys my lesson as to what I learned?



Screw it, I would've told them anyways.  :D

The lesson is that one shouldn't rely on someone (or in this case something) to make their choices and decisions for them.  They have to make their own minds up and decide what is best for them.  While the novelty of having a Magic 8-Ball was good to have, it was just that.  A novelty.  It shouldn't be my life.  It's not my life now, and I probably won't ask it to make up my mind for me again.

That being said, my original Magic 8-Ball is something that I no longer have.  It had gotten smashed during a move.  I am contemplating buying another one though...you know...just for fun.  Maybe I could even get that new Glee version!



Then again...maybe not.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Monday Matinee: Grease Is The Word

This blog post is one that initially I wasn't planning on doing.  I actually had another movie that I was going to talk about in place of this one.  At the last minute, I decided to hold off on the planned one until next Monday, and am going ahead with an idea that I thought would work better.

Why?  Two reasons.

First, I wanted to see if I could challenge myself and my writing abilities.  My hope is that by coming up with topics spur of the moment and pushing myself to write a blog entry on it without any sort of plan made, I can improve my writing skills.  In addition, I wanted to have some sort of fantasy that I really was writing this story for an entertainment magazine or a newspaper, and that I had a limited time to jot something down when given a last minute assignment.  So, that's exactly what I'm trying to do...so that if lady luck smiles on me one day and hands me an opportunity to have a career in something that I love, I'll be well prepared to handle any stress that might happen along the way.

The second reason being that one of the stars of the movie I've decided to feature recently passed away, and at the end of this blog entry will be a little bit of a note explaining it in detail.

Before we do that though, I will kick off the first installment of Monday Matinee with one of the first movies I can remember seeing.


The movie "Grease" was released in 1978.  Three years before I was born.  Yet, one of my earliest memories from my early childhood surrounds this movie.

I think it must have been back around 1986 or 1987 when I was first introduced to Grease, and in an unlikely manner too.  See, if you do the math, you'll notice that I was roughly five years old at the time.  And at the time, my bedtime was something like eight o'clock. 

One Saturday night, my mother was looking at the television guide that back in those days used to be inserted into the Friday night newspaper.  She happened to notice that Grease was showing on WWNY-TV (that's channel 7 on our cable dial) that very night.  Grease was one of her favourite movies, and certainly, this was one of the first times that the movie had screened on network television.  She really wanted me to see it too, as my older sisters had both seen it previously.  There was just one problem.  Grease wasn't slated to start until 11:35pm...which was after the eleven o'clock news.  This was three hours after my supposed bedtime.

My mom however was insistent that I watch the movie because she thought that I would like it...even though I was only five, and my television viewing was largely limited to Polka Dot Door, Mr. Dressup, and Sesame Street.  So, after napping for most of that Saturday, I was allowed to stay up late to watch Grease.  I think I went to bed at like two in the morning, but I still remember that day as if it happened yesterday, and not a quarter of a century ago.

It was a great movie though.  Of course, when I was five years old, and trying to stay awake to watch a late night movie, you don't really remember a lot the first viewing.  I have seen the movie many, many times since that day though, and like my mother, it happens to be one of my favourite movies too.

The movie itself was based on the successful musical of the same name, and it takes place in the 1950s.  The stars of the movie were Danny Zuko and Sandy Olsson, played by John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, and basically the plot revolves around their summer romance, and the hilarity that ensues when they discover that they're both attending the same high school.  It's this plot that this blog entry is going to focus on.


You all have heard the saying that opposites attract, right?  In this case, that's exactly what happened.  On one side, you had the demure, soft-spoken Sandy who always dressed appropriately and hardly ever got in trouble.  On the other side, you had Danny Zuko, who loved to work on cars, and get into trouble with the T-Birds.  Of course, neither one had actually seen those sides of each other when they first met and fell in love the previous summer.  She was just an exchange student from Australia, and he was just a boy on the beach.  That was all they really knew of each other.  Of course, they had to be separated because Sandy had to go back home to Australia, and she was worried that she'd never see Danny again.

Fate had a funny way of working out though, and Sandy ended up staying in America to attend Rydell High.  She instantly befriended the Pink Ladies, and told them all about her romance with Danny.  Danny, meanwhile was telling the T-Birds all about his romance with Sandy, not realizing that Sandy was nearby.



Well, okay, they actually SANG about it.

Now, as a five year old boy watching this, I just saw it as people singing for no apparent reason.  Through thirty year old ears, I listen more carefully.  If you listen to the lyrics real close, you'll notice something.  Sandy's account of the summer love is filled with innocence and purity and lots of references to splashing around, and drinking lemonade.  Danny's is a little less innocent in nature, and he pretty much brags to his friends about saving her from drowning and making out.

This is important in many ways, but I think the main reason behind this shows that both of them seem to have different views of the situation.  I get the feeling that Sandy talks about Danny lovingly because she's genuinely in love with him, and I guess in some way, she was taught that love is special and pure, and filled with innocence.  Deep down though, you know that she's more than just smitten.  Danny on the other hand, is filled with bravado and confidence, and has no problems telling the guys what they want to hear...but you know that inside he really cares for Sandy, but for some reason doesn't want to admit it for fear that he will be seen as less of a man.

Remember this for later on...it's imperative in the lessons that I took from this film.

Some time later, Sandy discovers that Danny happens to be at Rydell High, and the Pink Ladies decide to stage a little reunion for the two lovebirds.  At first, Danny seemed genuinely excited when he saw Sandy...but then he decided to act cool and tough since the T-Birds happened to be around at the time.  Unfortunately for Danny, that act really turned Sandy off, and after a disasterous slumber party at Frenchy's house with the Pink Ladies, Sandy reveals that she is still carrying feelings for Danny despite his attitude.


Sandy tries to move on, even accepting a milkshake date with Tom Chisholm.  Because apparently milkshakes bring all the boys to the yard...or, so someone said some time ago, that's what I heard...ahem.

Anyway, Danny happens to notice Sandy and Tom together, and he decides that maybe he did a bad thing by acting macho in front of Sandy, so he decides to try out for some sports teams in hopes Sandy will take notice and forgive him.  Danny tries out for several sports, and almost makes the track team, but ends up getting hurt right in front of Sandy.  Sandy does help him out, he apologizes, and they try to go on another date, which happens to be interrupted by the Pink Ladies and the T-Birds.

Don't you just HATE it when that happens?

The climax of the movie takes place at the Rydell High school dance, which happens to be televised.  Danny and Sandy end up entering the contest, and they happen to be one of the last couples standing.  But then Danny and Sandy are separated by Sonny and Cha-Cha, and Cha-Cha and Danny end up winning the contest.  Sandy ended up being hurt by this, and Danny tries to make it up to her by taking her to a drive-in movie and offering her his ring.

Now, I've been told that back in the 1950s, when my mom attended grade school, when a boy gave a girl his class ring, it meant that they were going steady.  So you could only imagine Sandy's excitement when Danny offered it to her.  Then Danny got a little carried away and made one too many passes at her, and she ended up running away, prompting Danny to sing this song.


How nice that both of these characters conveniently had a song to sing about how much they loved the other one, yet neither one could really find a way to express it to the other one without getting in a fight or hurting each other's feelings by doing something the other one wouldn't like.

If they could only find a way to show that the love and affection was still there, they would be okay.

After a few scenes involving a drag race and some scenes involving Rizzo and Kenickie, we end the movie off at the carnival.  Danny happens to be wearing a school letter sweater, which he earned by competing on the track team.  The T-Birds are annoyed at Danny's new image, but Danny didn't care, because he did it to try and be more like Sandy in hopes that she'll take him back.

Well, imagine Danny's surprise when Sandy comes strolling along in a leather outfit that would make Lady Gaga jealous, in hopes that her new bad-girl image would attract Danny's attention and she hoped that she had changed enough that Danny would want to stay with her.

Then they both laughed at how silly they had been, and sang one last song, finally admitting their true feelings.


(Or, maybe they secretly liked the way the other one looked...who knows?)

To go with the whole lesson that I learned about myself while watching this movie, let's go with the first idea.

The fact of the matter is that Danny and Sandy didn't need to go through all this frustration (seriously, I never realized how frustrating a movie Grease was until I wrote this blog entry down).  They really fell in love with each other on the beach that summer night by BEING THEMSELVES.  They didn't have anyone else to tell them how they should act, or how they should dress, or what music they should listen to.  Sandy liked Danny because he was Danny.  And Danny liked Sandy because she was Sandy,

When they were reunited at Rydell High, both of them had their own crowds, and honestly, I think both of them were afraid of losing their status in the crowds because of their "opposites attract" type of relationship, so they tried to act the way that their friends wanted them to act instead of being themselves.  That caused more trouble than anything.



I think the end scene was the most telling of all.  Both Danny and Sandy thought that in order for them to have a shot, one had to change their whole outlook on life and adapt to the other person's way of thinking.  What they didn't count on was that both of them would try it at the same time.  In the end, it did show that both of them were interested in making their relationship work.  It also showed in the end, that it didn't really matter to either one of them that they were who they were.  They still loved each other.

And, I think that's what Danny and Sandy taught me about myself.  I don't need to change myself to get people to like me.  I don't have to act a certain way because people tell me I have to.  Sure, Danny's T-Bird gang were razzing him for wearing a school letter, but it's not like they abandoned him.  I know that my true friends won't abandon me for doing something that they may find dorky or strange. 

Danny and Sandy had the chance to fall in love and see each other for who they were without influence from friends or other sources.  If only they hadn't let peer pressure influence their actions, their road to romance may not have been so rocky. 

I can only hope that if I'm lucky enough to fall in love, I can have the same luck Danny and Sandy had right from the get-go.

In closing, a sad footnote to this.  Actor Jeff Conaway, who played Kenickie in Grease passed away on Friday at age 60.  He had been having problems with drugs and alcohol for years, and sadly it all caught up to him.  Grease was one of his best roles that I can remember him from, and he will be sadly missed. 

Jeff Conaway
1950 - 2011

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Sunday Funnies Spotlight: Forsythe "Jughead" Jones

As long as I can remember, I have been a fan of Archie Comics.  Most guys my age read comic books, but they were always of the typical superhero comics.  Action Comics, Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, X-Men.  You know, comics like that.

I tried to give traditional superhero comics a try.  I really did.  They just didn't tickle my fancy the way a classic Archie comic used to.

Certainly I am not the only one who has been a fan of Archie comics.  In 2011, Archie comics will be celebrating their 70th anniversary.  It's hard to believe that if Archie was aged in real time, he'd be almost ninety years old today.  That's absolutely unreal to me.

There was just something about Archie comics that attracted me from the very beginning.  And, as you'll see later on by reading this blog entry, it was one character in particular that attracted me to the comic serial.  Because as I grew up and matured from boy to man, I realized that this one character was a lot like me!

But, I'm getting ahead of myself here.

I got my first Archie comic just before my sixth birthday.  It was a Little Archie comic book, and I have to admit that the first story had me hooked.  I read that book so many times it fell apart, and it was by luck that I happened to come across another copy of it at a used bookstore years ago.  So, Little Archie was my first introduction to Archie...well, Little Archie, anyways.



My first foray into teenage Archie comics was the book seen up above from 1987.  Jughead Jones Comics Digest Magazine #44.  This is a scan of the actual book too.  Every crease and smudge on the cover is one hundred per cent real.

As you can tell, I really loved reading and re-reading my Archie comics.  And it was with this book and countless others after it that I really started to get to know the characters.

There was Archie Andrews, your red-headed, girl-crazy klutzy boy whose heart was filled with great intentions, but his plans often went bust.  There was blonde, girl-next-door Betty Cooper, who baked cookies AND fixed engines.  There was rich snob Veronica Lodge.  While she did have a heart of gold that one rarely saw, her appetite for gold, and silver, and diamonds, and rubies overshadowed most everything else.  Finally, there was the boastful, self-serving braggart known as Reggie Mantle, who is in a class all by himself.

But, this blog entry is not about them.  Rather, it's about the fifth member of this motley crew.

I don't know what it was about him, but Jughead Jones seemed to invoke a strange reaction in me.  On the surface, Jughead was pretty much a one-dimensional character who seemed to possess at least two of the seven deadly sins.  But, to me, he was a much deeper character.  All of his traits could not only be explained fully, but I found that he was so much like me that I just couldn't go on with this blog without dedicating one entry to him.

At the end, you'll understand why Jughead not only became my favourite character in Archie comics, but why Archie comics became a huge part of my life from childhood to age thirty and beyond.

So, let's dissect Jughead at the place that makes him the weakest.

FOOD.

Gluttony is a sin.  A deadly sin.  And, boy does Jughead have it.  The cover up above is just one of the many examples of this.  Whenever you read a Jughead comic, it's a fairly good chance that some sort of food will be involved.  Whether it be eating the world's largest hamburger, entering a pie-eating contest, or driving down to the corporate offices of a donut shop complaining about the size of the holes in the donuts, if there's food involved, Jughead will be there. 

It's gotten Jughead into quite a bit of trouble over the years.  From not being able to pay off his tab at Pop Tate's to getting detention for eating in Ms. Grundy's classroom, Jughead's love for food is almost obsessive-compulsive.

And I totally understand Jughead being that way.  I used to be that way.

I was one of those people who didn't see food as nourishment or nutrition.  I saw it as medicine.  Medicine that happened to have cream filling on the inside, but medicine, nonetheless.  From age 10 to about age 27, I used food to self-medicate myself.  That's as many years as Jughead Jones is supposed to be alive! 

Truth is, I used food as a way to cope with the depression that I suffered as a direct result of the bullying that I suffered from.  I was teased at school every day, and when the kids weren't making fun of me, they were ignoring me.  It made for a very lonely childhood, and even lonelier teenage years.  When most seventeen year old boys were out and about taking girls on movie and pizza dates, I stayed at home, where I spent the evening with Aunt Jemima, Sara Lee, and Betty Crocker...well...kind of like Jughead.


The only difference was that while Jughead seems very content to stuff his face with junk food, I was desperate to try and find an escape from it.  I don't say this to make excuses, but when I was at my peak with the emotional eating, I could only think about what junk food I wanted to eat next, and then when I did eat it, I felt so ashamed of myself.  When I came home from school, I just hibernated in my room, because I didn't feel proud of myself back then.  I topped the scales at 300 pounds by my senior year, and it was undoubtedly one of the most miserable times of my life.  It's only with great certainty, and with having lost 70 pounds in one year that I can say that I'm okay.  It took a really long time to get there.

But, at least I can say that I wasn't alone...watching Jughead binge-eat in some stories and gain acceptance from his peers because of it gave me some hope.  I mean, sure, I wish I could have had his metabolism...but just seeing Jughead get accepted by people despite his flaw, it did give me hope that I could eventually get to be where he was.  It just didn't start happening until I was twenty-seven.

From this note, we move on from one deadly sin to another.


There's another sin out there called "sloth", which is generally another word for laziness.  And, Jughead definitely had that mastered.  He was the master of sleeping fourteen hours a day.  He avoided chores the way that most people try to avoid influenza.  He slept in class (and as evidenced by the cover up above, he seemed to be a little ballsy about it).  And part-time jobs?  You even suggest that to him, and he breaks out in a cold sweat!  Needless to say, Jughead is NOT your idea of hard worker...at least, not on paper.

Truth be told, when I was a teenager, I had people accusing me of being lazy because I never held down an after-school job, or did after-school activities or volunteer anywhere.  It makes it a bit harder to swallow when members of your own family were making those very accusations.  I also want to get it out there that this explanation is not me making an excuse over this.  I honestly look back at that time of my life and wish I could be able to have had more of a social life and had been able to look for work.

But, it was kind of in relation to my issue with emotional eating...I felt ashamed of myself.  I didn't like the way I looked or sounded or anything.  All because I let some insecure brats make me feel badly about myself.  It was incredibly cruel and insensitive what they did, but at the same time, I wish I could have been stronger.  But that's what consistent bullying and emotional abuse does to a person.  It belittles them, and makes them feel like they want to hide away instead of face it head on.  It's especially frustrating when you don't even know what you did that would cause someone to do that to you.  On the surface, my staying at home in my room wasn't laziness at all.  It was fear of being judged.  I was left unable to take even the slightest criticism because I had been hurt so much that I just saw it as a personal attack, and it took me years of soul-searching to even begin to separate the truth from bitter sarcasm.

Whoa...I totally did not mean to get so personal in this blog.  Just went off on a tangent, I suppose.

The point is that Jughead seemed to do just fine being lazy.  Though part of that was his own choice.  More importantly, it was a choice he could live with.

Now, let's go to one OBVIOUS difference...or is it?


Jughead for some reason seems to attract a lot of attention from women that is at best, unwanted.  Especially from a young lady named Ethel.  When I was Jughead's age, on the other hand, I was very much interested in girls, but couldn't figure out how to get them to notice me.

Or, rather...I was so down on myself and had such low self-esteem that I couldn't possibly be interested in someone else.  I was having a difficult time liking myself most days back then.

Compare that to Jughead, who pretty much has one of the healthiest self-images out there (without going Reggie Mantle overboard).  I get the feeling that deep down inside, Jughead doesn't HATE women (in fact, I've read dozens of stories where he's dated women and had a great time).  In fact, I reckon that I would wager some money that if the right woman came around, Jughead would melt like a Creamsicle left outside in the hot sunshine.

Then a couple of years ago, I was thinking about Jughead in great depth and why he was a character that I idolized and respected so much as a teenager and even now, and it hit me one day.

Jughead as a teenager is similar to the adult I am now.

Sure, Jughead can be a glutton at times, but he's also used that gluttony to teach himself how to cook and bake and other food-related things.  I bet he would make a great executive chef someday.

And, yes, Jughead gets more beauty sleep than the average person.  But it's a well known fact that people who get a lot of sleep end up doing better on tests and have more alertness when it counts.  I mean, Jughead is crafty and witty, and can come up with some ingenious (albeit self-serving) plots to get what he wants.


And, Jughead might not want to be with a woman yet.  But he would make a great catch to someone if they do snag him.  He may not have much experience, but he has helped Archie get out of so many jams with Betty and Veronica that he has to know by now how NOT to treat a girl on a date.

In short, Jughead has taken his lemons, and squeezed them into lemonade in his own peculiar sense.

I think I'm doing the same thing as well.  This year in particular, I've really taken steps out of my comfort zone this past year, and have definitely made some positive changes for my future.  I figure if Jughead could do it by dating the occasional girl and working at Pop's for a couple of shifts, I could do the same.

I guess the main thing that Jughead has shown me is that one can be considered to be one of the weirdest, eccentric people in the whole world, and despite all that, they can still be accepted.  One of the main reasons why I got so attached to Archie comics was that Riverdale U.S.A. was the one place in the world where everyone loved each other, and respected each other, and showed kindness for one another.  Nobody got bullied (well, unless you hit on Midge, and then you faced the wrath of Moose), and everyone in school had a date for the dance.

It was a comfort to know that when school got to be rough and I felt lonely, I always had that place where I could go where everyone was accepted for who they were and not how they looked.  Riverdale U.S.A. was not only Jughead's safe haven...it was also mine.  It was one bright spot in my childhood, and I cherish every Archie comic that I own as a result of it all.

So, to Jughead Jones, I say...party like a rock star.  You (and I) have both earned it!