Hello again, blog followers, and welcome to another Wednesday entry. You all know what happens on Wednesdays, right?
Before you all ask...yes, I did end up designing the above graphic. Am thinking of doing one for each of the seven theme days. Let me know what you think, all right?
(And just to clarify, my world map is not designed to scale and probably looks like something you'd see on a seventh grade geology project. But as Five for Fighting asks...what kind of world do you want?)
Besides, we aren't here to go all Simon Cowell Steven Tyler on my ability to draw. I wanted to share some of my basic art skills because it relates to the theme of this blog entry.
How many of you have heard of a show called 'Art Attack'? The guy up above is named Neil Buchanan, and for seventeen years he hosted this successful children's show based in the United Kingdom.
Like a lot of children who grew up in Southern Ontario, my first experience with 'Art Attack' was watching a little channel called TVOntario. TVOntario was a station that aired dozens of children's shows, and I can guarantee you that many who were born around the same time I was probably spent quite a bit of time watching these educational shows.
When I first saw this show, I couldn't have been much more than ten or eleven. All I remember about my first episode was that this guy who always wore a red shirt of some kind and who kept referring to construction paper as coloured card was a friggin' genius.
No, seriously, he was.
I was so jealous of his art studio (which, granted was put together by the fine people of ITV), because he had almost every possible art supply in the world. Coloured pencils, magic markers, chalkboards, glitter glue. It was like an entire Staples location exploded on a television screen.
He used all those materials to create awesome art projects.
He would make three-dimensional puzzles using cracker boxes and magic markers. He would make simulated neon lights with pink and yellow chalk and black construction paper card.
He was basically the MacGyver of arts and crafts.
Oh, sure I tried to use some of his wonderfully creative ideas to make my own versions of his art, but mine never really seemed to look as good as his did. It didn't matter to me though. I loved making the effort.
Did I also mention that Neil Buchanan just didn't do artwork in studio?
Sometimes he would travel to various places all across the UK and he would make his whole world his canvas. Sometimes he would set up on sandy beaches. Other times, he'd be inspired to create something on a golf course. Everywhere was fair game.
And when the world becomes your canvas, simple Crayola crayons would not cut it for art supplies.
No, he needed something bigger. If he needed orange, he would use carrots and oranges. If pink was what he required, he'd use cotton candy or roses. Whatever objects he had at his disposal, he could use to create works of art like this.
Or, this...
Or, this...
Like I said. The guy is a freakin' genius.
Could you just imagine how much fun art class would have been had we had Neil as a teacher? Not that I'm completely dissing my art teachers that I had in school (well, maybe except one, whose idea of art was giving us a colouring book and crayons and saying 'enjoy!'
This kind of ties the idea of this blog post to my own experiences.
I absolutely loved art class.
Was I absolutely proficient in it? Hardly. The above is a picture that I ended up doing about four hours ago. Granted, it's no DaVinci, Van Gogh, or even a Neil Buchanan. But, I think it turned out not too horribly. And that's basically what art meant to me. To me, art is something that is completely subjective. What one person may consider to be trash, another might consider to be treasure. Art is supposed to be about expression. Expression of creativity. Expression of emotion. An expression of yourself, and what makes you, well...you!
To me, I didn't care whether an art project got me a grade of an A+ or a C-. Everything I created was beautiful because I created it by myself without any help from anyone else.
It's not only limited to just physical artwork either. I was a band geek in elementary school. Played the baritone for three years, earning my only awards for extracurricular activities in elementary school.
I also did lots of cut and paste artwork. Using pieces of construction paper, computer paper, even wallpaper and turning them into something beautiful. One of our homework assignments in sixth grade art class was to create a poster for the charity event 'Jump Rope For Heart', and I created a pop up guy made out of wallpaper and construction paper. It turned out beautifully. I only wish I had the poster to scan for you, but I made it eighteen years ago, and it kind of disintegrated over the years. However, my poster was noticed by the people in charge of our student art gallery, and for the last few months of 1993, my picture was prominently displayed right outside the gym. I even got this cool certificate to go along with it.
Wasn't that nice? On another unrelated note...June 21, 1993 didn't seem all that long ago, did it? Sigh...I feel old now.
And how could I NOT continue on with my love of creative classes without talking about the one I loved the most. I attribute my love of creative writing to my vivid imagination, which I wouldn't have found if not for the dozens of art classes I took.
Creative writing is an art too, you know.
So is fine penmanship and calligraphy. The first one admittedly took me years to master, but I managed to get it down pat. The second one is something I'm currently learning. Calligraphy may be seen by some as a lost art, but it's one I've always wanted to learn how to do.
Art of any kind should be something that all kids should have the right to do.
That's why it really, really bugs me when some schools actually cut art programs out of schools to balance the budgets. To me, that would be devastating to attend school without art classes. Art is the one thing that kids can create to effectively define who they are as children. I wouldn't take it if my school got rid of our art programs. I would either transfer to another school or picket the school board offices until they reinstated the art.
That's how much I care about the arts.
Where would museums be if people didn't create masterpieces to display? Political pages would be without those funny cartoons. Comic books would be blank pages. Children's books wouldn't be as fun to read without art.
I wouldn't be who I am today if art wasn't a huge part of my life.
Even though it's been years since I took an art class, I still get a high whenever I head to a store's arts and crafts section. It was the best part about back-to-school shopping, and even as far back as I can remember, my favourite toys to play with was a stack of loose-leaf paper, Crayola crayons, and a 24-count of Laurentian pencil crayons.
Before we launch into yet another fun-filled blog entry, there's something that I have to say.
This is probably going to be one of the most personal blog entries that I will probably end up doing. Most of the time, I like to have some fun with them, and certainly my blog entries of the past have been mostly lighthearted and fun. There is a sort of serious tone to this particular entry, and as I go into it in further detail, you'll soon see what I mean.
DISCLAIMER: It's nothing illegal, immoral, or incredibly embarrassing. It's just something that I want to bring up, is all.
That being said...this blog entry is NOT for children. You have been warned.
And now, on with the show.
Beverly Hills 90210 was a show that I really didn't start watching until it began showing on various syndicated cable channels on reruns. You see, when it first debuted, I was only a boy. According to the hierarchy that existed at my elementary school at the time, Beverly Hills 90210 was a show that only girls watched. Therefore, it was deemed uncool for males, such as myself, to watch this show.
So, for the first four seasons I did not watch.
It wasn't until I reached high school that I thought I'd watch one episode, just to see what I was missing out on. By then the show had swapped out Shannen Doherty for Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, and the main characters were in college. Nevertheless, I gave it a shot.
It wasn't bad. It wasn't bad at all.
I certainly didn't understand why the kids in my elementary school classes were saying that it was a show solely for girls, because when I watched my first episode of the series, they focused on a wide variety of topics that both male and female students could relate to.
Well...as much as one can relate to a school where everyone drives a Mercedes and dresses in Gucci, that is.
The show itself was very popular in a variety of countries, and it lasted for ten seasons from October 1990 to May 2000. It's quite a rarity for any show in general to make it to ten seasons, so for a show about spoiled teenagers in Beverly Hills to last that long was clearly an impressive feat.
As I watched the shows, and got caught up with the action by watching the reruns on CFMT (now OMNI1), it turned out that the kids weren't so stuck up and spoiled. In fact they all had real problems. You had the Walsh twins, who tried to fit in at West Beverly from Minnesota. You had Kelly whose physical beauty hid years of insecurity. You had Dylan, who was the ultimate rebel loner. And you had Andrea (that's AHN-drea...not ANN-drea) whose only crime was that she was a sixteen year old trapped inside a thirty year old woman's body.
Figuratively AND literally. Seriously, did you know that Gabrielle Carteris is turning fifty this year? Wild, eh?
I could easily devote an entire article to all the characters listed above, the Walsh family, the Peach Pit, and that character that Hilary Swank played for half a year before her Oscar win. And maybe someday, I will.
But this article is not about them. This article is about a character who may not have had much of an impact on the show at the very beginning, but later turned out to be one of four characters who lasted the whole ten year run without any breaks in between.
Watching Tori Spelling nowadays with her reality shows and tabloid drama surrounding how she ended up marrying her current husband, it sometimes seems hard to believe that she was an actress when she first appeared on our television screens. Following guest star appearances on The Love Boat and Saved By The Bell, when the show Beverly Hills 90210 was created, Tori Spelling really had no trouble landing the role that would inevitably make her a household name.
Of course, considering that her father Aaron Spelling created the program, it's easy to see how she fell into that role in the first place.
Ahem...
Nepotism aside, when Tori Spelling assumed the role of Donna Martin in 1990, she really didn't have a whole lot to do. At the time of the early shows, most of the plots revolved around Kelly and Brenda, with Andrea taking on a secondary role. Donna was one of those tertiary characters. Not really of importance to any scene in particular, and you wouldn't really miss her if she wasn't shown.
Not that it really mattered that much anyway. Until the second half of the first season, Donna wasn't exactly portrayed in a positive manner, at least not to me anyway. As far as I was concerned, Donna was only good for two things. Shopping and following Kelly around. She had very little to say, and the very little she did say wasn't exactly profound.
You know those blonde jokes that have existed for ages that while I personally don't find funny, other people do? Donna was kind of the perfect representation of what those jokes were all about at first.
Then Donna started to rebel, and she started sassing back at teachers, and a concerned Brenda found out the real reason why Donna was acting out.
Donna had failed her PSAT's. This meant that the odds of Donna going to college were slim to none, and Donna felt that there was no need to worry about her future because she was too stupid to pass.
And with that admission, we notice the first crack in the spongy soft exterior of Donna Martin.
We eventually learn that Donna suffers from dyslexia, and when she is given an oral version of the PSAT's, she does much better.
I guess it's quite interesting to see that Donna Martin was so concerned about how well she did on the test when we didn't see any evidence of her being concerned about schoolwork at all prior to this. All we had seen of her was this Malibu Barbie persona that was just there for show.
Just goes to show that looks can be deceiving.
But the idea of not judging a book by its cover is a minor lesson. An important lesson, but not the one I really want to talk about.
See the picture up above? That was taken at the gang's high school graduation ceremony at the end of season three. You can see Brandon, and Steve, and David, and Brenda, and Donna.
They all look so happy and carefree, don't they? They all are leaving high school behind and starting their futures, and Donna having had a great score on her PSAT's can do whatever she wants to do with her life.
But Donna almost didn't make it to graduation that day. All because of one little technicality.
You see, the school board that was in charge of West Beverly High were concerned about the increase of student rebellion and the possibility of underage drinking at the school prom. It was bad enough that the school was implementing a dress code for the following school year. This year, they pretty much put the kibosh on any pre and post prom parties. Any student who was caught drinking before graduation would have their right to graduate taken away from them.
They were taking it very seriously.
So it probably wasn't a great idea for the kids to drink some champagne right before the prom! Donna ended up drinking a glass. Then another glass. Then another glass, and well, you get the idea.
Oh, Donna...if only you had remembered the new rule. If only you had been 21. If only you had eaten that grilled cheese sandwich for lunch.
Now she was doomed to spend the rest of her life at West Beverly while the rest of her friends went out into the world and got their diplomas. She would be all alone in high school while everyone else went away.
All because David's father decided to liquor her up.
That bastard.
Of course, one could argue that Donna could have refused to take a sip, or a glass, or the whole damn bottle. If she had more self-control, she might not have been in this situation to begin with. But as you read on, you'll notice that there was a reason why she did down the alcohol, which makes this whole scenario easier to understand.
The threat of Donna not graduating was weighing heavily on her. It was made even worse when Donna's own mother seemed like she was more in support of upholding the school rules rather than standing by her own daughter.
I should mention that Donna's mother was a real bitch on wheels.
Her friends were far more supportive. They found that the school's punishment of not letting Donna graduate with her friends a real injustice, so they took action.
Admit it. You have Donna Martin Graduates running through your head as you read this, don't you?
Donna was moved though. She had the whole student body by her side and supporting her as she tried to defend why she should be allowed to graduate.
Well, okay, some of them were there to oppose the dress code, but most were there to support Donna. This proved that most people were fond of Donna and felt that she was getting a raw deal. The votes were close, but the school board overturned the rule and Donna was a proud member of the West Beverly Class of 1993.
So Donna learned a valuable lesson about the consequences of underage drinking. That's not what this blog is about.
This blog is actually about something that was very important to Donna. It was a choice. A choice that some may disagree about, but Donna owned that choice until she was sure of what she wanted.
She was a virgin.
A lot of her beliefs did come from her value system. She was raised in a religious family where sex before marriage was frowned upon. Her sanctimonious cow of a mother made sure of that.
(Did I mention that I disliked Donna's mother immensely?)
I really, REALLY wished that I could have found the video clip on YouTube that shows Donna standing up to her mother when the topic of putting condom machines in West Beverly came up. Donna's mother believed that putting condoms in schools would only promote teen sex and was against their installation (because apparently teen pregnancy and STD's are okay in the world according to Mrs. Martin). Donna disagreed, and uttered this famous quote when trying to explain her reasons.
“It’s like if you have a swimming pool in your backyard, you can tell your children not to go in it, you can even build a fence around it, but if you know that they’re going to find a way in to that water, don’t you think you ought to teach those kids how to swim?”
Wise words from the younger Martin lady. Like I said, I wish I could have found the video clip so you guys could have seen her mother shut her yap about it all.
Of course, Donna was a virgin by choice. She had decided that it wasn't right for her. She did struggle with it though. When she began dating David Silver, Donna knew that David eventually wanted to go all the way with her, but Donna simply wasn't comfortable with the idea of losing her virginity until she got married. You can see more of it here.
As frustrated as David may have been with Donna, he tried to be understanding. Donna did make some really good points. They had way too much drama in high school as it was. Sex would only complicate things even more.
The road to romance was a very rocky one though. Donna and David attempted to try and get lucky with each other on a couple of occasions. One such occasion was planned on the night of their senior prom. Donna got nervous though, and thought that by drinking the forbidden champagne it would loosen her up. Yeah, that worked out well for her, didn't it?
Just like that instance, every time David and Donna were in the mood, something would happen that would pre-empt the woo from taking place. For Donna, it may just as well have been fate that no, she should not engage in the sex with the singing teeny-bopper.
Eventually, David did end up getting what he wanted...from some random guest star who was on the show for all of four episodes. Donna's heart was broken, and she dumped him, thankful that she didn't give it up to him after all.
Donna's next boyfriend wasn't much better. He had a temper, and once threw Donna down a flight of stairs. Luckily, she held onto her beliefs and came out of it unharmed (and untouched).
After a slew of one-off relationships, Donna and David eventually got back together again, and when they graduated college, Donna was secure enough in her relationship with David to give him a graduation gift he would never forget.
What can we learn from this? It's okay to wait.
Seriously, it is. In Donna's case, her belief system was impacted by the church and her parents somewhat...but she didn't let it completely control her either. She had her own mind, and what she wanted was to wait until she felt the time was right for her. She had always thought that it would come on her wedding day, but for her, the right time came before that. In the end, she found that at that moment, it was worth the wait, because she had waited until she found the right person, and more importantly, she had waited until both of them were keen on the idea.
Now you're probably wondering where this ties in with my own experiences. Well, I'll tell you right here.
Like Donna, I was also a virgin in high school (and beyond that even, but that's all you need to know about that...LOL) And yes, I admit, the pressure of teen sex was definitely out there. Temptations came at you from all angles. Movies. Music. Magazines. Everywhere.
To be completely honest, I wasn't really tempted. Not one bit.
It wasn't because I found girls unattractive...I did. It wasn't because I had a belief system like Donna did. I'm hardly the religious type as it is.
The reason I stayed a virgin in high school was because I didn't want to further complicate my already complicated life as it was.
High school was not my happiest time in life. It was pure hell. The homework assignments that kept piling up, being the unfortunate victim of abuse from classmates...not to mention various homefront stresses. The last thing on my mind was having premarital sex at sixteen years old. Who wanted to add an unplanned child or an STD to that mix? Not me!
I thought Donna's decision to hold off on losing her virginity was fantastic. In fact, if I remember correctly, she could have been a major role model to young girls everywhere. The fact that Donna waited until she was truly ready didn't really cause her any ill effects along the way. She still had friends, she still kept her head held high, and more importantly, she respected herself enough to know what she wanted. Really, shouldn't we all feel like that about ourselves?
It's very interesting going along those same lines that I kept my virginity during high school, considering that was the time period that my self-worth was at its lowest levels. It would have been easy to have just not cared about myself and do it with some unknown girl from three streets over to feel like I was loved even for one day, but that's just the thing. It would have been too easy, and I wouldn't have felt good about myself afterwards.
Sometimes things as personal and private as losing one's virginity is worth the wait. It certainly was for Donna Martin, and I think that if we had more Donna Martins in this world, it would be infinitely better for it.
It's Monday, and you know what that means. It's time to take a look at another detailed analysis on a random movie, and in that analysis, I hope to learn more about myself in the process.
I am definitely no Gene Siskel or Roger Ebert here, but I do have experience in reviewing movies. When I wrote for my college newspaper ten years ago, I had to go to several movies and give a detailed review on them. Many of them were forgettable, but there were a couple that I really enjoyed, and maybe you'll see some of them in a future featured blog entry.
For now though, I think that it's time that we take a trip back to the year 2003.
It was a year in which a lot happened. America went to war, the SARS outbreak caused worldwide panic, and one of the largest blackouts was recorded in North America.
(I should know...I survived the great blackout of '03.)
But that was the bad news. There was plenty of good news.
Remember the movie Finding Nemo? It was released on May 30, 2003, and raked in over seventy million dollars its first opening weekend, setting a record until it was beaten by Shrek 2 one year later. I'd say that's a pretty impressive feat.
It also happens to be one of my all-time favourite animated feature films of all time.
Well, okay...computer-animated film if you want to get really technical.
The movie was absolutely fantastic, and it teaches a great lesson at the end.
If you've seen the movie, the gist of the story is that Nemo is a clownfish who happens to be the only son of Marlin. Early in the story, Marlin's wife and most of his children were eaten by a barracuda, and Nemo was the only surviving fish. During the attack, Nemo's egg case was slightly damaged, and it left Nemo with one fin being smaller than the other one. As a result, Marlin was incredibly overprotective of his son to the point where it almost became smothering.
On Nemo's first day of school, he is told by Marlin not to venture away from the reef, but when he is dared by his classmates to touch the bottom of a boat (or butt as they pronounce it), Nemo is abducted by a scuba diver, much to Marlin's horror.
While Nemo ends up in an aquarium in a dentist's office in Sydney, Australia, Marlin tries desperately to look for him. Along the way, he literally crashes into Dory, who while very nice could be a bit loopy. Part of that could be because she had a horrible short-term memory. Nevertheless, Marlin knew he needed Dory's help to find Nemo, so he recruited her for assistance.
The little picture above shows the first sea creature that Marlin and Dory encountered. A shark! A vegetarian shark, mind you, but a shark nonetheless.
It's funny how fate can work, isn't it? Had Marlin and Dory not met the sharks, Marlin wouldn't have seen a vital clue that would help him get to his son. As it turned out, the clue was a scuba mask that had the address of the dentist's office that Nemo was being kept in, and once Dory remembered that she knew how to read, they had some idea of where to go. The road was not an easy one, as they had gotten into a fight with an anglerfish, almost died in a sea of jellyfish, and hitching a ride on a sea turtle named crush in the East Australian Current. It all culminated by Marlin and Dory accidentally getting swallowed by a whale. Luckily, Dory remembered that she could speak whale, and ended up getting out as a result of it.
Before I continue on with the plot, I'm going to interrupt this for a second.
Right off the bat, I can definitely see myself in this movie. It's so obviously clear to me.
Nemo's life as a child? Yeah. I lived it.
Granted, I am not an only child, nor did most of my family get eaten by a barracuda (though it would definitely make for an entertaining story if they did), but I wasn't really given as much...freedom...as I felt that I should. My mother is someone who I really do love, but she could be smothering at times, just like Marlin was with Nemo. I'm not exactly sure why that was. Maybe it was because I was the baby of the family. My siblings were nine and fifteen years old when I was born, so after age eleven, I was pretty much the only kid left in the house. Maybe it was because I was picked on a lot as a kid, and she saw it as her duty to protect me from them at all costs, even though sometimes she went a little overboard.
Even at age 30, I sometimes feel that I'm not taken seriously. Sometimes I feel like my loved ones still see me as a timid little kid, even though I'm over six feet tall. It frustrates me to no end some days, but I've learned how to grin and bear it over the years.
What surprises me is how much I happen to be a lot like Dory.
It does makes sense to me though. Dory is the type of fish that can always see the best in a situation, even if she does look at things in a childlike manner. Here's a few examples of Dory's zest for life.
Dory also had a problem with having short-term memory loss. That's also a problem that I have.
Oh, that's right. Dory also had a problem with short-term memory loss.
(Yeah, you kinda knew where I was going with that, didn't you?)
It's the truth. I have no problem recollecting events from five, ten, even twenty years ago. Most people don't even remember what they were doing on May 24, 1995, but I remember being in Toronto on my eighth grade graduation trip. Kind of freaky, no?
Now, you hand me the remote control for a television set and I'll put it somewhere, and then ten minutes later, I forget what I did with it. Recently, I ended up losing my cell phone and it took me six hours before I even remembered where I could find it.
Word of warning to all. Whenever I lose something, it's not pretty. If you take the chart that shows the level of terror in the world, I can range anywhere from blue to orange when I am searching for it. I'm trying to get it down to around a yellow though, so I am doing a bit of improvement in that regard. Such as it is.
That's just a minor foible though. Sure, my short-term memory is more or less useless in most cases, but it doesn't define me as a person. It certainly didn't define Dory as a fish. Once Dory remembered that she had skills that were useful in helping her and Marlin find Nemo, it turned out that Dory was the perfect ally to have. She could read. She could speak whale. She was always in a positive mood. She was Dory. And, everyone seemed to love her. The sharks, the sea turtle, even Marlin grew to like having her around.
That's what mattered.
Back to the movie now.
While Marlin and Dory were trying to head to Sydney, Australia to rescue Nemo, Nemo was befriending the sea creatures that happened to be in the aquarium with him. They dubbed themselves the 'Tank Gang'. There was Bloat the pufferfish and Deb (and her sister Flo which was really Deb's reflection) the damselfish. There was Bubbles the Yellow Tang and Gurgle the Royal Gamma. There was Peach the starfish and Jacques the shrimp.
The boss of the gang was one Gill. A black and white moorish idol who had a really tough personality, Nemo was at first intimidated by his gruffness and his scarred face, but eventually Gill admires Nemo's bravery when he tries to stop the filter of the tank so they could escape. It is later revealled that Nemo was caught by the dentist to give to his niece...a girl known for unintentionally killing every pet fish she has ever owned, and the 'Tank Gang' did everything they could to save Nemo from that fate.
I thought it was awesome that they went out of their way to help Nemo out even though Nemo himself was a little uneasy of the group. Peach and Deb/Flo were very kind towards Nemo, and Gill, Bloat, Bubbles, and the others held a ceremony where they rechristened Nemo as 'Sharkbait'.
I still love that scene. Firstly, even though it's been eight years, it's still fun to watch. But, secondly, it just goes to show that Nemo could make friends and be a part of a group in no time. And he did it without being under the watchful eye of his overprotective father.
See? Nemo CAN do things on his own.
Was he afraid to go through that ceremony? At first, he was. But as you've seen, it wasn't nearly as bad as he thought it was. Had Marlin been there, you know that he wouldn't have even gotten past the part of the maze where Peach was! Nemo showed lots of inner strength and courage though, and because he did, he ended up having a new group of friends.
It's also to the credit of the 'Tank Gang' to bring Nemo into their inner circle. For most of them, having a new fish around, they sort of felt a little insecure. What if they didn't like them? What if they didn't like him? Once they all got to know him, they thought Nemo Sharkbait was cool enough for him to become one of them. It really was great to see.
I guess I sort of identify with this whole aquarium plotline because I know what it's like to be in a new place with new people. When I was a rez student, I felt the same way as Nemo did. Having a tumultuous school existence, I was worried that I would have a rough go of it. My roommate was a great guy though, and I had a core group of friends there who really had my back.
I only wish I hadn't lost contact with them all, because I would love to catch up with them. In fact...
If any of you were at Carleton University in the year 2000/2001, and you lived on the fourth floor of Stormont House, come find me. I lived in room 457!
That's really all I have to say about Finding Nemo. I don't want to spoil the ending for anyone who hasn't seen the movie, but all you need to know is that it was made by Disney/Pixar. And, I don't remember any Disney movie where everyone dies at the end, so that should give you an idea of what the ending is.
The point that I think the movie is trying to make is this. DON'T GIVE UP!
Marlin never gave up looking for his son, and ended up having an adventure along the way. Nemo never gave up on wanting more freedom, and ended up making a slew of new friends. Dory never gave up her positive attitude, and it ended up benefitting the search...even if her memory wasn't all that great.
I think Dory said it best in a few simple words.
Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming...
"I shall call him Squishy, and he shall be mine, and he shall be my Squishy!"
Okay, okay...now you all must think that I have lost my marbles by making this rather unusual choice.
Matthew, you say. Today is Sunday! This is the day that you are supposed to feature a character from a comic strip, or a comic strip itself, or a comic book.
Yes. Yes, today is Sunday. And, yes, I am featuring a comic strip in this edition.
But Matthew, I hear you call out. U.S. Acres is a cartoon that aired on Saturday mornings! We forgave you for talking about Saved By The Bell on Saturday, but where is the logic behind featuring U.S. Acres as the featured Sunday blog entry?
Yes. I'll admit it. All of that is entirely true.
It's true that U.S. Acres (or Orson's Farm as it was known outside of the United States) did air as a cartoon. It was a part of the successful Saturday morning cartoon series "Garfield And Friends", which ran from 1988 to 1995. In fact, U.S. Acres was sandwiched in between two Garfield cartoons, like the white sugary cream found in the middle of an Oreo cookie.
But (and this is where it will all make sense), did you also know that U.S. Acres started off as a comic strip back in the mid-1980's?
Here's the proof.
Mind you, the characters in this comic strip were slightly more crudely drawn than they were in the Garfield and Friends cartoon series. It was still a comic strip.
Jim Davis had created Garfield back in 1978, and had a lot of success with it. Hoping that lightning would strike twice, he created the serial "U.S. Acres" in the spring of 1986. It took place on a farm, and had a whole bunch of different farm animals as guests. In fact, just because some of you might not remember U.S. Acres at all, here's a little introductory clip from the Garfield and Friends show.
Hopefully that clip might have jogged your memory a little bit. Then again, it might not. Either way, there is a method to my madness.
The bottom line is that U.S. Acres trudged along, and was successful enough to have comic book collections and plush animals associated with the comic. Unfortunately, it didn't prove to have the same winning formula that the Garfield strip had, and the comic was pulled in May of 1989. The cartoon series still ran though, and as recently as 2010, some websites have begun re-posting the old U.S. Acres comic strips so that a new generation of people can enjoy them.
That's your history lesson for today.
Now that I have the confusion cleared up and proved to all of you that U.S. Acres was a Sunday comic strip, I suppose the next question you have for me is 'Matthew, why did you choose to base your blog on a comic strip that was cancelled 22 years ago that hardly anyone even remembers?'
That's one reason right off the bat. I want people to remember it. A lot of kids who watched Garfield and Friends only watched the Garfield cartoons and skipped the U.S. Acres ones, but not me. I liked it.
And do you want to know why I liked it so much?
Because I can find a quality in each of the characters that I possess.
U.S. Acres is basically all of my character traits split up into several different farm animals.
Let's start off with Sheldon, for instance.
Sheldon is supposed to be a newly-hatched chick. As you can see, he didn't quite make it all the way. But does that bother him at all? Not in the slightest. See, Sheldon was perfectly content to stay in his shell. He liked it in there. Astonishingly enough, the comic strip made it out that Sheldon's shell was almost the equivalent of a spacious New York City penthouse, where he could put anything he wanted inside there, which physically speaking was an impossibility. Nevertheless, Sheldon was in no rush to hatch. The one occurance in which he did hatch, it was revealled that there was another shell underneath the outer shell!
Still, Sheldon's shell never really got in the way of him living his life. He got along well with his brother, Booker, and the other animals on the farm. He was comfortable in his own shell, and he wanted to be the one to make his own mind up as to when he wanted to come out of it.
I'll admit it. It took me a really long time for me to come out of my shell, so to speak. Like Sheldon, it took me a while to break out of it. But in the end, only I was the one who could make that decision. Of course, unlike Sheldon, I didn't have a back-up shell!
Or, how about Sheldon's brother, Booker? Booker was pretty much the opposite of Sheldon. Whereas Sheldon preferred to hang back in his cozy shell, Booker was more than ready to bust out into the world. Booker was more of an adventurous type, and his impulsiveness often lead him into trouble. He'd be so excited about catching worms that he'd accidentally set off his own trap!
I'll admit it. When I was really young, I was a bit adventurous as well. I still remember the one time that I was exploring the garden at my grandmother's house and I wasn't really being careful where I was walking because I was so determined to scope out every leaf and flower in that garden. Ended up kicking over a beehive and nearly getting stung by a whole bunch of bees. That was definitely a Booker-type mistake.
Roy the rooster was probably the character that I liked the least. He was incredibly self-centered and got off playing practical jokes on the other animals. If there were people in this world that I don't really get along with, it would be people like Roy. I'm not saying that I don't like practical jokes. I just don't like the mean-spiritedness Roy seems to exhibit.
I do have to admit that the one character trait I exhibit from Roy is his boisterous loud voice. As a rooster, he has to wake up all the other animals on the farm, so being loud is a quality that would definitely be an asset. I have been told by lots of people that my voice can be loud and that it carries well. If ever I decide to take on a career as a motivational speaker, I'd be perfect!
Then there's Wade, one of Roy's favourite targets. Wade was a duck that hated water (hence the little floatie he's wearing which eerily has the same facial expression as he does). He honestly hated everything. He was afraid of almost everything out there in the world. His irrational fears often caused a lot of havoc on the farm, and naturally, Roy used Wade's fears to cruelly taunt him.
I'll admit this right here. Like Wade, I suffered from irrational fears as well. One of them happened to be loud noises. I couldn't stand fireworks, firecrackers, even a balloon popping freaked me out. And, naturally, the meaner kids in my school brought balloons to school to terrorize me during recess.
(Yeah, I went to a school that was FILLED with Roy Roosters.)
For the record, I'm a lot better at dealing with this irrational fear. I can watch fireworks displays, but I can't bring myself to pop a balloon. It's about 50/50 in that regard.
Perhaps if I had someone like Lanolin by my side, I would have fared better. Lanolin was the type of gal who was incredibly outspoken. She was so loud that she could even take Roy Rooster down a peg or two. She was also an incredibly hard-worker.
It wasn't really until I hit adulthood that I became to access my inner-Lanolin. No, I never put a bright blue bow in my hair. I do have some rather strong opinions that I am not afraid to defend though. Like Lanolin, I take work very seriously.
Lanolin's twin brother Bo is the polar opposite. Whereas Lanolin is a hard-worker, Bo is somewhat on the nonchalant side. Where Lanolin can come across as a shrieking ewe, Bo is as cool as a cucumber. Lanolin is often the brains of the operation in some aspects, whereas Bo...isn't the sharpest tool in the shed.
However, Bo's one trait that I can say that I am as well is the fact that he has shown himself to be a dependable person. People would rather talk to Bo about their problems than Lanolin because Bo will actually listen. He may not have the best solution for how to fix it, but at least he would listen.
I may not know how to fix a problem myself, but I will promise to at least listen.
It's now that we finally come to the main character of this crew.
Orson the pig is more of the bookish type. He likes to read a lot, and this trait has made him the de facto leader in U.S. Acres. I learned how to read at an early age and would walk to the public library and check out lots of books every week. It's actually a practice that I should take up again, as I now realize that it has been nine years since I last used my library card.
He's also the type of personality that hates conflict. I'm the type of personality who hates conflict.
Orson was the runt of the litter in his family. I'll admit that sometimes in my family, I feel as though my opinions are not heard. Of course, the plus is that my family never abandoned me, so that's a plus.
How about that? I managed to take seven distinct personalities and managed to find something about them all that match up with me. In six of the seven, I even managed to find positive qualities about myself. The only one that I struggled with in that regard was with Wade, and that's only because I have a hard time breaking out of my comfort zone at times because of my fear.
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)
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?
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.
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!
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