March 1985. I was in the sixth grade. I had just moved schools because my mother had an issue with the teachers at my old school. I wasn’t happy about it. My friends and my life as I knew it was there at that school. I wasn’t really that outgoing back then. Today, you’d call that introverted. So I didn’t make friends at my new school. Why? because I was going to be here only 4 months then it was summer break. After summer break, it would be another new school – this one called Middle School.

I think back on this time and I believe I felt the affects of anxiety. When I was 12 years old, I just thought it was fear– fear of things, people and places I didn’t know. Recently, I’ve had lots of experiences with anxiety. Growing older, I found that my body sometimes reacts in a manner I don’t believe I feel. It wasn’t until my 40s that I experienced an anxiety attack when I was on a exciting adventure with my family. I thought it was the early symptoms of the flu and I was mad as I didn’t want to be sick while on vacation. Oh how times have changed and now I have an understanding of that feeling. Yet, when you’re a little kid, you just force your way through. I relate this to how dogs deal with new environments or when they find themselves at the veterinarian. Yet, that’s a tale for another time.

So, during that time, at a new school, and no friends, I raced home on my bike after that 3 o’clock bell as fast I could. I found comfort in cartoons. The cartoons of afternoons on channel 13– KCOP 13 Los Angeles. (and no I didn’t live in L.A. Instead it was a hole in New Mexico but the cable company beamed those channels in.) Every afternoon it was Flintstones, Jetsons, Thundercats, He-Man, and now Robotech!

Robotech debuted in a 90-minute premier episode called Codename: Robotech. When I watched it that first day, I will admit I didn’t have a clue what was going on. I was downright confused. But I didn’t care. The show was freaking awesome. It had planes that transformed into robots. Yeah, it was like Transformers but it was better. These weren’t sentient and intelligent alien robots but a “mechanical” or “mecha” that humans controlled. Not sure if it will make sense but I felt this very akin to the worlds of Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers. I completely found myself addicted to this show. And I couldn’t get enough. The commercials informed me the new show would be on daily starting Monday starting at 4:30pm. I had learned that time meant it would be an hour later for me. I knew where I’d be everyday at 5:30 and nothing was going to deter me.

There was a few other shows that Robotech reminded me of. Notably Voltron. Votron was my favorite show at the time. And a show that I watched many years earlier called Battle of the Planets. The animation was very similar to both these shows. (as this long story will eventually describe, I had no idea that the shows were Japanese and redubbed for American audiences.) Perhaps this is why I immediately took to Robotech. It had a style that I was familiar with and naturally enjoyed. It was different than He-Man (a Filmation product) and Scooby-Doo (a Hanna-Barbera Animation). It was so detailed. The closest I had seen before that was the G.I.Joe A Real American Hero (1983 and its sequel 1984) mini-series.

So as I travel down this journey known as “The Robotech Tapes” I will explore the history and impact on my life. How this show and other shows forged my idea of storytelling and creativity.

to be continued. and I hope this succeeds….