1992. A Banner Year.

This is a LoEB post~

1992.

What a year…A leap year. Presidential election year…the one with Bill Clinton, George Bush (no, the other one) and H Ross Perot. An election that produced some of the best presidential election skits in the history of Saturday Night Live.

 

We sent the “Dream Team” (a group that I believed at the time to be the closest thing the world had to a real life Justice League Of America)

Wayne’s World, Aladdin, The Bodyguard, Batman Returns, Basic Instinct and Braham Stoker’s Dracula hit the theatre.

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More important than any of these things and in fact, the reason that we’re all here…In October of 1992, I turned 12 years old.

When I was 12, the weirdness that up untill then and been subtle, sleeping just beneath the surface, finally became the dominant force in my personality. In 5th grade, I created my first comic book with my friend Brandon. It was called Pizza Man! (pizza was pretty big in the early nineties, thanks Ninja Turtles!)

Pizza man was a lazy and carefree pizza cook working the night shift in a local pie joint. Next store to the pizza place is a bank which, on this night happens to be being robbed. The bank robber sets of explosives to blow the safe which causes an unforeseen chain of events, fusing our hero with the power of pizza. Flat and powerfull his head torso and arms were all made of pizzas and his fingers were pizza cutters! Pizza cutters… Anyway the explosion also shot the bank robber through the wall of the bank and into the pet store on the other side. Merging the criminal with a cat and creating the terrible villain Cat Man-Drew! Pizza Man and Cat Man-Drew would be forever locked in a comment with some kind of vague outcome that I never pinned down as it never got past issue one.

(A group shot of some of the memorable characters (what do you mean you don't remember them? created by the Quick Witt Cartoon Company.)
The following year I kicked my career up a notch by founding “The Quick Witt Cartoon Company! Acting on information (that turned out to not be true) I was inspired by the story of three teenage girls who created a fun cartoon and actually sold it to Warner Bros, creating Tiny Toon Adventures!

I thought “Claymation Werewolf…if they can do it, you can too!” And I set to work creating my own television animation masterpiece simply titled “Rover” It was about a Houdini dog that could escape from any leash, fence or yard. The story followed the lives of his owners and their interaction with their faithful escape artist dog. Once he inevitably got away, we would find ourselves in a brand new world full of talking animals…stray cats, a bully dog (owned by the female love interest of Rover’s owner) an extreme sports goose and a bevy of oddball animal characters. The show would constantly shift back and forth between these two worlds both existing at the same time.

                                                  (The Ever-Extreme Gary Goose...he's unstoppable!)
I didn’t just dream up this cartoon and walk away I put in some real work. Using the unique talents of several of my friends, we created character sheets with personality information…drawings of each character…background shots of commonly used scenes…everything!

I even got out my trusty cassette recorder and had individual voice recording sessions with my friends for each individual characters. This was the information I thought you had to put together to sell a cartoon to a major studio (as a 12 year old!) I was obsessed with the project and would put my friends to work every time we got together. I must have been a blast to hang out with!!

(*A never before seen copy of the doodle that inspired the Animated Series Rover! If some company would have come to their senses and bought Rover this picture would be worth hundreds of dollars!)

Besides my hardworking attempt to break into cartoon based showbiz (a dream I still havent been able to make myself give up) life went on. I developed a love for learning, especially creative writing I discovered a weird weird show called The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (the Rangers still exist…I can’t believe how much staying power that property has) and found some amazing books, from a new author by the name of RL Stine called Goosebumps!

In 1992 I also played matchmaker to my then best friend Vlad. He had his eye on a girl from “the other school” named Leslie. You see, in my school district the two elementary schools would merge when you entered middle school at 6th grade, so there would suddenly be all these strange and new students that you didn’t know.
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Anyway in between creating a super important animated series, I began to talk to Leslie and pass her notes from Vlad and occasionally take notes back from Leslie to Vlad.

My masterful skills as a cupid worked and soon they were “boyfriend and girlfriend” even going to the Halloween dance together. Our very first real dance! …I went alone.

(A young Claymation Werewolf. Believe it or not this guy went to the dance date-less! For bonus entertainment check out that awesome orange nylon lamp in the background complete with decorative pegasus!)


As the years went by, I became friends, and then best friends with Leslie myself and then we occasionally dated and finally started “going out” eventually, I would go on to marry this girl and this past April 3rd marked our 8 year wedding anniversary.

1992... What a year.






For some other dizzy leaps into our personal pasts, be sure to check out:

Shawn Robare of Branded In The 80s talks about childhood's end


Dex borrows Bill and Ted's phone booth to time travel (in more ways than one) into the epic year of 1982


Brian from Cool And Collected doubles down, exploring both 1984 pop culture and a rare look into his own history!

TL narrates his own history as it follows an eerie parallel to one Kevin Arnold...