Holding my Interest

I happened upon a re-run of The Greatest American Hero the other day. We loved that TV show when we were kids, or that is, I thought we did. We always sang the song ... "Believe it or not I'm walking on air. I never thought I could feel so free-ee-ee." We would pretend we were the Greatest American Hero when we jumped on the trampoline, and then land all scuwumpy like he did on the show every week. What I don't remember was how terribly bad that show was. It was painful watching it. I kept watching it just so I could get to the song at the end. The plotline on this particular episode found the U.S. in dire straights as one of their cutting-edge, top-secret fighter planes was hijacked by a black-market dealer who was holding an auction on American soil (somewhere in Los Angeles) with major enemies of the United States to sell the stolen merchandise. Unfortunately, the police couldn't intervene because they were on no-man's land inside the United States consulate. Dang! Oh the joys of pre-911 democracy! The GAH discovered his suit could make him invisible, so he just walked in and took the black box of the plane off the table during the auction. No one stopped him, because they couldn't believe the box would just float away in front of their eyes. Clever!

When I start to think of it, a lot of shows and movies I loved in my childhood don't hold up with time. My favorite Indiana Jones used to be the second one: The Temple of Doom. Not so much anymore. It kind of sucks. Another movie I used to like was a Kevin Bacon film called Quicksilver. It's about a stockbroker who loses all his money and clients in one really bad day at the market. So what does he do? He becomes a bicycle messenger. Somehow he convinces a rag-tag bunch of people to invest their savings with him, and somehow he makes them all very rich. Thus giving a huge boon to the day trader idea, much like Juno makes teenage pregnancy look appealing.

I'd forgotten how nice and tight those television shows of the 80s liked to wrap-up each episode. The show 21 Jumpstreet wasn't too bad upon adult-onset Cindy watching, but it was fairly cheesy how it wrapped up at the end. The principal of the school had taken a severe crack-down on all the students, expelling offenders left and right. The school was beginning to resemble a mini-Nazi Germany. The students eventually revolted in a somewhat calm manner, and told the principal that they were on strike until the school board voted him out. At the end, the students were seen at full attention listening to the English teacher who earlier in the show was chastised by the principal for teaching the children about The Great Gatsby. Why doesn't each day end as smoothly?