Return To Donkey Kong Island

One of my sister's more endearing indulgences is that my nephew have at least one working device for every gaming system that ever existed, and a selection of games to go with them. True, they seldom have the most cutting edge examples in gaming, usually catching things as they are just passing away and therefore relatively inexpensive (they just got a PS3). But that does little to diminish the enjoyment of the games themselves (if they are truly enjoyable) and relieves one of the anxiety hopping onto the next big (expensive) thing.

About two weeks ago I had the whim to borrow one of their old Super Nintendo systems, hook it up to my huge but clunky HD TV, and pop in one of the old Donkey Kong Country games, just to see how it looked. Little did I know what I was getting into again. For the first time in fifteen years or so I was looking at old games that my brothers and I had stopped playing in a different century.

One of the first things I found out was that it is true what they say about muscle memory. I found my fingers twitching again in response to hard-learned tricks, recalling effortlessly where secret bonuses and levels were located, sending my characters hopping in anticipation to dangers they hadn't encountered in over a decade. And what's more, my playing other games in the years between (and I am not a huge or dedicated gamer) had made levels I had found difficult before easily overcome. Some places that had stumped us for weeks the first time we played them now took only two or three efforts to pass.

Another thing I discovered was how quickly innovation passes into nostalgia. This is perhaps best exemplified by the very start of the first Donkey Kong Country, when Kranky Kong appears with his Victrola, only to be blown aside by Donkey Kong and his boom-box. Trendy! Fashionable! Hip! Now, how quaint, how reminiscent. Remember those? The first DKC was ground-breaking for its "3D" imaging though it still scrolled left-and-right. Now characters can wander freely back and forth though vast landscapes; very freeing, but at least with the old style you knew which general direction you should be heading.

And these old games still hold their obsessive power. My nephew, who wasn't even born when DKC3 came out, quickly developed an addiction and hasn't let up his goal to play through all three games, find every DK coin and bonus, and pester me every spare moment with questions and observations about the characters. He's even come up with his own nicknames for several: Hot-Tub Man, Mr. Dietz, the Kiddie With Swords, the Uncle John Wasp, Mr. Mauser, Coconut People, and Captain Hookman.

I was also reminded what a sentimental fool I was when my nephew accidentally erased one of the old games saved from so many years ago. I felt a small painful twinge in my soul, "like the breaking of a mouse's heart." It was only partially assuaged by the final completion of the Lost World in DK2, which we never did accomplish in the old days.

And so we hauled out my old ephemera from the archives. I bestowed my gaming guide on my nephew. I dug out my Donkey Kong action figures for his admiration and appraisal. We searched the internet for notes and trivia to help us navigate the secrets (much simpler these days!). And now we have just about come to the end of it.

So my old memory becomes his old memory. In a little while I'll unplug the game system and be free of the tangle of wires festooning my book shelves. I've enjoyed my return to Donkey Kong Island, but I've had just about enough of it for now. My only problem will be getting my nephew to agree to let it alone for a while.

Mr. Rabbit, Mr. Rabbit

Rabbits have been much on my mind of late, starting with the Chinese New Year last month. According to that system we are in the Year of the Rabbit; more specifically, the Year of the Golden (Metal) Rabbit, for not only does their horoscope cycle through twelve signs every twelve years, but each sign cycles through the five Chinese alchemical elements of Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. So it takes a larger cycle of sixty years before each specific sign (like Golden Rabbit) comes around. I myself was born in a Water Rabbit Year, and I find that the traits ascribed to such a person fit me more that the aggressive, outgoing character of a Leo which I am strapped with under the Western system: as a Water Rabbit I am creative, compassionate, home-loving, avoiding of confrontation, conservative, outwardly calm with a passionate core, and easily taken advantage of. The sign of the Rabbit is one of the luckiest ones, though this is a bad year for Rabbits, apparently.

Anyway, last month, on the Chinese New Year, when rabbits were prominent in my consideration, I decided to once again look for George, a book I've always remembered from when I was ten. It's about a rabbit named George, who wears glasses and helps a brother and sister with their life. It was an obscure little volume, and I'd been searching the Internet for it for ten years, at least, without a clue to author or publisher. Imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered that the world-wide web had finally been spun fine enough to catch my memories, and George, by Agne Sligh Turnbull, turned up on the radar.

Within a week I had a nice, inexpensive ex-library copy in my hands, and could see that all the details that I could remember were accurate. I read it in less than a hour (it is only ninety-four pages long, and that is with many good line drawings by Trina Hyman). When I put it down I was pleased but puzzled. It was a nice book, but there seemed nothing particularly excellent or special about it. Why had it teased and hung onto my memory over all these years?

George H., a talking rabbit who wears glasses (he doesn't need them, but inherited them from his grandfather, a Belgian hare), turns up at the Weaver household. He helps the mother calm her migraines by letting her pet him (without revealing his unusual talents); but he talks to the children Milly and Tommy, helping them with their manners, their homework, and their vocabulary; the common-sense, working father never sees George and remains sceptical till the end, when he finds George's glasses. George leaves, in best Mary Poppins fashion, when he has solved many of the family's problems.

Perhaps that's why it impressed itself so on me at the time. Perhaps I wanted a secret mentor and friend to help me with my life (and anyone who thinks a ten-year-old doesn't have problems isn't remembering things correctly or was just extraordinarily lucky). The family was just enough like mine that I could squeeze us into their situation. And the odd thing is, looking back, that even pretending at the time to have an imaginary friend helped. Asking myself what would someone like George do, and then doing it myself, helped me get through. I suppose, in a more rarified and advanced way, I still do the same thing.

As anyone who has regularly read this blog knows, I have been gathering many of the old books I read when I was a child. This has been not only an exercise in nostalgia and delight, but in an odd way one of retroactive self-analysis. When I started this entry I had no idea it would lead me where it has. But there it is.

10 Books A Day: #156

The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet...Eleanor Cameron...Little, Brown and Company

Stowaway to the Mushroom Planet...Eleanor Cameron....Little, Brown and Company

Mr. Bass's Planetoid...Eleanor Cameron...Little, Brown and Company

The Shy Stegasaurus of Cricket Creek...Evelyn Sibley Lampman...Doubleday

The Shy Stegasaurus of Indian Springs...Evelyn Sibley Lampman...Doubleday

Rivets and Sprockets...Alexander Key...E. M. Hale and Company

The Pushcart War...Jean Merrill...Dell Yearling

Stuart Little...E. B. White...Dell Yearling

Detectives in Togas...Henry Winterfield...Harcourt, Brace, and World

The King of the Golden River...John Ruskin...The World Publishing Company

Book Count: 1874.

10 Books A Day: #154

Toad of Toad Hall...A. A. Milne...Avon Bard

Dr. Syn Alias The Scarecrow...Vic Crume...Pyramid Books

The Prince and the Pauper...Mark Twain...Airmont

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...L. Frank Baum...Airmont

Mistress Masham's Repose...T. H. White...Berkley Books

Meet the Austins...Madeleine L'Engle...Dell Laurel Leaf

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH...Robert C. O'Brien...Scholastic

The Cricket in Times Square...George Selden...Dell Yearling

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and other stories...Washington Irving...Airmont

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and other stories...Washington Irving...Magnum

The Little Prince...Antoine de Saint Exupery...Harbrace Paperbound Library

Old Peter's Russian Tales...Arthur Ransome...Puffin

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang...Ian Fleming...Scholastic

The Little Leftover Witch...Florence Laughlin...Collier Books

Another batch of "juvenile fiction," including movie tie-ins, books that went on to become movies after I had read them, classics, and another one of my many copies of The Wizard of Oz, here given the dignity of its full title, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Also, I finally figured out the simple way of getting more than five pictures to a post, and remembered I was including publishers in the title description.

Book Count: 1854.

10 Books A Day #153

While Mrs. Coverlet Was Away...Mary Nash

Mrs. Coverlet's Magician...Mary Nash

Baked Beans For Breakfast...Ruth Chew

The Secret Tree-House...Ruth Chew

Witch's Broom...Ruth Chew

The Witch's Buttons...Ruth Chew

The Wednesday Witch...Ruth Chew

The Enormous Egg...Oliver Butterworth

Miss Pickerell Goes To Mars...Ellen MacGregor

Mr. Popper's Penguins...Richard and Florence Atwater

Rudyard Kipling's First Jungle Book...Rudyard Kipling

Treasure Island...Robert Louis Stevenson

The Seven Voyages of Sinbad...retold by Gladys Davidson

Tales From Silver Lands...Charles J. Finger

Paul Bunyan Swings His Axe...Dell J. McCormick

The Wizard of Oz...L. Frank Baum

Many readers of a certain age are familiar with Scholastic Book Services books, available from order forms in Weekly Readers for school kid affordable prices. Often they were the first books you might personally own. Copies populated our classroom libraries. Although Scholastic still supplies books to school, it is the old style that has nostalgic websites and collector's blogs dedicated to them. Here's a selection of a few I own; most are "new" copies bought at garage sales and used book stores, mostly because the ones I owned were read to rags. Some I never owned but read at school.

Book Count: 1840.

Good News, Everyone!

The latest pair of Futurama action figures are out: Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth (along with Nibbler figure!) and Hermes Conrad. Both figures come with Build-a-Robot pieces for Roberto, the craziest, stabbiest, robbingest robot of them all. I've been waiting for a Professor Farnsworth figure since the series first started. Next in the series are Chef Bender and Mom, the rapacious head of the future's most be-tentacled conglomerate, Mom's Friendly Robot Company.

I got those figures at Hastings; the other's I picked up a month ago at the latest Eckman's Card, Comic, and Toy Show. The Saruman is not exactly an action figure, in that it is not articulated. The staff is removable. The Ephialtes (from the movie 300) was only three bucks, and comes with spear, shield, and alternate head for the traitorous, malformed warrior. The Death Variant action figure is a tie-in with a comic, Dawn, that I've never read: I just like the figure's style. He comes with an axe. I already have an Albert action figure from Corpse Bride, but I kept that in its package; this one was only three dollars so I bought it to open and enjoy. The pipe is attached to his hand. Where's the fun in that?

But the oddest thing we picked up was a devil mask, the very same make and model that our oldest brother wore at a Halloween over forty years ago. It was a memory, but also something of a childhood trauma; that mask scared us away from messing around in the toy closet for a long time.

From The Back Of The Book

The back cover of the Walt Disney Comic Digest #8 from February 1969. Time it was, and what a time it was...

The Dragons Of My Youth

I have always loved dragons. But long before I was fully introduced to the hurricane-winged, fire-breathing incarnations of greed and wrath, there was a gentler, more comic strain of the breed that visited the scenes of my childhood. Let me knock at the old doors in my memory and introduce (or re-introduce) you to them when they answer.

The first picture shows the Reluctant Dragon from the Walt Disney comic adaptation of its short film. I chose this picture rather than a frame from the film because that was how I was familiar with it, in comic book form; so obscure a Disney film never was re-leased in theaters and never came on TV. The story I remember reading as a child had the fairy Merryweather from Sleeping Beauty finding a baby dinosaur to keep the Reluctant Dragon company and listen to his poetry.

The second picture is of the "Stupid Dragon" from Knighty Knight Bugs. We saw this one much more often, as The Bugs Bunny Show ran constantly when we were young. Yosemite Sam rode this dragon like a horse, and was always feeding it coal, because it had caught a cold from letting its fire get low. The dragon was always sneezing fire at inopportune times, mostly at Sam's butt. In the end it sent a tower full of dynamite to the moon with him and Sam in it, Sam muttering "Stupid Dragon!"

The dragon in the third picture is the Stupid Dragons direct descendant, made by some of the people who used to work in the Warner Brothers animation department. This was the Jolly Green Dragon, ridden by the Grump in the eponymous show, Here Comes The Grump. In this 1969 show, Terry, a boy from our world, his morphing "dog" Bip, and Princess Dawn try to stop the evil Grump from spreading his gloom across the kingdom. The Jolly Green Dragon was seldom jolly; he had the same cringing relationship with his master as the Stupid Dragon had with Sam. He even did the same abrupt stop that sent the Grump bumping painfully over his back spines to land in the dirt.

In 1970 came the Rankin/Bass incarnation of the Reluctant Dragon, in The Adventures of the Reluctant Dragon and Mr. Toad, as shown in the fourth picture. This dragon was more of a lovable goof than the aesthete of the Disney dragon; he also had an allergy to daisies that made him sneeze fire uncontrollably. This ability was often taken advantage of by his little friend Daisy, who used it to save the village they lived in from a bumbling pair of Vikings who were always trying to raid them.

The fifth dragon, the Lollipop Dragon, was part of a series of educational filmstrips we saw in grade school. We would file into the library, the room would be dimmed, the projector turned on, and the record begun. At each piercing beep the librarian would advance the strip one frame. I don't remember a lot of details of the stories; just that he lived somewhere called Tumtum, taught gentle lessons, and gave out lollipops to soothe over troubles.

Then of course there was Dudley the Dragon, whom I've had an entire post on, and H. R. Pufnstuf, who began life locally in San Antonio at Hemisfair '68, and deserves a whole post to himself. Musically there was Puff the Magic Dragon, who got a couple of animated shows of his own in the late '70's, where he was voiced by Burgess Meredith.

All of these dragons were gentle or non-threatening, even the Stupid Dragon and the Jolly Green Dragon, who were rather bumbling and who you felt would be alright if they had better masters. All were large without being imposingly huge. Their fire-breathing was absent or disabled; their wings were non-existent or tiny. A fun and comforting lot for the young, and ones I remember fondly.