09/18/06

9:20 AM

I grew up in the 70’s watching all the funky TV shows everybody else watched: Get Smart, The Addams Family, The Munsters, Wild Wild West, The Thunderbirds, The Banana Splits, My Mother The Car, Batman, The Green Hornet, etc…

However, there were some practically unknown shows that, however crappy they might have been, I loved to death… Come to think of it, these obscure shows are my fondest childhood TV memories…


Captain Nice – In the US, this show only ran for a season back in 1967, the year I was born. Still, in Costa Rica, we enjoyed the reruns over and over until the mid-70’s… It’s about a chemist cop who discovers a formula that brings him superpowers… When I was little, I used to drink the liquid that came with cocktail onions and pretend that it was the formula that transformed me into Captain Nice…




The Kids from C.A.P.E.R. – Ah the Civilian Authority for the Protection of Everyone, Regardless… this show also ran for a single season in the US, but, here, we also saw the reruns over and over (do you see a pattern here?)… I loved this funky show and the theme song is still stuck on my head… “We’re the Kids, we’re the Kids, we’re the Kids from CAPER, we'll race to your place, on the case, every time”



Sigmund and the Sea Monsters – I loved the wacky world of Sid & Marty Krofft… and Seigmund was the Krofft brothers at the wackiest best… Because he refused to scare humans, Sigmund the Sea Monster's family harassed him to the point where he was forced to leave his home and wander the beaches alone. He was found and befriended by two brothers, Johnny and Scott who took him back home to live in their clubhouse.



The Red Hand Gang – Another one season flop that enjoyed moderate success down here. Solving crimes and having fun, the Red Hand Gang was a group of five pre-teens from the inner city and their dog. Frankie was the oldest and the unofficial leader, with J.R. was the athletic one, Doc was the smart one, Joanne was the tomboy, and Frankie's younger brother, Lil Bill, was the the junior member. Their adventures included catching a gang of kidnappers, preventing a jewel heist, and foiling a museum robbery.

Ultra 7 – I never cared for Godzilla… However, Godzilla was not the only Japanese show about large monsters that walked around destroying Tokyo… Instead, the “ultra” shows – Ultraman, Ultra 7 and Ultra Q – had equally large superheroes that could battle the large monsters in their own terms… All these shows were all pretty much alike, but Ultraman was by far the most popular character... However, always rooting for the underdog, my fave was Ultra 7.



Miss Comet (Kometto San) – Miss Comet was kind of a Japanese Mary Poppins... Having misbehaved in her home planet, Comet is sentenced to come to Earth and become a magical nanny for two upper class children - Takeshi & Koji - under the supervision of a Jiminy Cricket-like cartoon character known as "The Professor".



Titanes En El Ring – Years before the WWF ever became popular, there was Argentine Wrestling… Titanes was the coolest thing ever and featured wacky wrestlers such as Hippy Jimmy, Yolanka the Alien, The Red Knight, The Mummy, Pepino the Clown, and world-champion Martin Karadagian.

And…

Musica Libre – This was a funky show where a troupe of Chilean dancers performed interpretative dancing to pop songs, such as You’re Sixteen (Ringo Starr), Rock the Boat (Hues Corporation), Jet (Wings) and Seasons in the Sun (Terry Jacks). Hosted by Nelson Hoffmann, who later immigrated to Costa Rica, this show introduced me to a lot of rock music I love today.