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Something I thought you should know...

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The Falcon

04:06 / 30.10.05

When I was little, and we'd watched the Wonder Woman TV show, I often had so much pent-up energy I'd do the spin, just like Linda Carter, perhaps hoping some American iconography would manifest on my body.

but then my dad would sing "Wonder-Duncan" to the end credits, and I would ask him to stop because 'it made me feel funny.'

Mourne Kransky

07:50 / 30.10.05

You're a wonder, Wonder Duncan.

I saw Lynda Carter recently when I treated my nieces to Chicago at The Adelphi. She was the best thing in it, hamming it up as Mama Morton. Looking bloody good because she must be some age now.

We too would play at being Superheroes as kids, my friends and I in our little country village. My favourite games were the ones where, under the pretext of being Cavemen, we would all get naked and run about in the countryside, scaring the cows. Junior perv time. Amazing that we all grew up to be pillars of the community.

Char Aina

08:07 / 30.10.05

she was pretty good as mrs.powers in Sky High, a film i would reccomend to most as entertaining plastic.
if you have weans over which you exert an influence they will thank you for showing it to them.
perfect excuse.
yes, even if they are grown up weans.

Char Aina

08:12 / 30.10.05

i'm racking my brains to remember a time when i played at being a girl,but icant.
idoremember trying to 'switch on'my hulk powers a few times(i was bullied) and trying to run faster by copying the way the flash ran.
it turns out he's not very efficient in his movements.
i could barely get up to mach one.
fucking lying bastard comic writing LIARS.

All Acting Regiment

12:26 / 30.10.05

At the age of 10 I crafted a "Demon's Heart" from clay and poster paint and drinking straws.

Tom Paine's Bones

17:32 / 30.10.05

The game of 'Pirates' I used to organise at the age of eight for friends and siblings had actual rules. Including a locational hit system.

toughest, fastest, fatest

18:42 / 30.10.05

I used to pretend to have glass legs

Mirror

20:38 / 30.10.05

I have always been horrifyingly normal.

Mourne Kransky

21:14 / 30.10.05

mirror, you went on a walking tour of the Shetland Isles on your honeymoon!

Normal? I don't think so. You can relax. You're definitely abnormal, like the rest of us.

Papess

21:56 / 30.10.05

Oh my, Duncan. I thought I was the only one who did that!

My best friend and I used to pretend we were Wonder Woman and Isis (another TV show about a female superhero on during the same era). I was once caught by my grade two teacher (Ms.Dickey) while I was spinning. I was embarrassed and slinked off to my seat.

Spaniel

08:31 / 31.10.05

Well, I was certain that I was going to be either a superhero or a transformer - it depended what kind of machine my Granddad could build: one that would embue me with superpowers, or one that would build transformer armour.
Every so often I would invite special friends into the circle of trust and tell them about my plans and offer them the chance to join in, afterall what fun is there in being a lone superhero/transformer?

One of friends said he could put his fingers through candle flame. I informed him that he was immune to fire and that I would build him a flame-thrower.

mondo a-go-go

14:56 / 31.10.05

But Padraig, were they filled with beer, and did you dance a can-can?

The Puck

00:12 / 01.11.05

i once alienated all my friends because i was conviced the whole world was being infultrated by a race of bug people whos only weakness was , me turning the light-switch on and off.

i was 9 and i wish i was joking.

matthew.

02:47 / 01.11.05

For quite some time, I thought I could sing really well. When I was a child (read: before pubes) I was the star of the choir. In elementary, I played the Phantom for one of two songs in a recital. Then, when I grew hair in funny places, my voice cracked, and I thought I could still sing. For about five years, I was horrible, and nobody thought to tell me. I have since developed my voice, thank you very much.

Also, I am the absolute worst for understanding lyrics. For years, I thought the title track to Grease went like this: "Grease the world, grease the world". Yeah.
But, on a positive note, I always knew it was "Radar Love" and not "Red Hot Love", like numerous people have thought.

Evil Scientist

08:56 / 01.11.05

When I was young I had tremendous difficulty reading. But somewhere around eight years old, off school sick and extremely bored I picked up a Famous Five book and started reading it. Finished it that day and since then have read quicker and more profusely than anyone I know.

grant

13:41 / 01.11.05

I never really wanted to take my driver's exam -- I had a bike I loved, and I knew once I was driving, I'd be running errands for the family all the time. So I never studied for the exam. I failed it the first time I took it, which sort of surprised me. 10 questions? Multiple choice? Isn't this all sort of common sense?

Common sense being a weak point, I suppose, for me.

Mourne Kransky

21:00 / 01.11.05

Nothing common about you dude.

iamus

12:48 / 15.08.06

When I was three, I had a plastic shark called Fergal Sharkey.

iamus

12:51 / 15.08.06

Hmmmm.

Not really self-deprecating, but neither Google search nor Brain search turns up topic abstracts.

iamus

12:53 / 15.08.06

On a similar tip to Duncan though, I was always relegated to Firestar when playing Spider-Man And His Super Friends with The Brother and The Sister.

Happy Dave Has Left

13:15 / 15.08.06

Used to play Top Gun when I was a kid (chiiiiiild of the Eighties...) and I always played Goose. I kind of liked the drama of dying a hero's death half way through the game while fighting dastardly Russkies, and the thought of Meg Ryan mourning me.

Man, I was a weird kid.

Then I got older and realised he died in a training accident because of Maverick's mistake.

Wasn't so cool then.

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

13:28 / 15.08.06

My sister and I used to play Transformers and G.I. Joe when we were kids. One of our fondest Christmas memories is lobbying for the Apache helicopter and each getting one of our own. We were such tomboys.

I used to play The Lost Boys with kids at school. I mean, the movie, not a Peter Pan reference. It was the first horror movie my parents took me to because I insisted upon seeing it. Afterwards they bought me the movie poster and for a week I went around wearing sunglasses in the house. The problem with playing a horror movie is that the other kids hadn't seen it, so it made things...interesting.

I was a weird kid.

Blake Head

14:04 / 15.08.06

My dear old Auntie was always perplexed when I insisted on playing at being She-Ra, rather than the more gender normative choice of He-Man. In my defence she was the Princess of Power (She-Ra, not my Auntie)...

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

14:06 / 15.08.06

I used to have the She-Ra dolls. Wasn't there one called Catra?

Dead Megatron

14:25 / 15.08.06

I watched Transformers: The Movie at least 30 times between the ages of 10 and 13. I came to a point I had memorized all the dialogs in the damn thing.

And, for some reason, all the problem with proportions and perspective never bothered me.

Bah weep gra-nah weep ninni bong

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

14:35 / 15.08.06

You have no idea how much this explains, DM.

But then I used to have a crush on Optimus Prime.

That may explain why I really loved the movie Crash years and years later. Some deep-seated nearly-forgotten love of machinery and its possibilities for eroticism.

Lama glama

14:38 / 15.08.06

Wonder Woman was on re-runs for most of my childhood. Not only did I do the spin, but I also found my mother's knee high boots (from inside the closet, natch) and used to put them on to complete the look.

I'd probably still do it if those boots hadn't been mysteriously thrown out.

bitchiekittie

14:40 / 15.08.06

I used to stay indoors and read instead of going outside to play. I'd talk to my fingers rather than other children, and if my parent's friends brought anyone over, I'd lock myself in my room and ignore their howls to be let in. I'd eat paper and I still will eat anything that my credit card info is printed on. I used to imagine a massive range of animal friends who would accompany me on long car trips. I always suffered from motion sickness, so I couldn't read and would instead "watch" them overcoming the obstacles outside as they raced alongside the car to keep up with me. I hated that boys were always picked to help with tasks that involved lifting or carrying anything, and I'd come up with aggro ways to prove that I was much tougher than they were.

I've only gotten worse with age.

Jub

14:52 / 15.08.06

Then I got older and realised he died in a training accident because of Maverick's mistake.

Dave – how dare you. How DARE you suggest that was Maverick’s fault. Yes okay, he was the one who ejected, but if Iceman hadn’t have been so dogged about the target, Maverick wouldn’t have got caught in his jet stream which lead to the flat spin and eventual tragic loss of Nick "Goose" Bradshaw. So if you want to be like that it’s Iceman’s fault. Personally, I agree with the official hearing in which he was exhonerated. If you think you know more than the US Navy, I would say you are sorely mistaken soldier.

Don’t diss Maverick just because you hate his freedom.

paranoidwriter waves hello

14:54 / 15.08.06

I wish I'd known you all when I was a kid. You lot sound like a right laugh.

At one point in my childhood, I used to think I was an inventor/engineer. I often used to hassle my Dad, saying things like "Have you got a piece of metal [insert gestures] this big and shaped liked this?" To which his standard response was always "Look in the shed".

I tried to make a hover craft once. I got two old cheep wooden skateboards and nailed a piece of board over the top of them, then naiied an old metal electric fan onto the back. 'Twas only when I realised how short the fan power cable was that I looked up and saw my Mum and Dad in the kitchen window crying with laughter.

They didn't laugh when I tried cutting my own hair to look like Friar Tuck though.

Triplets

14:55 / 15.08.06

I always suffered from motion sickness, so I couldn't read and would instead "watch" them overcoming the obstacles outside as they raced alongside the car to keep up with me.

I do this! I don't have motion sickness but I do this! It's usually a kickass ninja running from X to Y tho.

Jub

14:55 / 15.08.06

Oh yeah - I gave up tap dancing lessons so I could watch "Educating Marmalade" which was on on the same night. How different life might have been.

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

15:06 / 15.08.06

When I was very young, I didn't like playing with other children. I used to hide and make dolls with dried pieces of grass. Then when I got home I made dolls with those weird plastic curler things that inexplicably my mother used to have a huge bag of it, though she wasn't a hairdresser. At my grandmother's house I used to make dolls out of those twist-ties that came on packages of bread. My grandmother kept the Band-Aid tin I used to store them in for years after I'd grown out of them.

Also when I was a child, when we went to visit my grandmother, I used to make a habit of opening and inspecting and crawling around in her kitchen cabinets. And reading all of the Readers Digests I could find.

I think maybe I should call my grandmother.

miss wonderstarr

15:33 / 15.08.06

I would think not doing the spin when Wonder Woman was on is the sign of an unusual child. I'm sure I used to dance as well as spin all through those credits; and when Batman came on I needed to run out into the garden to work off all the excitement of the title music.

I used to genuinely believe I could make a rocket, or a car, if I could just solve the puzzle of how to make fuel (from liquids in the garden... eg. water, mud.) And that if I could make a big enough gun, and stood at the top of the climbing frame, I would be able to shoot the moon. Sounds stupid but Jules Verne did the same (as did Melies) and it's also the big climax of the film "Things to Come".

I could still recite all Greedo's dialogue from Star Wars: ANH, which I wrote down and learned phonetically some time ago.

paranoidwriter waves hello

15:44 / 15.08.06

Know what? This is one of my favourite threads evah.

I was just making a cup of coffee, having loads of flashbacks to my childhood, and guess what? There's an ice-cream van opposite my dwelling! (on my Mum's life, I swear.)

When I was a kid, we lived on a dual-carriageway and the ice-cream van used to park in a cul-de-sac behind our road. Whenever we heard the chimes ("Popeye the Sailor Man") we'd have beg our folks for money, leg it out the back door and down the garden, then vault over a high wooden fence and run up a hill and around a really long length of gully (or is that "gullet"?), all the while praying we got there before the van drove off. Most of the time, it would be too late and we'd see the other kids smugly standing on the pavement holding 99's, ice-cream round their mouths and raspberry syrup trickling between their fingers.

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