Between the years 1979-1987, I basically grew up in the forest, and GASP! only received two TV stations: CBS and PBS. I, for the most part, bypassed the nostalgia which my peers so fondly reflect upon. Nostalgia like He-Man, Care Bears, and Transformers. This has made me quite a misfit of Generation X. When most kids my age were watching Strawberry Shortcake or ALF, I was glued to Nova and The MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour. (For gosh sakes, we Teeples didn't even own a VCR or even a color TV until I was well-into high school!)
Sure, I saw all the toys, coloring books, and assorted Mattel fol-de-rol on store shelves. My cousins in Levittown had the Skeletor Castle, the Strawberry Shortcake cupcake thing, and all things GI Joe. But I had no clue that these were actually TV characters! I remember thinking as a child, "Smurf? What is a 'Smurf'? Why did Aunt Sally give me this 'Smurf' Lego set? Do they do anything? Are they evil?"
When we'd play "He-Man," my cousin Mike told me I had to be She-Ra because
I was the only girl, I was like, "Who is She-Ra?" Ben and Chris would chime
in, "Duh! She's the Princess of Power!" This meant nothing. So I would just
run around, poking Ben (a.k.a. Skeletor), shouting "I HAVE THE POWAAAAH!" Thank
God for my cousins, who filled me in on everything a four-year-old was supposed
to know about. My parents...my ersatz-hippie parents...had abandoned the
numbing material pacification of suburban Philadelphia (I still harbor the
theory that they overdosed on Green Acres as adolescents). In rural, central
Pennsylvania, my childhood entertainment came not from Atari nor Nintendo.
It came from sticking safety pins through the ears of my only Barbie doll...after
giving her tattoos; the one whose hair I'd just shorn and colored purple.
It came from nailing boards to our apple tree and making a little sylvan
throne for myself. It came from listening to my parents' extensive record
collection and to the radio. Hell, I might as well have just grown up during
the Depression. 
My childhood, however, was by no means inordinately taxing. I had an unsurpassed
amassment of Garbage Pail Kids cards. I wasn't completely clueless TV-wise.
My twisted link to the world o' commercial television were CBS shows like
Pee Wee's Playhouse, The Muppet Show and Hey Vern! It's Ernest. Constant
exposure to Sesame Street and The Electric Company, coupled with my parents'
storytime renditions of Charlie the Tuna (the only advertising character
I knew of), led me to learn how to read at age two. This became especially
helpful when doing eventual background checks on characters I was already
expected to know about; from the blurbs on the backs of toy displays and
in the Little Golden Books at the grocery store. And my kindergarten teacher
wondered why I had few social skills. KINDERGARTEN, 1984
Justin: Hey Alice. I like Transformers. Did you watch Transformers
yesterday?
Me: Uhhh...yeah. Whoa. That Octopus Prime. He's... uh, bad, huh?
Jaci: Boy are you a dummy. His name is Optimus Prime. Dummy dummy.
Me: I read a neat book yesterday. It's called Anne of Green Gables.
Justin: I'll bet you watch My Little Pony, don't you?
Me: I didn't know you had a horse.
Justin: It's a show, dummy. With sparkle ponies. It's dumb.
Me: Oh yeah, I have a couple of those. That's a show? I like to watch Frontline.
Jaci: Let's play on the swings. Alice is a dummy! Alice is a dummy!
I am probably the only 20-year-old you'll ever meet who get a little misty-eyed
reminiscing over Storylords, Harriet's Magic Hats and The Letter People...Canadian
PBS shows you've probably never heard of. And though I missed out on cable,
Nickelodeon, and half of 1980s television, I still think I turned out relatively
normal. Especially when we moved to town and I subsequently spent the latter
half of elementary school catching up on the by-then passe shows I'd missed
out on for all those years. But damn it, I always wanted that kick-ass Skeletor
castle. 
