Puntabulous

Growing up I wanted to be any number of different things. I idolized various people by the minute. I longed to be someone cooler than myself, someone who demanded respect simply by existing. So now I present you with a handy guide to my various childhood idols:

WHO: Batman from the 1960’s Batman series.
WHY: Batman was, and continues to be, my favorite comic book hero ever. To be Batman just seemed so attainable. I mean, it’s not like he came from a different planet, or got covered in radioactive goop to gain super powers like those other loser comic book heroes. I think what also helped in making it seem so attainable was the cheese factor of the 1960’s Batman show (when is that coming out on DVD?). I mean, I’m sure I could get my hand on some spandex. And the fights never looked all that dangerous. Just throw a couple of punches and let the cartoon onomatopoeias do all the work. And I completely envied the whole hidden door to the Batcave business. To this day I still want to incorporate a secret passageway into my house. But nowadays if you have a secret passageway in your house everyone thinks you’re a pedophile. Damn pedophiles. They ruin everything.

WHO: Stuntman started with 1989’s Batman.
WHY: Okay, so being Batman was all fine and good until 1989, when Tim Burton’s Batman came out and it finally dawned on me that being Batman could actually be kinda dangerous. So I couldn’t be a real-life Batman anymore. However! I could be a stuntman in Batman movies. Genius! That way I could be Batman without actually having to be Batman! And if I was a stuntman, I could be any number of awesome people in all different types of movies! This is where I take a moment to let you stop laughing at the idea of my scrawny ass being a stuntman. Okay, better? At the time I didn’t realize all the hard work and god-forbid working out required to be a stuntman. I guess I just assumed you got to run around in cool costumes all day. Could you imagine me being Batman’s stunt double these days? Christopher Nolan would be like: “Where’s the stunt double?” and Christian Bale would be like: “I don’t know. Last I saw, he was running around throwing fake kicks and punches at everyone.” And then they’d both just shake their heads.

WHO: Uncle Jesse from Full House
WHY: Alright. First off: shut up. Secondly: what’s not to idolize?! He had it all! Good looks, great hair (after Stephanie cut off the mullet), a hot wife, cute kids, and he was friends with the Beach Boys! (Which was kind of a big deal back then, don’t ask, it was the early 90’s.) And at this point of my childhood, I may have been confusing being Uncle Jesse, with being with Uncle Jesse. Plus he was in an awesome band called Jesse and the Rippers, and made cool music videos that made this little boy child swoon with love and adoration. Oh, and their bed in the attic folded up into the wall, which I just thought was the coolest. thing. ever. What practical purpose it served I’m not sure, but it was darn cool.

WHO: Gizmoduck from DuckTales
WHY: Okay, so maybe DuckTales jumped the shark with the introduction of Gizmoduck, but that didn’t stop this nerdy, Transformers-loving boy from idolizing him with every fiber of his being. I mean, you could just be an average person and all you had to do was yell out “Blathering Blatherskyte!” and all these robot parts would join to you and you’d become this super cool crime-fighting robot. Sometimes I would cut the other end off of empty soup and vegetable cans my Mom was throwing away, put three of them on each arm and run around my backyard pretending to be Gizmoduck praying for the day when telekinetic voice-commanded robotics came into existence. Yeah, I was a weird kid.

WHO: Dr. Alan Grant from Jurassic Park
WHY: As you may or may not know, all my life I wanted to be a paleontologist. I even got my bachelors degree in Geology with a concentration in Biology so I could move on and become a super famous paleontologist and discover the first infant Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton. As you can see I’m now a super famous paleontologist who discovered the first infant Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton those plans fell through. Jurassic Park came out when I was 12 years old, which is a prime time in boyhood when dinosaurs are even cooler than transforming robots. And not only was Dr. Grant a leader in the field of paleontology, he was so respected that he was invited to be one of the first visitors to a park full of dinosaurs. It was this moment that I set my future in stone. I was going to be a paleontologist. After all, I needed to become the leader in the field of paleontology that way I would get invited to be one of the first visitors to a park full of dinosaurs.

WHO: J.R.R. Tolkien author of The Lord of the Rings.
WHY: My junior year of college is when I really got involved with reading and writing. Before then, I was never much of a reader. In fact, I loathed it. Our school system trained me to think that reading was a chore, or at least that’s the excuse I use. But with the discovery of Harry Potter (I only started reading the series when the first movie came out) I would never be seen without a book again. But it’s not J.K. Rowling who is my current idol, it’s J.R.R. Tolkien. Granted my writing is geared towards children, I love the idea of creating my own world, which I think it much more evident in Tolkien’s writing than in Rowling’s. Along with the main series I’m working on, it’s a dream of mine to write a fictional history book detailing the span of a world from beginning to end. Baby steps, Craig. Baby steps.