Misadventures of an Urban Nerd: I'm BB

Saturday Cartoons Part 2

Saturday Cartoons

It is amazing how most days I did not want to get out of bed but on Saturday mornings I was always the first to get up. Why? Because Saturday morning were the most sacred of times for a self-proclaimed black, urban nerd. Saturday mornings meant the beginning of the Saturday morning cartoon line up which I never missed.

My name is Brandon Bailey but my family and friends call me BB for short. You see I'm a small, skinny brown skinned black boy with an irregular Afro, buck teeth, pointy ears and a passion for all things nerd related. I grew up in the inner city in a neighborhood called South Park in Houston, TX. This is what some would refer to as urban sprawl. My Mom and Dad raised us in a small modest home in a neighborhood that saw the flight of most of its white neighbors within two years of our arrival as one of the first black families. I was the oldest of three with two younger sisters, Jill and Jan.

I was short and little for my age but made up for my size with my big mouth and even bigger imagination. It was my ability to sometimes borrow inspiration from my books, comics and cartoons that allowed me to survive the sometimes mean inner city streets. You might say that Saturday morning cartoons provided research for characters that I would mimic to get out of some pretty tough situations.

This Saturday was special like all the rest at least to me. I would wake up real early even before the sun was up and quietly leave my room which was next to my parents room and make my way through the living room and then to the kitchen. Once I got to the kitchen I would flip the lights on so that any bugs or roaches would make their exit. This morning was a good one because no pest were in sight. Houston not only had roaches it had flying cockroaches that were aggressive and would dive at you like a suicide bomber. I poured myself a big bowl of my favorite cereal. It could be anything from Kaboom, Lucky Charms or Captain Crunch. This morning I decided on the Captain Crunch. I got some milk out of the refrigerator and poured it over my cereal and got a big spoon from the silverware drawer.

Each of the three major networks ABC, NBC and CBS had their own line up but I had a specific group of cartoons that I followed so this forced me to jump channels frequently to accommodate my list. Placing my cereal on the television I turned it on careful to quickly adjust the volume so that I would not wake anyone; this was my special quiet time and I enjoyed how peaceful the house seemed this early in the morning. I used the pliers to turn the channel as my sister's Jan and Jill broke the knob arguing over a show one day. I moved the rabbit ears back and forth until the picture became clear and most of the interference and white noise disappeared.

I stretched out in my baby blue pajamas and lay on the canary yellow shag carpeting that covered the floor in front of our television and prepared myself for the Saturday morning line up. First up Super Friends, "Gathered together from the cosmic reaches of the universe here in this great hall of justice are the most powerful forces for good ever assembled." Then the superhero roll call would begin, Superman, Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, Aqua-man and last but not least those thrill seeking shape, shifting siblings, the Wonder Twins. I was always fascinated by the Wonder Twins and their ability to change into something else at will. I guess for a geeky black nerd living in the inner city such a skill was priceless.