S E P T E M B E R 0 4
Nostalgia runs high as Dave remembers DAA television, Top Swaps and Yang Poppen. Mike's Biochemistry professor runs the class like Snape from the Harry Potter series. Dave finishes his fourth quarter at PC, including the 200-pound metal chair project.
Crayon Test Patterns
Like most kids growing up, Andrew and I had our own imaginary TV station. I made construction paper and magic marker TV guides modeled after the ones in the Washington Post, listing columns of several networks and their shows. There were a few okay channels like AJK (Adam, Justin & Kevin, in an attempt to turn our neighbors into primetime competitors), but DAA (David And Andrew) was the major network and had all the good shows like Lego. We would often refer to our TV Guide throughout the course of a day to determine what we could play at what time.
Lego was an unscripted masterpiece, especially when pirate Lego came out. We had huge epic battles that usually ended up with some character falling off the "waterfall" (bunkbed) in slow-motion. My favorite character was the aptly-named and oh-so-politically-correct Wheelchairy, a standard guy with a blue shirt who was missing legs. We eventually found some legs, but the name stuck. Crusade was a captain for the good guys, but the best character was a renegade pirate cook named Mate who fought with a shovel and spoke with an english accent. They even had a pet shark. I remember pretending we were making several Lego movies, including one where the origins of the characters were revealed (a magical explosion at a toy factory). There was also a lot of time-traveling due to our castle, town and space sets; Wheelchairy and the gang would often travel through space and time to help various characters in the extended Lego universe (I think Andrew's favorite character was an archer from the medieval times who left for pirate times). If I had to give credit to one toy for developing and challenging my imagination as a kid, it would unquestionably be Lego.
There were a few other shows I sort of remember. Hawk was about a detective who had a crime-fighting hawk at his side. DAA News was a recap of the day's events, like what we had for breakfast and what our stuffed animals were up to. Sometimes I got a little carried away and pretended that I was on television during school. In the second and third grade, I made construction paper microphones to bring on special occasions like field day or holiday parties. I interviewed my friends, gave updates on my work status and just said general announcements about everything happening around me. My friend Robert helped me put on a puppet show in second grade called What's Cooking?, a hilarious madcap romp featuring a chef and a fish who refused to be fried.
DAA TV faded off the air shortly thereafter, mainly because we never were able to complete a Mickey Mouse movie we were working on. For its four or five years of existence, however, it was always the best thing on.
Wednesday, September 29 at 2:39 PM
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