Cartoons and Superman

Inside Wants Out; John Mayer, guitar, vocal

Whoever invented the concept of Saturday morning cartoons knew my, and my generation’s, prepubescent profile implicitly. You couldn’t drag my age group away from the TV on Saturday mornings. In the days before Saturday morning soccer, ballet, baseball, music lessons and art classes, executives at the major TV networks figured out that a very specific viewing audience had more time than anyone else to watch television before "The Wide, Wide, World of" football, baseball, basketball and golf. And that audience was me and my friends.

I couldn’t get enough Bugs Bunny, Scooby Doo, Yogi Bear, Captain Caveman, Speed Buggy, Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm, The Pink Panther, “Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle” and “Help!...It’s the Hair-Bear Bunch!”. So many other shows were intermingled with all of these classics and I had the whole morning’s schedule memorized. I knew when to change the channel for what show and when I had time to take a shower.

Bugs Bunny was my all-time favorite. I also liked Superfriends and the League of Justice with Superman, Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and those stupid Wonder Twins.

In 1974, a live-action show debuted on the Saturday morning line-up called “Shazam!”. When someone cried for help, young Billy Batson would yell, “Shazam!”, lightning would strike him, and he’d turn into DC Comics’ superhero Captain Marvel. For a long time, I thought it was Captain Marble. But somebody turned me around on that. It was kind of like Superman, but there didn’t seem to be any really cool villains like Lex Luthor or the Penguin.

To this day, I’ve never had the opportunity to watch any episodes from the old “Adventures of Superman” series that ran in the 1950’s. All I knew about Superman was what I saw on Saturday morning. But when I saw a trailer for the 1978 movie “Superman” and was told that I would “believe a man can fly!”, I had to go. And I did. And I was impressed. I didn’t go running around the house afterward, with an “S” plastered onto my chest, and a blue cape behind my neck. No, sir, not with two sisters in the vicinity.

In the movie, they jumped fairly quickly from three-year-old Clark Kent’s ship landing on earth to teenage Clark Kent running home from school. And shortly after that, to his interview at “The Daily Planet” and Metropolis. I always wondered, How do you raise a superhero?

In 2001, when the W.B. station announced a show called “Smallville” that told of the early years of Clark Kent, I thought, Aha! Very clever! Television had once more read my profile and provided for my needs. Good for you, TV. Always looking out for your friend from so long ago. Thank you.

The production team of Smallville, from the beginning, adopted a process where, in addition to musical underscore, each episode would have its own soundtrack, comprising one or more songs by musical bands. Toward the end of the first season of “Smallville”, a song caught my ear on “Obscura”, the second to last episode.

“Welcome to the real world”, she said to me

Condescendingly

"Take a seat

Take your life

Plot it out in black and white"

__________

Well, I never lived the dreams of the prom kings

And the drama queens

I’d like to think the best of me

Is still hiding up my sleeve

__________

They love to tell you

“Stay inside the lines”

But something’s better

On the other side

The soundtrack for that episode had included John Mayer’s song “No Such Thing” from his album “Room For Squares”. And it was like John Mayer was reading my profile.

My talents, and the way that they “operate” the goings-on in my life, don’t conform to orthodoxy. The varying things that I can do actually prevent me from being “pigeon-holed”. Some may think that they have me figured out … pigeon-holed … and then they find out that I can do something else … and something else … and then something else.

I haven’t, yet, at the tender age of forty-four years and eleven months, figured out what my lasting contribution will be to our planet and its human race. Maybe it’s been done. I hope not. I have this glimmering hunch, this hopeful sense, this foggiest, this faintest, this sometimes overwhelming suggestion that … the best of me is still hiding up my sleeve.

I can be impulsive. When I heard this song toward the end of that episode of “Smallville”, I drove straight to Tower Records to find the album that featured it. “Room For Squares” sat on the shelf next to another John Mayer album called “Inside Wants Out”. The latter was the recording he made before garnering a Sony contract. At the time, he didn’t have his own band. There were other instruments included on some of the tracks. But mostly, it was just him and his guitar. And I was utterly knocked out by the quantity and quality of music that emanated from the body and accessory of one guy – just one guy. To me, a bass, a drum, a saxophone … even a piano … would have been a distraction.

John Mayer is a major pop artist now and still writes excellent songs, despite fame and fortune. The last part of his song “No Such Thing” he wrote for himself.

I just can’t wait till my ten year reunion

I’m gonna bust down the double doors

And when I stand on these tables before you

You will know what all this time was for

Credits: To Christopher Reeve, for a complete life, regardless of its brevity. “Noises Off” was good. “Superman” was great.

This is the twenty-second of my final forty-five CD's.