The Race to Space

....One thing that remains...within the heart & soul of every kid...who grew up in my late 60's era, early on, in our childhood, was the endless fascination with SPACE...We were literally born and raised within the span of when the Apollo Space program was in its hey-dey...It almost seemed like there was a blast-off every six months back then...each mission looming as a more and more important element in unraveling the mysteries of the universe....

...And don't think we weren't bombarded from every angle on the illustrious, magical possibilities---That conquering space was THE greatest acheivement our world could ever acheive...

Yet...as a kid...we couldn't exactly grasp all that...so instead...we were constantly fed a huge dose of silly space related cartoons and tv programs that elevated all our imaginations to new heights that other generations really had not had....

You could certainly start off with THE JETSONS...a harmless, piece-of-fluff, cartoon that followed the charmed life of George Jetson, daughter Judy, Jane-his wife, his boy-Elroy and some crazy dog that was always causing some kind of chaos...It was space age, personified, and all of these wild futuristic devices they incorporated into the show...made it a super big hit with one and all...They had huge TV screens that just plopped down out of nowhere, telephones very reminiscent of our cell phones today...Food that cooked in ovens in seconds...And the cars were like floating space roavers that zoomed throughout its kooky solar system of old-fashoined stores and burger joints that were revved up special to look ultra-modren...supposedly a quick glimpse of the cosmic world that lie ahead for all of us....

Really...almost all of the cartoons back then...would utilize the adventure of space as a way to keep us all glued to the screen, dreaming of the endless possibilites...of what maybe, our destiny, would be, of someday...all of us...finding our way...into the far reaches of space....

Check out an episode of Clutch Cargo, which was about the most absurdly drawn, cartoon, which utilized the bizarre option of big, moving, red lips, to advance the dialogue of a scene while stuck on the same page of frozen cartoon images...(Search Youtube. com....Creepy Cartoon with Human Mouths...)

It's so proposterous to see this fluid transition from Earth to Space...within seconds, with a child named Spinner and a dog named Paddlefoot...along for the rocket rode with Clutch...

And this image was almost repeated in some way, shape and form for every show embracing our nation's passion for space exploration...I guess, we were a unique generation exposed to such a bizzare perspective...that all things space related...held the key to our future...

...And the tv shows also liked to play up this angle too...Who can forget the rabidly popular, I DREAM OF JEANNIE.....Here we had an incredibly gorgeous, knock-out of a girl locked up in a bottle, magically released by an astronaut, who had landed hard in a remote area...From there, the whimsical adventures of Jeannie and her master, Major Tony Nelson were born....to light up our eyes, with hilarious spoofs and stories...We just couldn't get enough of that...

Also, the fascination with space carried over to everyday life for us kids, as several food products had a space connection, that we all just had to get our hands on...TANG-an orange flavored powder mix was plugged as the drink of the astronauts, loaded with Vitamin C, which at the time, nobody heard of....What was Vitamin C...???...Well, we concluded, if those darn astronauts were drinking this stuff...I gotta try this stuff, too....

An even funkier concoction, were, SPACE FOOD STICKS...This was the primative, early form, of what an energy bar, would someday evolve into...It was a chewy, little elongated stick that was about 5 inches wide...and tasted sweet & spongy....when you tried to eat it...Wow, us kids all thought...There's astronauts, circling the Earth, right now...and I'm chewing on the exact same food that give them a tremendous jolt of energy, to keep them focused on their mission....Of course, you'd chomp away, and chomp away, waiting for some boost in energy but it was about as nutritious as a bowl of Captain Crunch cereal....

You can pop up some commercials on TANG and SPACE FOOD STICKS on YOUTUBE.com and find yourself, laughing hysterically, at these totally over-hyped, proposterous food and drink creations that were really just ordinary items that held no magical powers so many of us were led to believe....

Oh yeah, then there was STAR TREK too...that took hold as a cult classic down the road...but at its inception...Star Trek just seemed a little bit too loony...for us to accept...It took awhile to really catch hold of its special brand of sci-fi noteriaty....Captain James T. Kirk & Doctor Spock beckoned us to believe that both aliens and humans could get along and the amazing journeys that they took us all on....built a foundation of what so many future sci-fi classic inventions...would capitalize on...to render us down their paths of exploring the cosmos....

Of course, previous generations can shout out that FLASH GORDON was the original space show that all others are based upon...but most of us...in the late 60's...had no idea that such great innovative short, feature film classics even existed....

I know nowadays...space has lost its luster...As much as the media tries to hype the vitality and importance of what space missions are providing today....The real, day-to-day news, just seems to overwhelm our interests in paying any attention to any kind of space stuff...It is kinda sad...but...it has lost its shock value also because so much of what we use today, from cell phones to I-Pods, have just as much of an innovation factor...that are just common advances we've come to expect to happen...In our time...the great innovations were touted as coming to fruition from our beloved NASA Space Program...

LET US COMMENCE THE COUNTDOWN...!!!

Five....Four....Three.....Two....One.....BLAST-OFF......!!!!!!

Just a quick, short phrase, every one of kids, of long ago, would repeat, with a great amount of heart and enthusiasm....Whether it was when we paused before we were about to run outside to play for the day or driving our parents nuts, engaged in a mega-solar lift-off while orbiting our tasteless, vegatables on a fork when we were ordered to eat them at dinner time...Yeah...we were imaginative kids...all hepped up on the abundance of space stuff that intertwined into our daily rituals...It's probably a good thing that we would grow out of that phase quickly as we did...but it nonetheless...is rooted cosmically, way, way back...deeply into our spacious orb of conscienceness...whether we like it or not...even to this very day...if we care to dwell upon and admit it....Well...at least...I'll climb out of my lunar module and admit it..........Oh well, I'll say it again.......as I fondly bid good-bye....How times....have changed....!!!