I swear it was on tv

[on:]

I think this happens to everyone. There's some vague, half-remembered scene from a tv show or movie you saw when you were 4 stuck at the back of your mind and you could never figure out what it was. Nobody else knows what show you're talking about and look at you like you're crazy when you say "no really, I saw it on tv! There were people with no legs living underground and these dancing yellow beavers!" Eventually you figure maybe you just dreamed the whole thing when you were sick with the chicken pox or something.

Then one day I saw this clip on youtube and it all fell into place. Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea! There's nothing more satisfying than solving a 20-year-old mystery.

So how about you guys? If there's something you can't quite remember, maybe the couch potatoes here can help.

[Reply #1 on:]

It was a show on the discovery channel.  They installed an ion-harvester motor inside a mailtruck.  They gave it a crappy paint-job. and took it to a race-way.  they tried to race a corvette.  The first time it broke the key off the axle when they throttled up, then they tried it again and the motor shredded the drive-belt.

I was like "Woah.  All that horsepower just floating around in the air?"

Youtube has provided nothing, but I'm sure I didn't dream it.

oh, and also Pirates of dark water was cool.

[Reply #2 on:]

When I was 3 and living in the UK, I remember seeing some kid's show with a guy dressed entirely in black - he had a cape and a black hat on, he may have had a mustache, I can't remember for sure. But, I remember that he was getting kids to try and walk in the mud or something, and they kept tripping over, and he was laughing at them. It gave me nightmares for months...

[Reply #3 on:]

I vaugely remeber some kids show when I was younger about a department store dummy who came to life when he wore a hat. I believe that there was a mouse of some sort in it as well. For the life of me, though, I can not remember the name of it.

[Reply #4 on:]

Newhook, I remember that show too.  I think it aired on nickalodeon - also, something like an escalator comes to mind.

got it Today's Special

[Reply #5 on:]

I remember there being a war show that was on around the same time as "China Beach," but I can never remember the name of it. Maybe it wasn't even a show?  I liked it much more than China Beach. I think it was on CBS. In one ep, a guy jumps on a grenade and saves a bunch of his friends. Help, war nerds!

[Reply #6 on:]

Genius thread.

Here's the situation: I'm five years old, I'm in kindergarten, and my two favorite things are karate and Star Wars. My favorite TV show is Sidekicks(I have a feeling I would be extremely embarassed if I saw it again today--it's about a little asian kid who knows karate, and fights crime with his american partner/step-dad/cop).

I was young and stupid, and didn't realize that TV shows had set schedules. I just figured they came on at random times, and I would always be flipping through channels when I was at home, hoping that this show was on and that I would find it.

One fateful night, I finally found it...sort of. No asian kid, but it was definitely the white dad from the show. He didn't know karate, but he was still cool because he was dressed up just like Luke frigging Skywalker. And there, in the same room, was Princess Leia. Not the REAL Princess Leia, but close enough. (Even at that age, I knew that TV shows based on movies never had the "real" people from the movies.) And there was even Darth Vader!

Through nosing around at IMDB, it looks like the show I caught was Buck Rogers. Makes sense--scifi show with the lead actor/actress in white jumpsuits. Looks enough like Star Wars to a dumb little kid. But why in the world did I see Darth Vader? I may have been a dumb kid, but I know Darth Vader when I see him. This was him, people! Same mask, same breathing noises, same lights on the chest.

Is anyone familiar with this show? Did they really have a character that was an exact ripoff of Darth Vader? (Or close enough of a ripoff that a stupid five year old kid would confuse it for Darth?)

According to IMDB, the Buck Rogers show came on from 1979-1981--at least five years before I was addicted to Sidekicks. Why would they have been airing both shows at the same time? Did I stumble upon some sort of Star Wars/Buck Rogers crossover/parody thing? One with a high enough budget to get the real actor from Buck Rogers, as well as an authentic Vader costume and sound effects? What in the world did I see?

All I know is that after it was over, I told my mom about it and explained to her that it was my favorite show, even better than Sidekicks. She humored me by telling me "that's great, Jeff". I never saw this show again, although I would still occassionally talk about it to my mom(my mom was the only person nice enough to pretend to care about such things). This is actually the first time I've mentioned this in well over 15 years. Oh, sweet sweet memories...

[Reply #7 on:]

Well, Buck rogers was first a novel and comic strip series which led to radio show in the 1930s, and that's what the buck rogers show is based on.  Also, George Lucas admits that several elmemts of Star Wars was inspired by the Buck Rogers comic strip, so that's why it looks so similar to sTar Wars

[Reply #8 on:]

Yeah, I understand that. I just wish I could figure out who the Darth Vader lookalike was. I swear it looked/sounded exactly like him!

As kids, stupid though we may have been, we're pretty quick to pick up on ripoffs. We all knew that Ghostbusters wasn't as cool as "The Real Ghostbusters". We all knew Muppet Babies wasn't as cool as real Muppets. But this black-costumed, heavy-breathing character on Buck Rogers was close enough to actually fool me into thinking it was Darth Vader.

[Reply #9 on:]

 http://www.buck-rogers.com/

Click on the tv series (the newer one) there are pictures of the main cast members in their tv costumes. 

[Reply #10 on:]

That him? His suit looks a little like Vader's.

[Reply #11 on:]

It was this cartoon for younger kids that used to air on Cartoon Network. I remember watching on saturday's really early in the morning. All of these inanimate object, like spoons and pencils and whatnot, would come to life in this one house while the residents slept. I cannot remember for the life of me what it was called.