The Yo-Yo Show That Made Me Who I Am
Rediscovering and reclaiming a long-lost part of my identity
We’re almost at the end of this year! Following the theme of ridiculous media that last week’s piece about Twilight set, I recently remembered an old TV show I’d forgotten about that came back to mind unbidden. Memory’s weird. Details below.
I’m convinced that at least 55% of my personality comes from the TV shows I watched as a child. With the amount of time I spent watching Spongebob and The Fairly Oddparents, I might as well have let Nickelodeon reach into my head and sculpt my soft boy brain into an orange splat. But now that I’ve had some space to reflect on the role of mass marketed television on my life, I recall another show that affected my brain chemistry, one that I only watched during a single slow summer in Bangalore, India.
It was a Chinese show called Blazing Teens (which, surprisingly, has nothing to do with weed) that aired on the Pogo channel about a group of angsty high schoolers who resolved conflict through yo-yo competitions. And when I say “resolved conflict” I truly mean every conflict: love triangles, personal mockery, disrespecting each other’s yo-yo skills, etc. The meat of the show was classic teenage drama, so young me often hoped my life would end up like these cool teens slinging yo’ in class like it was the Wild Wild West. I’m sure there’s more that my feeble child-brain couldn’t comprehend at the time, but that’s what I remember.
This show popped back into my head recently during a conversation, and I’ve become re-obsessed with it ever since. Before I go on, you should watch the below video from 1:47 to 2:14 to get a taste of what the show’s all about.
(Before you judge, just remember that this is basically Power Rangers with yo-yos, both of which were sensationally popular at certain points in time.)
Honestly, until I looked up this show online again, I thought I’d imagined it completely. I thought it was a recurring dream or a mental glitch that I might’ve experienced during those hot summer vacations in India. After all, nobody else watched that show with me while I was there—my parents were busy, and there was nobody else my age around—so as far as I was concerned, the show was my own.
Time passed, and it decomposed into the soil of my brain. I wonder if it influenced my tastes today. Not in a literal sense—I never really got into yo-yo’s (besides a fleeting romance with Beyblades) or participated in teen drama—but I think this show’s campy, surreal, over-the-top tone might’ve created an itch that I’ve unconsciously tried to scratch later on with Atlanta, Adventure Time, The Eric Andre Show, Lady Dynamite, etc. And of course, it wasn’t all Blazing Teens that planted the seeds of narrative absurdism—I watched other animated shows like Kiki’s Delivery Service and Mirmo during my time(s) in India to create a good, balanced spread of weirdness. The effect on my taste is clear. It’s hard for me to get through Friends or How I Met Your Mother or Schitt’s Creek, and most of my sentiments about The Office echo Rainn Wilson’s.
It’s a chicken-or-egg dilemma, though. Did Blazing Teens cause my preference for surreal media? Or was that preference inbuilt? I don’t know. But what’s maybe most striking to me in retrospect is that I discovered these weird, ridiculous shows alone in India, with nobody to talk to about them. If I had siblings or close extended family or even friendly neighbors my age around when I watched TV, maybe they would’ve joined me in my love for these bizarre melodramatic Asian masterpieces, and I would never have forgotten about this show and we all would’ve learned fancy yo-yo tricks to protect our honor.
But on the other hand, maybe if people were around when I settled on these weird channels, they might’ve been put off and made me change the channel to something more palatable, and I never would’ve grown up to enjoy the insane surrealism that this one brings. You simply never know with these things. And so there’s something sacred about having stumbled across this oddball show during a vulnerable, isolating phase of my life and watching parts of it blossom into grown-up weirdness.
I’m curious if there are any other weird, formative shows out there that you might’ve discovered, reader? Trying to find something else cool/weird to lodge into my brain. And as we end today’s post, check out this actual Wikipedia summary of Blazing Teens seasons 3.5/4.
Other Things Of Note
Speaking of the importance of TV in a child’s life, the hilarious piece “Remember When Buying a TV Was a Big Deal?” from Bits, Banter, and Tricks. (If you like to laugh, you should sign up.)
The story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates.
This very long and detailed article about how millennials have become the burnout generation.
This old article on how incels get plastic surgery to look like “Chads” that I just shockingly discovered.
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—Chuckry Vengadam (@churrthing)
Amazing discoveries! Can’t remember this show, but not surprised Tv has influenced you a lot:)