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Continuing on the theme of the TV Heroes from my childhood
days, here is another funny and memorable incident from the innocent times.
Even before the Six Million Dollar Man days, growing up, my
brother and I were hardy fans of the TV Batman & Robin (starring Adam West &
Burt Ward) series. Yes, it was a campy rendition of the dynamic duo but we were
kids and for some reason, don’t ask why, campy heroes work great for kids.
Anyway, after watching each “batty” episode, my brother and
I would imitate the adventures of our heroes using imaginary villains and our
own sound effects. As children, we were blessed with batman memorabilia of all
sorts. Trading cards, action figures (along with the sleek-looking batmobile).
But the pride possession for my brother and I were two huge inflatable toys of
the dynamic duo. They were life size. At least… they were our size.
I can’t remember exactly how but some pinholes appeared in
the inflatable toys, causing the air to leak out of the toys. Being geniuses
though, my brother and I found another use for the deflated toys. We cut holes
around the eye areas and made long slits along the back of the toy so that we
could slip into the plastic “costume”. Being almost the exact size as the toys,
we had a ready made costume!
My brother and I were in our dynamic duo mode one day, with
our costumes on. By the way, I was Batman and my younger brother was Robin. As
we were “beating up” our imaginary villains with the proverbial pow, kaboom, and
zonks, we could hear Mom coming down the corridor during her house cleaning
round.
My brother and I came up with an ingenious idea. We would
get into the corner of the room and stand like statues and pretend we were the
actual inflatable toys. We froze in the corner and, as expected. our Mom came
into the room. She has no idea that her two boys were actually inside the
modified toys. She went round cleaning the room, humming innocently to some
tune.
Soon, she was standing next to us, dusting off the end
table. Like striking ninjas, my brother and I reached out and touched her on
the arm. We were expecting her to be startled but what we got was a human
jumping bean and I kid you not, she must have jumped 3 foot up in the air!
All hell broke loose in that room that day. Needless to
say, the feather duster that she had been holding for her house-cleaning chores
magically became a makeshift switch with my brother and I as the intended
targets.
This much I can say… It was not easy trying to run away
from an enraged Mom when you were inside a plastic costume…
And it still hurt even if you are in a Superhero costume…
