BB Grey–musings

I grew up in that age when television screens stretched anywhere from a 13-inch “personal” set to a 28-inch family behemoth. In our house, we had one TV—24 inches, rabbit ears on top, wood panel sides, and a dial that clicked its way from channels 2 through 13 on VHF. Channel 3 was just snow, a blizzard of static that held as much mystery as any program.

Then there was UHF—channels 14 through 83. To a four-year-old, it was a strange foreign land: grainy images, ghostly voices in unfamiliar tongues. And then, every now and then, as if delivered by the cartoon gods themselves, out of that fuzz came the miracle—Speed Racer.

This was the show of shows. Racing! Heroes! Villains! A car that could do everything except make you dinner. Sure, the lips never matched the voices—but English was my second language. From the vantage point of a Spanish speaker, maybe it all synced up just fine.

Cartoons were my escape hatch, a window into another world. And the Mach 5? Genius. That dashboard of buttons was a childhood dream made real:

• A – Jumping jacks to leap obstacles
• B – Belt tires for rough terrain
• C – Cutter saws to clear paths
• D – Deflector canopy for bulletproof protection
• E – Underwater mode
• F – Gizmo robot for repairs and recon
• G – Homing pigeon transmitter

I mean, who doesn’t need to press the “G” button every now and then? Am I right?

And the theme song. “Go Speed Racer, Go! Go Speed Racer, Go!” Iconic. A tune that lodged itself in your head forever—probably ranked just under the Star-Spangled Banner and the Hallelujah Chorus for sheer staying power.

Episodes ended in snow again, or some language I couldn’t understand. But I didn’t care. I’d wait all week for the next one, grateful beyond words that this world existed, and that I was allowed—even for twenty minutes at a time—to step inside it.

Flash forward to today, with endless options streaming at the tap of a finger. And yet, that raw feeling—the anticipation, the magic of waiting for Speed Racer to come on—well, that’s hard to find anymore.

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