Look! It's Trix-Man!

"The following is a demonstration on how to avoid back strain while chasing a Tweety Bird. Plant both feet firmly! Bend at the knees, not at the waist. And make sure the Tweety you're after is NOT a professional wrestler." LUCHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

"Crew 32"? What's going on here? It's like this...you know how every station has it's own local stuff they fit in? Well, this was ours. That guy up there is instructing you on how to build a worm farm.

Channel 32 held a casting call at a local mall before "Crew 32" began and they ended up showing us quite a quota: Rebecca was Caucasian, Kenny was black, Casey was Asian and Abby was purple. They didn't do much other than announce contests, annoy people, and give the microphone to some guy who wanted us to make a worm farm. Of all the hosts, Rebecca was the best, but she was the first to quit. They went through a whole list of kids...the final host was Vonna, who hasn't been seen since 2003, and neither has the "club." Meh...personally, my favorite local host will always be Norm the Fox 49 Kids Club Guy.

The final two ads are self-explanatory. The Rabbit is dressing as Trix-Man, the Fearless Defender of Trix...and then every kid says "Look, it's TRIX-MAN!" before the mask comes off. For this disguise to work, the Rabbit would have to be impersonating an actual Trix-Man. And if there was really a Fearless Defender of Trix, wouldn't he have thrown the Rabbit in jail years ago? I don't know.

The POKERAP! It may be cheesy, but it's a classic, mainly because no one's been able to see it broadcast for years. After a couple years of WB ownership, it was cut to make space for one or two more ads. But back then, there was something called the POKERAP. The Kids WB Pokerap was slightly different, in that they deleted the voice of the announcer who said things like "150 POKEMON, 5 DAYS A WEEK! THAT'S ABOUT 30 OR SO EACH DAY!" and "TUNE IN TOMORROW FOR MORE!" He was probably excised because what he was saying only applied to the syndicated version that season. Instead, on that "Today's Pokemon" screen, they inserted a quip from the Kids WB announcer: "Tune in next week to see Ash, Misty and Brock continue on their quest to become Pokemon Masters! Don't miss 'em--the new ones are ONLY on Kids WB!" A point that would be repeated during the credits...

"NEW NEW NEW!! We've only got the rights to the new episodes right now, but they're NEW!!" Quick glimpses of Butch, Cassidy, and Todd/Snap rushed past. And to seal the deal, this is where they promised kids would "WITNESS THE BIRTH OF AN ALL-NEW POKEMON SPECIES! IF YOU MISS ITS BIRTH, YOU'LL MISS IT ALL!!" Three weeks later Togepi was hatched. I thought that egg was just going to have one of the 151 I'd already heard of, but it didn't...they actually delivered and gave people a new Pokemon on the show.

I consider this point in TV history not only a major change in taste and programming, but the point of an entire generational shift. A few months after this, "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" premiered and became the first superloudmegahit reality show, and THAT changed a lot as well. A few months later than that, we got Bush Jr. From this point on, things were going to be radically different, and the 1990's were over. It's hard to say goodbye, but at least there are tapes.

And at least I have this taping of a weird hybrid moment in history, where decades collided and Batman went "Jiggg-ly-puufffff." "No, the WHOLE THING!!" Good times...