“So, you’re a 41-year-old man sitting here watching ‘Star Wars’ cartoons,” my wife said.
I looked around the room to see who she was talking to.
It was a new Disney Channel animated series called “Star Wars Rebels.” Cue theme music. Laser blasters. General awesomeness!
I had waited a long time for this show to come on, and now I had to deal with this peppering.
“This is how you’re going to spend your night?” she asked. It was more astonishment than actual questioning.
Maybe she just wanted me to turn on something more cerebral and sophisticated, like the “Real House Wives of Topeka, Kansas.” Maybe she was trying to understand my fascination.
Either way, trashing “Star Wars” was not cool. The power of the Dark Side was strong in her.
Because this wasn’t just some “cartoon.” Oh no, this was boyhood fascination and childhood wonder run amuck — a nostalgic, mythic roller coaster to a galaxy far, far away.
I note that 6.5 million people around the world watched the premiere of this new “cartoon,” based on the greatest space odyssey ever told.
In the U.S., 2.7 million viewers watched. Of that, 1.3 million were kids aged 2-11 and 918,000 were kids age 6-11. Hmmm … maybe those numbers don’t help my cause. That leaves a total of three adults aged 39-45. Two of them went into a coma midway through the show, nearly drowning in a puddle of their own saliva.
Was I the third adult, sitting alone in my living room while the only child in the house slept in her bed?
Ouch!
No, no, there have to be more of us. I’m sure of it. We adults just DVR it and watch it later, right? When our wives aren’t around to snicker and school yard harass us: “Oh, you just love Princess Leia, don’t you? You want to MARRY her! HAHAHAHA.”
Stomping on the floor and yelling, “Meany,” only makes it worse.
OK, fine, we did want to marry Princess Leia. And we would love nothing more than to take off in an X-wing starfighter and go defend the galaxy. And we shouldn’t have to live in a world of shame for watching a “Star Wars” cartoon … I mean … animated series.
My generation is a “Star Wars” generation — brought up on light sabers and Wookies and a dream that one day we will be dropped into a Death Star trash compactor to solve the mystery of why there was a scavenging alien octopus down there. I mean, you’re the evil Empire. Can’t you get an exterminator!
“Star Wars” was my generation’s answer to the Western, launching grizzled, pistol-wheeling cowboys into space where they conquered the greatest frontier. John Wayne meet Han Solo.
And we’re always striving to get back there. To that movie theater line we stood in as kids, when a magical portal brought us a vision of a future we couldn’t quite believe. And never quite forgot.
This “cartoon” is our portal back to that childhood, now far, far away. And even though Princess Leia isn’t in it, yes, we do still want to marry her!