Studio 360

Growing up a sissy boy in Hoodbridge VA Care Bears had it all for me. The Care Bears catered to my effeminate side being cute cuddly pastel bears. They also catered to my masculine side in that they were bears (later lion, racoon, monkey, dog, pig, etc..) who had super powers not unlike the Green Lantern. They could produce tummy symbol themed items at will from their, well, tummies. When in trouble they'd work together to fight the uncaring with the Care Bear Stare. To this day my favorite toy is my stuffed Good Luck Bear who I later renamed Yogurt. I also really love Mel Brooks movies. So many times in my adult life I feel the need to be like all the other bitchy queens that are around. Then I remember the lessons of the Care Bears. During dull trainings or irrelevant meetings I make up new Care Bears and Care Bear Cousins . Such as Holiday Bear, Aware Bear, Spirit Heart Frog, or Freedom Heart Orca. It's the one pop culture phenomenon that followed me throughout my entire life.

I love Transformers. I even had a crush on Starscream as a kid. However, Jem was the cartoon that spoke to me the most and still helps me today. There was a 2 part episode involving teenage runaways that showed two perspectives: kids who truly need to get away from bad parents and those who misunderstand their parents and need to stick around and work out their differences. There was even a shelter called Haven House that runaways could turn to, for the streets were a hot bed of bad influences. If know someone who has the Jem series, check out "The Music Awards". It was very thoughtfully written for it's time.

Other themes in the show that help me with my career today is competition and understanding the psyche of people you are working with. Jem's enemies the Misfits weren't exactly evil, but rather products of negligent parenting( Pizzaz) and creative marginalization ( Stormer). It's a good lesson that pop will always be reach a larger audience than the artistic efforts of fringe culture, but you'll still be appreciated even though it's on a smaller scale.

As both and fine and commercial artist, this subtext in Jem was invaluable to me. Thank you Christy Marx.

I had a constuction set called Tog'l as a kid and I would spend hours creating things and then more hours playing with the new toy I built. When I grew older, it was kept in a box in the back of my closet, but I couldn't throw it away since I thought it was the greatest. I finally gave it to my nephew thinking that he would enjoy them as much. Unfortnately he was more into video games. Wish I kept them.