Thursday, October 1, 2009

Who I am and what's my connection to Race Bannon? I'm glad you asked.

I'm living in a virtual world and I am a virtual girl (apologies to Madonna).

Seriously, this blog will be from my perspective as a resident of the virtual world of Second Life. For the most part, I'll just be documenting my experiences and thoughts as I attempt to make sense of the world around me and my own place in that world. I am attempting to make my RL (first life) living there, so I will probably refer to that life from time to time, but for the most part, I want to keep this purely Second Life.

However, I will take a brief detour into RL to explain the title of my blog.

So...Race Bannon?

Yeah...Race Bannon.

I blame him for the fact that I ended up in Second Life. He was the was the sexiest male cartoon character on television when I was growing up. He co-starred, for those who don't know, in the animated tv series, "Jonny Quest" and he made my little girl heart go pit-a-pat.

I mean, come on!
- Tall, handsome, and rugged, but intellectual enough to hang with Dr. Benton Quest, scientist extraordinaire, and secure enough in his masculinity to play nanny to Jonny and Hadji.

- His voice was to die for and his judo-chopping, jet-flying, khaki-clad body, AND movie star gorgeous looks were more than enough to keep me watching every week.

- He had a "mysterious past" and a "mysterious old flame" named Jade, who manages to pop up in a couple of episodes just in time to save his butt, lay a passionate kiss on him, then disappear into the night (for me, the "disappear" part was her best feature).


To a young girl in the 60's, Race Bannon's cartoon status hardly mattered. He was still sexy. Well, as much as I could understand sexy at, oh, how old was I ? Ah, thank goodness for Wikipedia! I was six years old and Race Bannon had rocked my still very new world, 2D or not. I just knew that if I were a cartoon, he would so be my boyfriend. Just like, oh I don't know, Archie - the cute redhead of comic book and Saturday morning animated TV show, fame. He had red hair and he played a guitar in a band. Sigh. Still, I wasn't too serious about him. The fact that he was too dumb to see Betty, not Veronica, was the girl for him kept him from being Mr. Cartoon dream boy.

But what about the Saturday morning comic book hero guys, who might ask? Superman? Batman? Well, the truth is, those guys were not, well, real enough to be cute to me. They were too, um , cartoon-y. Of course that doesn't explain my attraction to Ben Grimm, The Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Thing of Fantastic Four fame...but there's no accounting for taste. Anyway, the only super hero who held my attention was SpiderMan, and that was mainly because he was cool and funny like, you got it, Race Bannon.

So, did I go "in world" to Second Life to find my Race Bannon? Hardly. But I did want to live in that world a cartoon world. Not the world of Bugs Bunny. That would be just weird. I just wanted to be a cartoon cutie-pie. Like Josie and the Pussycats. Like Judy Jetson. Like Archie's should-have-been-girlfriend, Betty. Smart, funny, and cute as a button.

So that's it? Is that all I wanted? Well, no, I don't think that I still have what I want straight in my own head, that was part of it. But I got much more than that in SL and have made a good life for myself. And though I've never met a man who lives up to Race Bannon there, maybe its because I'm not looking. Guys come and go in SL, but the ideal guy for me came along in RL long before Suzy was born.

So that's it! My first blog post. I hope that , in the weeks and months to come, I can keep you interested. I think Suzy's life is pretty interesting.

And, yeah, she's pretty cute too. Race Bannon would definitely take a second look. :)

Peace

3 comments:

  1. Race Bannon's realism was largely due to his designer, Doug Wildey, a former newspaper comic-strip artist, who was primarily responsible for creating "Jonny Quest" at Hanna-Barbera.

    He was a superb draftsman and a first class story editor... and he animated Race and Jade's "passionate kisses" himself, because none of the animators at H-B, who were more used to drawing Fred and Wilma Flintstone, knew how to draw them!

    Years later, Wildey returned to H-B where he designed an animated version of Godzilla, and included with it his own creation, "Jana of the Jungle," which had him in constant hot water with NBC; whose censors felt she was too realistically sexy-looking. (She WAS gorgeous too...the loveliest green eyes...)

    Doug was described as a crusty, hard-bitten type, much like an old-school newspaper editor; tough and cynical, but he fought like a tiger for the artistic integrity of his characters. He died in 1994.

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    1. This is so interesting. And the timing of your post is amazing. I haven't looked at this blog in months, years, even. I just decided to take a peek and I see your comment!
      Thank you for the information. Now I'm going to Google Doug to learn more about his work. I don't remember Jana of the Jungle but I just watched an intro to the show on YouTube. WOW! I wish it had aired where I lived! But her outfit didn't look too revealing. Jane's outfits in the old Tarzan movies were a lot more risque :0

      Thanks for the information!

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  2. Race Bannon was my very first crush. I was so envious of Johnny when he'd be rescued from some dilemma or other and held against Race's bare chest, lol.

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