Gazing at Hot Dog mittens instead of Darth Vader

Star Wars fever is back!

Yes, I'm one of those people. If you were a kid in the 70s like I was, there was no escaping being helplessly drawn in to George Lucas' epic brainwashing tales. And if you did escape their mighty wrath, you probably sucked and didn't have any friends on the playground (or otherwise).

Here's a few examples of how Star Wars touched my life:

• When the first film came out in '77, my parents dropped me off at my Grandma's so they could go see it. I was 4 years old and the only true memory I have from that evening was sitting in her basement looking at my mittens. They were navy blue and had yellow words sewn onto them. The left one said HOT and the right one said DOG. Why on earth such mittens were created is beyond me. One other thing I will touch on in regards to this night: Thanks for not taking me to Star Wars and ruining my life, Mom and Dad. I still haven't forgiven you and never will. It's right up there with Santa never leaving me those KISS dolls under the tree. I've got 25 years of repressed anger in me and am currently talking to the Dr. Phil people about being on his show with you, so keep your schedules open.
• When we got our first VCR in 1980 (I think?) It weighed about 200 pounds, loaded from the top, and had a remote control with a 20 foot cord on it you had to plug into the front of the VCR. Aaah, the wonders of technology. The first thing dad rented was Star Wars and I must have watched it a good three to four hundred times. It was around Christmas time and I had strep throat, so I remember eating a lot of popsicles while watching it and mom getting ready to have the family over. This is probably why I crave ham every time I see robots. I also remember Dr. Doolittle was on TV during one of my Star Wars breaks. I waited to watch the big snail I remembered seeing in my school library's Doolittle picture book, but the movie proved to be too boring to wait it out. Back to Star Wars I went.
  
• Saving Nestles Crunch wrappers and mailing them in for necklaces of Star Wars characters. I pounded enough chocolate to nab an R2-D2, Darth Vader, and C-3PO. I believe this is also when my addiction to chocolate began. These days I'd guess those necklaces go for a small fortune on Ebay. (By the way, Star Wars fanatics: if I put the hyphens in the wrong places in the droids' names and you're dying to say something, get a life).
• My awesome Star Wars belt from KMart. It was blue and gold with the logo. My classmate had the same one and I recall him having a fascination with Wookees.
  
• Getting "Star Wars guys" at KMart. I went through multiple Obi Wans and Darth Vaders because I'd play with them so much in the sandbox that I'd wear them out and then have to beg for new ones. Let me tell you, there's nothing like opening a fresh Darth Vader from the package and then having him kick the ass of your old one that's missing his cape and light saber. Usually Old Vader would meet his demise by New Vader dismembering him and throwing his body parts in my mom's rhubarb plants. Vader was such a badass he didn't even have any remorse for himself.
  
• Ordering an Empire Strikes Back book from the Scholastic Book Club in grade school. All of the girls would order those lame kitten-on-a-branch "Hang in there" posters, but not this fella. I still have that book.
• Going to see Jedi with my Aunt Cookie followed by a trip to Children's Palace to blow money on as many Jedi trading cards as I could afford.

And there are many more. When Lucas started making the new films, the magic was pretty much gone for me. We went and saw Episode I and it was cool. I chose to skip II because I heard it was pretty lame. It kind of takes away from the fantasy of it all with the media these days - the actors are all over the internet, magazines, and TV and are too familiar to me from their other films to let my brain detach enough to get a good ride from the movies. And I know Star Wars has always been about the bombastic special effects, but now in the digital age where everything is done by computers, it's just not as fun for me to watch. Instead of wondering what cool techniques they used to achieve a special effect, now I know it's just some dude with pale blue skin and frizzy hair sitting at a super-powered computer for months on end doing it all with mouseclicks. Screw that - I want to see cardboard cutouts like they had to use in the old movies. Leave the cheese in there, dammit! Digital Yoda just isn't as interesting as analog puppet Yoda. I'm still pissed that the DVD reissues of Episodes IV-VI are the newer digitally altered ones...

After hearing of how dark and spooky it's supposed to be, I reckon I might like to go see Episode III sometime in the very near future. Until then, I will watch the lines of people dressed as Darth Vader, Chewy, and Stormtroopers wrapped around the block waiting to see it. It will always remind me of the classic Triumph the Insult Comic Dog bit where he was at a Star Wars premiere interviewing a fan dressed as Vader. He looked at the panel on his chest and asked something like "Is theese the button you press to call your mom to pick you up?"