As someone who has been actively enjoying and researching retro stuff for many years, and runs a retro website, it can be hard for me to get that ‘nostalgia hit’ as strong as I used to. Just because a lot of things have become ‘fresh’ to me again, and evoke new, current memories as well as the now slightly dampened nostalgic memories. So those exciting moments when you remember about something from your childhood that you had totally forgotten about, are few and far between now. But when they happen it’s fantastic to feel that feeling that got me into retro in the first place. And I had one this week. A cartoon I had totally forgotten about.
I saw a dragonfly flying outside our window this week and I was suddenly hit by a memory of a cartoon dragonfly who spoke in a funny way and liked rhyming and singing songs. After about 10 seconds googling I realised that I was thinking about the dragonfly character in Crazylegs Crane! I had not thought about that cartoon for over 30 years, but it came back to me in a flash and I was immediately transported back to that time. I tweeted about it and someone reminded me that it was one of the shorts that appeared next to the Pink Panther cartoon.
A little bit of research later and I discovered that the living legend that is Frank Welker did the voice of Crazylegs Jr and also the dragonfly. His dragonfly voice was actually a parody of Andy Kaufman’s voice. I totally remember that now.
I always admired that little fire-breathing dragonfly. He stayed so calm and was so smart, sassy and confident in outwitting the crane every episode.
There were sixteen episodes in all and all of them are up on YouTube, but I’m actually considering grabbing the Blu-Ray (yep it”s been released on Blu-Ray!). Great memories.
I wonder what my next forgotten memory will be and how long I have to wait for it. They are certainly worth the wait when they come.